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Basic Sketch Tools Required
scott_degelman
Member Posts: 5 ✭
I have sent this up the ladder but I am posting this just in case. First I really am starting to like OS but saying that it needs some work in the Sketch Department. I wish it had as an Icon on the interface: copy, rotate, pan, group, array, move, scale, stretch, ungroup, erase, zoom. Ellipse would be nice too. I could have missed a few others but those are the basic tools we use in our SKETCH toolbox. Perhaps the user can simply click the icon/tools her or she wants to keep the UI clean. Just a thought.
Two more items: Can construction lines be infinite? Lastly, I am looking forward to being able to upload SW assembly files without having to go through some sort of conversion.
Two more items: Can construction lines be infinite? Lastly, I am looking forward to being able to upload SW assembly files without having to go through some sort of conversion.
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Comments
While we are on sketching I find I always look at the start of the tool bar for the dimension tool.
Twitter: @onshapetricks & @babart1977
I would like to be able to insert a sketch into a sketch using a mate connector. I think there's a lot of power in this approach. SW has blocks, I use them a lot, but come on, acad stuff. I'm not sure I want blocks and would rather have a 3d sketch element that can be added to another 3d sketch. We don't even have a 3d sketch yet but we should start thinking of the future. Maybe just a 2d sketch in a 2d sketch for now.
Yes, to move/copy sketch entities and patterns too. I use them all.
@Pete Yodis
I don't think D-cubed has 3D sketch constraints yet (I could be wrong?) At SolidWorks we need to use an alternate constraint solver and that is why you saw inconsistencies between 2D and 3D sketch. Also, with another degree of freedom, comes more occurrence to over constrain and I alway get the sense of this when using 3Dsketch in SW that it is just plain harder to solve in 3D.
Mark
and don't get me wrong, I'd love to have 3D sketch entities. They will be in OS eventually, I hope, when we get to more advanced shape modeling - curves are 3D sketches...
I've noticed every OS application engineer doing this with sketches, but none of the OS developers are picking up on this. I really think this could be the direction for the next generation CAD. If you look at what Lou does in his sketches with all the parallel & perpendicular constraints and then the overall effect, wow!, that's what I want. I don't want to have to make all those constraints though, that's way too much work.
Not everything rotates in a plane and therefore we need 3d sketches to help build everyday 3d vector layouts. With mate connectors tying sketches together to a true 3d vector layouts, I think everything in euclidean space can be modeled.
I've created a baby stroller using a SW 3d sketch (the collapsing part). I first got the 3d sketch working and then mated the components to 3d sketch. It was really easy to follow and to understand. I think the next engineer that had to work on the model would have appreciated how it was put together. Compare that to the snow mobile front end. That assembly is a nightmare to understand and figure out how it works. Opening all the mate folders trying to understand how it was put together is difficult and not fun.
It's a drag opening someone's assembly and trying to figure out how it was put together.
If SW had all their assemblies tied to vector representations so that you could open a sketch that would show vectors vs. mates, this would be awesome. I think people would gravitate towards this approach.
Before SW, you had to memorize the feature tree by clicking through each feature over and over again. This was painful. I see this vector layout approach as revolutionary as the feature manager tree exposing feature order in a model. Why can't we do the same thing for assemblies?
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I think we still need assemblies for large scale projects and some kind of grouping capability. There is also a need for all those who want to import their SW assemblies into OS. But once people started using sketch on sketch they wouldn't want assemblies. Large projects would be easier to navigate and understand.
As a contractor you get handed a lot of crap and anything that can be done to clean it up would be nice.
Opening someone's large assembly can be a joyful experience, today it isn't.
yeah, let's do it, where's the API?
I think you are bang on here. I cannot over estimate the importance of a great sketch tool. For a good read on the subject Sketching Product design Presentation, or Sketching drawing techniques for product designers both by Koos Eisen & Roselien Steur or Product Design, Paul Rodgers and Alex Milton.
Simply put sketches are critical. Sketches are the foundation to any and every design we work on. I was really hoping that a new design tool (perhaps and advanced version of Autodesk's Sketchbook Pro) would be the primary focus of OS, to develop a "design" focused software product to the market. Now if you have one tool that allows us to move forward quickly into the 3D world, then that is THE tool. The entire idea of a part/assembly way of thinking is really counterintuitive for any industrial designer. If you were to actually study some of the development workflows of the most prestigious product design (industrial design) studios in the world such as Apple you will clearly find the importance of a sketch. Ideally you want to be able to go from hand sketches, to simplified and vectorized sketches to qualify your designs to the 3D models. In our case we will then begin our FEA and engineering analysis and then go to our production drawings. I regret I do not have first hand knowledge of this but SW Mechanical Conceptual looks like it is on track - the idea of it anyways and I apologize in advance to OnShape. Removing the noise and clutter of the 3D model at the development stage is critical. Sketches should really be at a tab level as a way to ideate, test and evaluate ideas within the design team. Some of the pre-production users have already used these tabs to put up their hand sketches - this is the way designers think (a great OS feature btw). With the ability to expand your sketch into a 3D world would be very powerful indeed. Then having that ability to tie those lines to a 3D part would be golden. Not every project would require this, but I can think of several products we have designed where this would be useful, especially with complex linkages. For now I really can't move forward without the very basic sketch tools; this is our typical product design work flow.
