How do you create a sphere?

Reuben_Abraham

I have figured out a way, but I'm quite sure there's a much simpler way to do it...
Please include any videos or gifs if possible, thanks.

bradley_sauln

You can create a sphere in 2 steps. Create a sketch and draw an arc or circle and then use the revolve tool. 
Here's an example: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/f46a38416ac2855162ef7bed/w/ee19045eebb62fb7898e525d/e/9060850a21912e090e6916e9

bradley_sauln

You can create a sphere in 2 steps. Create a sketch and draw an arc or circle and then use the revolve tool. 
Here's an example: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/f46a38416ac2855162ef7bed/w/ee19045eebb62fb7898e525d/e/9060850a21912e090e6916e9

Reuben_Abraham

oh, yes that is way simpler. My old method was to create a semicircle, create a new plane perpendicular to it and then draw a circle, and THEN revolve. thanks for the help!

christian_berrigan

I created a 1.5" diameter solid cylinder, 1.5" long.  Then selected both edges and used the filet tool and set the radius to the maximum allowable value of 0.75 in.  It sure looks like a sphere, and was super simple.  All dimensions in the generated drawing indicate a 1.5" diameter sphere.

davin_song

bradley_sauln said:

You can create a sphere in 2 steps. Create a sketch and draw an arc or circle and then use the revolve tool. 
Here's an example: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/f46a38416ac2855162ef7bed/w/ee19045eebb62fb7898e525d/e/9060850a21912e090e6916e9

Liar. You CAN'T REVOLVE THE EDGE.

wayne_sauder

@davin_song
You can revolve an edge as a surface. You can also create an enclosed sketch and revolve as a solid. 

wayne_sauder

@davin_song
You would have to split the circle in half to revolve the edge as a surface. 

steve_shubin

wayne_sauder said:

@davin_song
You can revolve an edge as a surface.

As Wayne says

Here are 2 GIF’s

neil_brennan

This really is why Onshape is behind the the 8-ball from the start. Even basic shapes are crazy hard to create for a beginner, with no real thought seemingly ever having been put into ease of uptake. Doing the simplest things takes hours of endless tutorials and youtube videos. And yes, I know everyone has their "one weird trick" that makes it easy to do a particular thing, but honestly would it be *that* hard to add some basic primitives? Even making a sphere means 90% of users fall into the self-intersecting shape rabbit hole, and that's their first experience of Onshape.

martin_kopplow

I've already successfully talked another dev team into this.

So, lets's try agian ;0) :

• A spere can be defined by a center point and a radius. Easy.
• A cylinder can be defined by a line and a radius. Easy.

Why not allow the thicken tool to work on curves and points?

• Create a sphere by thickening a point.
• Create a cylinder by thickening a line.
• Create a bent rod thing by thickening a curve.
• Create a bent rod thing with straight areas and rounded ends by thickening a chain of point, line, curve, point.
  

That would be very easy and also fast to edit after the fact.

Sample: One sketch - select all - one thicken feature.

nick_papageorge_dayjob

I've been using CAD at my dayjob since the mid 90's. I don't think I ever made a sphere for anything work related. At home for hobby I did a few times to model billiard balls. I don't see the big deal with making a sphere using a revolve. Once you know how to do it, it just takes a few seconds, and you'll never forget how to do it.

Matias_Johnson

Yeah, I get it, you have to draw a half circle, then a line under it to revolve around. Thanks!

rosa_baeburg

Yeah, I'm trying to be kind with myself, but really using this tool to try to draw a half circle is like exposure therapy for learning an alien language. Hopefully they'll just bite off my egg and use my body for their hatch larvae and that would be an easier ordeal than trying to make a sphere or draw a half circle in Onshape. I got A's in calculus III, but that is not an indicator that I understand how sphere's or especially half circles are constructed in this program. And it's not just me, my friend, with 10 years experience doing injection mold design with NX, Solidworks, Catia, etc. was similarly mystified. I don't know what kind of design flow you're trying to enforce here, because I'm sure it's possible to make a DSBGA chip in 5 minutes (that's what my friend did in Solidworks, which she calls ToyCAD), but I'm looking at the last 30 minutes just trying to make a half circle. yesterday it was an hour, and a cool off walk just to make a linear array, because my sketch is 1mm x 0.8 mm in scale and the default setting for linear patterns autofills at 25mm, so there were sketch artifacts way off screen in two axes causing errors. I've never left a negative review on git.com because even Linus makes me cry, in the end I know he's brilliant, like Gandalf, but the way the design flow is constrained in Onshape makes me feel like I'm on a goblin torture rack, being water dripped. Dude, c'mon, I know there's an elegant vision by some CADmeister behind this software, but it just cannot be this hard to define a sphere. It should be Create > Sphere > and then drop the shape on the screen and then a right click shows you location {x,y,z} and diameter {d} or radius {r}. I just do not understand why everything is that hard, and yes I'm not smart enough to use your software obviously.

rick_randall

@rosa_baeburg - Your story reminds me of the trouble I had converting from 2d cad to 3d parametric cad. Everything seemed backward - and I struggled at first. Once you realize the programs work very differently (and there are reasons why they are different), you begin to understand why, It is a whole new thought process, It takes a tiny bit longer up front to sketch, but the payoff is how easy you can edit things later on (this is a real pain in 2d cad). Trust the process, some very clever people have dreamed this up, and it works great as long as you are willing to learn something new. Take the time to use the free self-paced learning courses in the learning center. And contrary to the internet, you are not going to learn this in 1 hour - it's a long term commitment, and is constantly evolving. Stay with it, and I'm sure that you will have that moment when the light-bulb goes off, and it all makes sense. Good luck

derek_hendrock689

This thread was started in 2016 but I'm here to chime in with a 2025 answer, I use this featurescript collection of primitives for the times it's relevant in my workflows. I haven't yet developed any featurescripts referencing it but I imagine there are cases where each of these object primitives might be quicker to solve particular problems without having to get into doing the multi step process to make a sphere or cone.
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/a81f647d405a78c5b70bdbde/v/ba543ec74eb5890fd48c41c6/e/bec98f91580bad4c70005038