Re: workng with multiple parts and the derive feature

michael_scheiner

I'm new to Onshape.... I have a model imported from SolidWorks that an intern made for me. It has 687 parts that I'm trying to bring into various lower level part studios and then, from there eventually pull together into an assembly. I think I'm following the correct procedure but the resulting performance is slow to the point of being almost unusable. When I go to an empty part studio and use the derive feature no image is available to help with the selection process—all I can see is a list of numbers (that's how my parts came in after import) so I'm not able to identify the parts I want to derive. If I start in the part studio (the one I want to derive the parts from) and select many parts to work with at the same time Onshape becomes exceedingly glitchy to the point of crashing. I did that to quickly hide the parts I am not working with so I could identify the parts I need in a lower level part studio and write them down but unfortunately this turned out not to work well. Even if it had worked it seems an awkward and unacceptable workaround. Finally I was able to produce a list of part numbers that I needed.  When I used the derive feature in a new part studio and input these numbers form my list Onshape is working at an extremely slow speed. Any more than 10 parts at a time and I get a message that Onshape simply cannot complete the task. Anyone have any suggestions on how I can work with a large number of parts at once or why the program is having such a hard time?  

brucebartlett

Might be better to start by using Assembly's to group parts together and get the doc into a more manageable state. However you might find the list in the assembly takes a while to generate as well, seems to take a bit at first must be saving out the images in the backgroud but once a doc has been active for a while they seem to get quicker.

To get the assembly back to a part studio you can export as a para-solid and then re import and flatten to a part studio. I find this has less baggage than using the derive function, once in a neater structure you can build upon the old parts within the new studio's.

philip_thomas

Michael - here is a workflow that documents what i think you're looking for.
Specifically, if there is already an assembly structure in the SolidWorks data, you will probably want to preserve that (especially if there are moving parts in the final assembly). The parasolid file format is by far the best way to transfer data into Onshape. Using the workflow below i can bring in many-hundred part assemblies and re-create them (motion) fairly quickly in Onshape.

Good luck!

https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/comment/12891#Comment_12891