my two cents
I just pulled out a wad of print's out of an access ladder walkway I done a few years ago, this has example of hand sketche over model's, in future I would save them to a tab in Onshape as a pdf. An easy to use "Oshape conceptual 3d sketcher" would work well for this kind of work but would not want to get caught up with adding and delete constraints as the design process would be smoothed.
This is a mark up I done yesterday using SW a screen shoot and gimp, had show a customer why what he was requesting just will not work. This is another method I use to get a quick message across, quicker than printing and making up and no mess around using an official drawing.
Twitter: @onshapetricks & @babart1977
I have tried using Sketchbook Pro but gave up, maybe I did not persist for long enough or maybe there is hardware that you can use to get a better result, mice don't seem to cut it and I am not an industrial designer. We had some work recently farmed out to an industrial design consultancy and I was told they had some kind of sketch tool for drawing over our skeletal models, they comae up with some nice conceptual illustrations, I think they were just using illustrator. Is this something we want to be doing is Onshape?
Twitter: @onshapetricks & @babart1977
As far as free form sketching I too print out drawings and sketch on them generally printed to scale to layout cable harnesses to figure out if I have enough clearance and to setup cable clamp tie down locations etc. Luckily I build small things so works for me maybe not an option for folks making large stuff. I have also tried various drawing sketching programs and even purchased a Cintiq Companion to see if that might get me the feel of using a pencil to draw quick sketches. As a sketching tool worked really good trying to run my current CAD package crashed and burned. Going to dust it off and give it a whirl with Onshape think it will be a really good solution.
I would like to see both forms of sketch tools. Do not think they need to be over the top solution just something simple to allow a basic foundation for a design or do a quick concept.
@bruce you're freak'n awesome, why don't you come work for me.
I really want to bring back the concept of an engineering layout, then we do all the other stuff.
I remember when Pro/E first hit the market. It wasn't hard to sell against because you could stand in front of room full of engineers and tell them they were going to have to design their parts and then stick them into a assembly. Back then, the room would roar with laughter and many would shout their disgust about such a concept. I don't think that would happen today.
I work with many college graduates who tell me their ideas about a design. I ask them to lay it out and they always respond by asking me if I want them make a solidworks assembly. I'm going stop here. This is a really long story with an un-happy ending.
Hey Bruce that cracks me up. I didn't know you make seeders in the land of OZ; we definitely speak the same language. When I looked at your sketches over your prints I had to laugh at how regarding your work flow - that is pretty much the same way we operate. We have literally rooms full of binders projects with this same approach. Personally I use a Wacom tablet as it is really fast, feels like a pencil and I can save out all my iterations. You can sketch of course over any photograph or CAD screen grab - really nice for throwing ideas down. I don't recommend a mouse as this is counter intuitive - try signing your name with a mouse.
When I look at your seeder for example, we will start with a basic concept hand sketche and then quickly try to verify this in a Solidworks sketch or ACAD sketch. You can lay everything out in 2D and check linkages and where your frame starts and stops for example. We might save out a dozen or so 2D sketches, brain storm this, tweak a bit hear or there and go from there. To move things forward quickly, we will build super rough 3D models in SW - the tubing for example will be a solid mass and not hollowed out or filleted and the tires will be simple tinker toy cylinders. If we add too much detail at this point, we are slowing the entire process down. At this point we do not want to lock the design down. We will again brain storm the 3D ideas and verify collisions as we move the hydraulic cylinders and various assemblies through their motions. After this phase we will start from scratch and begin the actual CAD assemblies, parts, BOM etc to build prototypes, production drawings, assets for manuals, marketing materials etc.
Bill maybe I a misread your comment: "I remember when Pro/E first hit the market. It wasn't hard to sell against because you could stand in front of room full of engineers and tell them they were going to have to design their parts and then stick them into a assembly. Back then, the room would roar with laughter and many would shout their disgust about such a concept. I don't think that would happen today."
I completely disagree as mentioned before, designing parts and then sticking them into an assembly is completely counter intuitive. As designers, we have been forced to use this work flow because that is how the software worked and still works. In ACAD, although barbaric in some regards still offers a fast way of laying down the various 2D ideas. For example, I can design a frame with all of the key ingredients then I can copy the entire 2D sketch and work on a new frame design on the same page. In fact I can work on a dozen different designs very quickly without slowing down my computer - again all on the same page. This is a nice way of flushing out a design. You can see the entire design at once and only put in the details that you need.
