Welcome to the Onshape forum! Ask questions and join in the discussions about everything Onshape.
First time visiting? Here are some places to start:- Looking for a certain topic? Check out the categories filter or use Search (upper right).
- Need support? Ask a question to our Community Support category.
- Please submit support tickets for bugs but you can request improvements in the Product Feedback category.
- Be respectful, on topic and if you see a problem, Flag it.
If you would like to contact our Community Manager personally, feel free to send a private message or an email.
Comments
This CF is mentioned in another video by Greg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oXT2ep5aPY
Thanks again, Greg, for this great, informative "Brownie".
The exceptional ones. And by that I mean the ones working in industries which are the exception, and not the rule. MBD and inspection tables are invaluable to mechanical engineers in most industries where companies have quality management teams and departments that check for consistency within a batch of production or across batches of production. I happen to be in an industry that runs high mix low volume production where I've been responsible for hundreds of thousands of unique parts which all fit within some global tolerance expectations per process but we can't really justify the time taken to label or check datums for any one part unless catastrophic things are afoot on the floor and we need to find where our thousandths went.
I won't personally get a lot of mileage out of MBD in application for my needs but what it IS going to provide is one less barrier for adoption for other companies in industries that surround the weird one I work in where the extra adoption is going to be hugely valuable to me.
Derek Van Allen | Engineering Consultant | Meddler@Derek_Van_Allen_BD Thanks for sharing your environment, reminds me of the small mom and pop shop I once worked in. We relied mostly on general title block tolerances and rarely placed a datum. My last 2 roles, and current, are of products of high precision, and now high production where cost can be effected by proper/improper tolerance and inspection.
I also agree with @kenn_sebesta167 , Onshape has become much more elaborate than a handful of years ago. I'm grateful to have started back then and have been able to grow with each new release. I find it hard to keep up with all of the enhancements each week primarily in areas I don't use day-to-day; CAM/Render Studio, etc. Developers have a lot to consider with Onshape tiers and offerings.
The vibe is very much mom and pop shop, if mom and pop stumbled into a market where they needed to scale up 10x from where they started and adopt practices that scale the original business model, but "industry standard" practices were never designed to handle the deliverables we produce. So a substantial portion of the job requires being ahead of the rest of the world for some of your practices if you want to get any bigger.
Or at least that's how I approach it.
Derek Van Allen | Engineering Consultant | Meddler@GregBrown great video! Can I change between max material, nominal & least material and will the geometry update?
This will change how we design and manufacture. As a motorcycle enthusiast, with new design approaches like this , maybe KTM wouldn't have soft cams, Triumph 400's wearing out in 500 miles and Kawasaki over torquing countershaft journal bearings. I've never seen so many "do not ride" notifications before.
This is what I've been wondering is whether we can now do assembly analysis by running parts through their ranges and simulate how builds might break if things are at the maximum extents of their specified tolerances.
Derek Van Allen | Engineering Consultant | MeddlerMBD isn't working as shown in the demos for me. There is no tolerance icon to click on or expand.
Followed the example from Onshape on YouTube step by step. What's wrong?
Was also confused by that for a bit…
The dimension has be from line to line rather than just the length of the side of the rectangle.
That was it! Thank you.
It works for a new part, but old parts can't be used. No way am I going to redimension everything now.
Also still can't get it to create a Datum.
@AuroraRon see my answer here:
Improvements to Onshape - February 20, 2026 — Onshape
Most! Based on what I see, few engineers in the US get involved in manufacturing. Our engineers go into all kinds of domains which don't involve manufacture, such as robotics, mechatronics, firmware, testing, FAE, operations research, material science, etc… I don't have an exact number, but it's definitely the minority I see get hired into a job which has them working with component manufacture.
We teach all our engineers— no matter the discipline— the concept of tolerances, but only our MEs are going to go deeper and learn how to use them for manufacture. GD&T is a sophisticated language and like all highly technical domains most people are outsiders and thus don't need it. As such, OnShape's GD&T will certainly seem like visual noise to many engineers, including a large number of MEs. That's probably okay, since they're not the ones who will pay to keep the servers running.
Some people will not be design engineers but instead be analysts of different sorts or end up being project managers. I still think they need to know a bit about tolerances and manufacturing but they do not need to know how to use the software tools to apply them on a drawing.
That said, I don't think having a lot of features is a problem and I do not think Onshape should start hiding stuff just to make a "cleaner" user interface. There's plenty of things in every software package that are irrelevant to me, so I just ignore it. I have no idea how to use the render studio, CAM studio or PCB studio, because it is simply irrelevant to me and I have also not looked twice at the revision management in Onshape or a lot of other things, because we simply do not use it and have our own system instead.
I'm happy that Onshape is becoming more sophisticated and powerful with each update.
The biggest barrier to MBD's success historically has been adoption so putting it out in the middle of the interface was a smart choice to get people familiar with it. The presence up front will have curious people poking at it and playing around with it which will make it more likely to end up in people's practices.
^This is essentially how I learn everything.
Derek Van Allen | Engineering Consultant | Meddler@PeteYodis how will you handle drafted sidewalls with MBD? In plastic part design (or any other manufacturing method that requires drafted faces) there are many inspectable faces that are not parallel faces (Features of Size?). These can be measured by metrologists (calipers, optical comparators, CMM) by measuring the largest point (often at the parting line of the tooling parts).
Currently for a drafted extrusion, MBD works on the sketch, works on the "begotten" extruded faces, but then disappears if draft is added.
In this case, the ability to add MBD to edges will be very useful!
I LOVE the fact that MBD allows us to think about tolerances earlier in the process.
@romeograham Yes, right now we are suited to parts without draft. Parts with draft will need another set of abilities.
Had a quick play with the MBD. Very cool. So now we can have isometric dimensions on models but not drawings!
On small thing. I noticed that when selecting a cylinder or hole the option for holes and fits tolerences is available, but not on rectangular objects , where it is less common, but sometimes useful for things sliding in slots.
Absolutely a must! I know you guys are working on it, but I want it now!
Ramon Yip | glassboard.com