Transform Tool - rotation axis other than entity?

pstary

I import a screw from McMaster-Carr into the Parts Studio and would like to rotate the part.

So I...

• Select the Transform tool
• Choose the Part for the Entity
• Choose Rotate as the transform type
• Choose the axis for the rotation using a part entity
• Enter the rotation angle desired

I want to rotate the part about the Z axis.

             

But there is no appropriate entity aligned along the Z-axis on the part itself.

Fortunately, in this case of a socket heads cap screw, one of the hex socket entities is true vertical, giving me the option to choose this as my "Z" axis. But if the part imported with that entity slightly rotated, this would not work.

          

It appears that the system X, Y and Z axes are not available to use. Isn't it logical to offer the option to rotate about one of these axes? Is there anyone other than me that thinks it would be a good idea to add this option to the Transform tool? Other OnShape tools offer this.

Here is the Transform tool as it is:

          

The revised Transform "Rotate" tool might look this... offering the current option to rotate on entity as default, with a drop-down menu to chose the X, Y or Z axis.

          

Perhaps I am missing something. Is there some other mechanism for choosing an axis other than an entity of the part?

If not, do you agree this would be a nice addition?

Thanks.

TimRice

Great idea for an improvement! As a work around, you could create sketches on the front/right planes and manually create axis at the origin.

philip_thomas

The best way to do this today is 'Transform by Mate Connector' - this is the all powerful option recently added.

1) Import part
2) Drop Mate connector on the origin
3) Drop mate connector on the head of the bolt
4) Transform (part & mate connector) from MC to MC

This is a very powerful workflow as it works for everything and allow you to go back and edit the angle as well as any offset needed (by editing one or other of the mate connectors)

The obvious improvement here is to allow the generation of mate connectors on the fly.

I use this workflow every day.

TimRice

Great idea for an improvement! As a work around, you could create sketches on the front/right planes and manually create axis at the origin.

philip_thomas

The best way to do this today is 'Transform by Mate Connector' - this is the all powerful option recently added.

1) Import part
2) Drop Mate connector on the origin
3) Drop mate connector on the head of the bolt
4) Transform (part & mate connector) from MC to MC

This is a very powerful workflow as it works for everything and allow you to go back and edit the angle as well as any offset needed (by editing one or other of the mate connectors)

The obvious improvement here is to allow the generation of mate connectors on the fly.

I use this workflow every day.

Lee_Hesketh

@pstary Going off what @timrice said, I have written a FeatureScript that does what he suggested automatically. You can either create it at the origin, a selected point or a custom point by entering in coordinates. Here is the document:
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/588e53983309240fdb42b079/w/959134864e71ca1631931cf5/e/ad053221e1dee6e56abf21e7

Marc_Miller

@pstary, yes!  I just put in an improvement request for this 6 days ago ( @lougallo ).  I would definatelly like to be able to just type X, Y, or Z in the axis box without needing to create a sketch.

steve_f

Thank you Lee.  Solved my problem.

owen_sparks

@Lee_Hesketh

Nice feature, thanks for sharing it

Any chance you could modify it to accept a Mate Connector as an input for the axis?  It'd be great to be able to rotate a derived part about the Z-Axis of one of it's mates.  This would get rid of needing a sketch.

Cheers,

Owen S.

martin_danger

So, 4 years later, and you still can't rotate about the X, Y or Z axis? Was this not done because the location of the axis is uncertain? I mean, as humans, we know what the centre of an object is, but to the computer, it's going to be a guess? 

NeilCooke

martin_danger said:

So, 4 years later, and you still can't rotate about the X, Y or Z axis? Was this not done because the location of the axis is uncertain? I mean, as humans, we know what the centre of an object is, but to the computer, it's going to be a guess? 

It has to be deterministic - if the part size changes then your part will move unexpectedly.

S1mon

This is an old thread. You can easily rotate around an implicit mate connector and it’s easy to create that mate connector at the part studio origin.

eSonOfAnder

Except that, as pointed out in this thread (https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/19582/is-there-a-way-to-rotate-around-an-axis-without-having-to-draw-something-or-need-an-edge-on-a-part), if you select the origin as the mate connector for the rotate tool, there is no way to select which axis the rotate tool rotates around. It always uses the Z axis. You then have to play with the secondary mate connector parameters to shift which direction you actually want the part to rotate around. You mentioned some combination of the shift key and moving the mouse to adjust the axis, but that doesn't work in my experience and testing.

S1mon

You're right the shift-select option only works with mate connectors and an assembly origin, not a part origin. As you mention, you can change the secondary MC parameters. Compared with some other CAD tools the number of steps to do this in Onshape is not exactly ideal.