All I am really after at this point is a REALLY good 2D sketch tool. As I mentioned, it is super important to be able to copy, paste, group, rotate - you know -the basics. I'm not seeing that and to me this is not just a bonus, it is essential. To me it would be nice to see these sketches not only as part of the history tree but as a separate sketch tab. As mentioned some of the preproduction users are already demonstrating this work flow - some tabs contain PDF's, hand sketches and photographs. (We will use ONENOTE to keep our minds straight especially if it is complex project) Anyways, a designer may end up with multiple tab sketches. Now if you can open your sketch tab and begin your 3D work that would be great. I am not sure if any of you have tried IronCad, quirky program but they did have a very nice way of just dropping parts in from a catalog.
Ok I'm starting to ramble but this a pretty passionate subject as I have been searching for the ultimate tool in the toolbox for years. I just hope my input has helped.
I think we're saying the same thing? That a design should begin with a layout of the components which can be 2D or 3D. Or do you think you should design a bunch of components and stick them into an assembly and hope it works?
I'm interested to see how you begin your designs.
I went to OneNote and it wants to download an app onto my MAC. It looks interesting, is it windows native app, or cloud app. Do you know why it wants me to install something?
We begin our designs largely using OneNote. This is a bit proprietary but essentially try to find weaknesses with current state technologies; we will investigate ALL competitors; do our due diligence on patents. From there we will spend a great deal of time in the field working with customers. I try to work directly with operators and anything mentioned from a salesman will be ignored. They can send you down a rabbit hole pretty fast. All of this will go in a a ONeNote folder.
From there as I mentioned we will start a design with hand sketches with pencil and paper and/or Sketchbook Pro. From there we move forward with ACAD LT and/or SW sketches and then the cumbersome SW 3D process. It is really unfortunate to eventually design something in 3D and then start all over when we start getting serious with the production drawings, naming conventions etc.
Anyways, sorry for the misunderstanding
We are on the same page, and you say it so well.
Wouldn't it be nice to layout it out and build in one system?
I too am looking for that perfect note taking tool. But I want mine to be
cloud based.
I did use use Onenote but switched to Evernote, this was 4 years ago when cloud was just starting and Evernote was more portable and cheaper. I had a discussion with @louGallo about having these style of program's or cloud storage like dropdox added as a link in a tab rather than using Onshape tabs to store info, I think a ticket was added for this. I think that it make sense to use other cloud software for idea collection as the Onshape tabs start to become overwhelming. see https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/259/uploading-files-and-file-formats#latest
I get what your saying about ACAD, I don't personally use it much but we still have guy's in our office who do their development layouts on AutoCad then switch to SW after a design direction has been chosen. The initial layout of the seeder above was done on AutoCad, I should have posted some of these pic as well.
I am also interested in your thoughts on Parts Manuals and the best work flow here?
Twitter: @onshapetricks & @babart1977
1) OneNote for getting thoughts, pics, links down, no saving
2) Sketchbook Pro for formalizing hand sketches
3) ACAD(ish) or good 2D sketch tools as tabs or on-screen drag and drop catalog is even better
4) Working Model 2D for the engineering what ifs and getting vectors (not necessary but nice)
4) IronCad(ish) 3D manipulation of parts (copy, rotate, manipulation, etc pretty damn nice)
6) Sketchup push/pull and snap to faces (great little program but pretty light weight)
5) IronCad(ish) onscreen catalog of parts (best out there)
6) Cosmos built in FEA (easiest FEA on market)
7) SolidWorks for the production drawings, dxf for laser guys etc, and all the other ugly stuff
8) Built in Keyshot for renderings
9) Lastly we really need to be able to read our legacy SW assy files (sorry Lou)
Interesting Bruce and thanks for the accolades. We've worked on hundreds of projects but I respect your opinion from someone that makes seeders. We made one in the late 70's with a Prasco tank and that was nothing compared to what you are doing. We are surrounded by companies here that make seeding tools.
Regarding graphics, I have two separate graphic designers in-house; one for manuals and the other for our marketing materials. For operators, parts, maintenance, assembly manuals, we simple use our SW line drawings and everything else is done by hand with illustrator, photoshop and Indesign. Everything has a part number including the manual revision. I will outsource the multi language translations. If you look at our website (http://www.degelman.com/index.php ), we have buckets of manuals and it is quite a task keeping everything current. We've experimented with other programs that automatically put your part numbers in place and all but, due to the high amount of verbage we simply manually do this with the Adobe programs. It's kind of funny but the best manual in the world is a Lego manual. I actually printed these off and sued them as examples for our graphic design department. I wish ours was that simple.
On the advertising side, we again use our SW files and use Keyshot for the rendering aspect and then of course all of the traditional Adobe tools. We outsource the coding but do the layouts largely in illustrator. Again this is where the Wacom's shine; simple sketches and then the layout.