Turning on part planes in an assemly

_4271

Perhaps I'm going about this the wrong way, but I'd like to use an existing plane in a part to create a section view within an assembly. Ideally I'd like to turn on a parts plane in assemly studio, so that I can select it to use as a viewing section. Does that make sense? I know it's often not a problem and you can drag and rotate from planar faces. But sometimes a lot of work has gone into creating a plane in an organic shape and it would be great to just pick that plane to section the assembly.

Thanks in advance.

Jason_S

You cannot import planes into assemblies (yet), but If you create a Surface that represents the Plane you would like to take a Section view of, you can import that Surface into the assembly. Then you are free to make the Section plane on that newly imported Surface.



Let me know if you have any questions!

Jason

Jason_S

You cannot import planes into assemblies (yet), but If you create a Surface that represents the Plane you would like to take a Section view of, you can import that Surface into the assembly. Then you are free to make the Section plane on that newly imported Surface.



Let me know if you have any questions!

Jason

stanneedle

Inserting a surface seems to be no longer an option.   I have only revolved parts, and the mates only show planes that are perpendicular to my central axis.  I can't seem to make a section view along the axis.

Isoworks

Well this doesn't seem to work there is no "third choice" in the insert area - parts or sketches. 

Frustrated.

paul_chastell

From that I infer that your document doesn't have any surfaces in it. If you share a link to your document someone may be able to offer more specific advice. Note that the default planes are not surfaces.

For example, here is what I see when I only have parts (no filters):



Here is what I see if I have both solids and surfaces (the filters appear):



And if I go to all surfaces then the filter again disappears. 



And here's an assembly with a surface inserted:

Jake_Rosenfeld

Dropping in here because no one has mentioned how to actually make these surfaces in the Part Studio.

The easiest way to make a surface representing any plane in your part studio is to make a rectangular sketch on the plane in question and then do an "Offset surface" of that sketch rectangle with an Offset value of 0.

https://cad.onshape.com/help/Content/offset_surface.htm

mahir

And if all you have is a plane with no solid/surface geometry to Offset, use that plane to create a dummy sketch that can be imported to the assembly. That sketch can be used to create a section. A surface will work, too, but AFAIK there is no way to directly create a surface on a plane that is simpler than just creating a single sketch. 

mlaflecheCAD

Dropping in on two more options that I like using: 

Mate Connectors come in from the part studios which make snapping parts together really easy.  https://learn.onshape.com/learn/article/advanced-mating-techniques

Also inserting sketches from the part studio is really a useful technique for layout modeling as Mahir mentions .  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rvu9763-2I4