Solidworks Assembly import - Organising parts

dip_designs

Hi guys,

Just experimenting with SolidWorks import. Although assembly import is fine I’m finding OnShape simply dumps the parts into one Parts Studio - with each part being stacked one on top of another.

Even with 10 parts it gets very messy to keep hiding and un-hiding parts to edit individual parts. (unless I’m using OnShape wrong!)

Is there away to transfer these parts into their own separate Parts Studio tab? Currently I can duplicate the parts studio and apply a delete feature but that is just as messy and tedious.

(I have a little OCD  )

SW > Parasolid > Onshape is getting slightly better results than Pack and Go for me at the moment but Parts are still being dumped into one Tab!

Thanks,

Dave

ethan

You should be able to hit the Flatten option and prevent this! I would also give this a quick read! 

https://cad.onshape.com/help/#uploadfiles.htm%3FTocPath%3DImporting%2520%2526%2520Exporting%2520Files%7C_____1

Aaron_Hoover

I'm facing the same issue. I made sure the Pack and Go .zip was "flattened" (ie. no subdirectories), but I'm seeing the same behavior. I have 29 parts in my assembly, and having them all stacked up at the origin is definitely a pain. In particular, I'm working on a model and documentation I'd like to share publicly, and I think folks might be put off by a single Parts Studio tab with a jumble of 29 parts (some of which needed a couple of additional operations in Onshape to modify their geometry). 

Any other thoughts on how to address this?

Thanks,
Aaron

brucebartlett

I have also found the same problems with the large chunk of an unorganised part studio when importing from other CAD systems. When working from scratch with an Onshape part studio you tend to model parts in position and this really suits the Onshape workflow and assembly creation, however I'd also love my imported docs to work and look the same as a native part studio, the flatten option doesn't work well for me as I generally want to also maintain the assembly structures.

I have tried to achieve better structure by importing as a total assembly exporting specific assemblies then re-importing to get a broken down or flattened part studio. This kinda works but you have to know your structure and plan it so you don't have to do much re-assembly, have double ups or missing of multiple instances. I'd only do this if the original CAD data was completely redundant and I planned to move across to Onshape and see valve in spending time on the structure.

Ideally, I'd love to be able to import an assembly and have all the parts come into the part studio in the position of the original assembly, with some options to chose the most appropriate instance. 

Some project I have had to work with others on a different MCAD systems and reimport their files to Onshape after they have updated to a new version. This can be a pain as all links are lost. I really hoping that soon we will be able to update an imported part from another system and maintain mates, meta-data and any other links.