Can you sketch on a drawing?

donald_coffin

I am trying to add some rolls to dimension a dove tail. Is there a way to sketch in the drawing.

brian_brady

Not unless the next update (coming soon?) has added it. This is something that I have asked for in the past and am still waiting.

3dcad

This is actually pretty interesting question. Should we be able to sketch in drawings? Or insert/show sketches in drawings for print?

Why would we sketch on drawings if we have even better sketcher in 3d mode? Should they be similar?

brian_brady

3dcad said:

This is actually pretty interesting question. Should we be able to sketch in drawings? Or insert/show sketches in drawings for print?

Why would we sketch on drawings if we have even better sketcher in 3d mode? Should they be similar?

I can think of lots of reasons to include sketches in drawings. When making a fixture for a part, I may need to reference or dimensions/from just some of part geometry in a particular view. Currently, I would need to completely model or import the part, make an assembly, and make a drawing of the assembly. Then I cannot "turn off" the part in any of the drawing views, so my fixture is not the focus. @donald_coffin has the need to show rolls (pins) over which he needs an inspection dimension. You don't want to model the rolls and make an assembly that includes them just to add the inspection dimensions because the rolls will be present in all views of the drawing. Personally, I currently have the need to make dimensioned kinematic diagrams that are nothing more than "stick figures" but I cannot make drawings of them that include notes or a title block because we cannot include sketches in drawings.

Brian

3dcad

The more I think of this, I would like to show existing sketch in drawings and be able to insert in-context sketch as well using the Onshape sketcher.

I'm really annoyed of the fact that if you draw a line into drawing view and dimension that line you will get 1:1 scale rather than model scale.

david_cook325

Another reason to pull in a sketch into a drawing is to illustrate the original outline of a part that is being modified.  Another easy workflow task in SW that OS will have to figure out how to not lose.

john_mcclary

david_cook325 said:

Another reason to pull in a sketch into a drawing is to illustrate the original outline of a part that is being modified.  Another easy workflow task in SW that OS will have to figure out how to not lose.

Yes, that is something we do often when machining away material. We want to show the original stock size before machining. At least right now we can sketch a simple line, but we need the whole suite of sketch tools provided in the part studio IMHO. At the same time we need layers. Or colors and line types. Need to make my phantom lines stand out from the rest of the object lines.

PeteYodis

I agree the ability to insert a sketch as a new view, or into an existing view would be a welcome addition.  

If you are looking for a compare between stock/cast and as machined.... Model your stock in one part studio, then derive that into a machining part studio and perform your machined features/cuts.  Next, derive both parts into a 3rd part studio and perform a boolean subtract.  You'll then see the machined geometry and it will update real time with changes to the others.  In my past life I used things like this as a rough pricing tool, because at some point machining and cost have a impact due to volumetric metal removal rates of the machines/processes in consideration...

john_mcclary

I get what your saying, but what I need is simpler than that

In fact I'm detailing that very thing right now as a matter of fact for a project.

brian_brady

PeteYodis said:

I agree the ability to insert a sketch as a new view, or into an existing view would be a welcome addition.  

If you are looking for a compare between stock/cast and as machined.... Model your stock in one part studio, then derive that into a machining part studio and perform your machined features/cuts.  Next, derive both parts into a 3rd part studio and perform a boolean subtract.  You'll then see the machined geometry and it will update real time with changes to the others.  In my past life I used things like this as a rough pricing tool, because at some point machining and cost have a impact due to volumetric metal removal rates of the machines/processes in consideration...

You (and OS in general) seem to make the assumption that we don't need/use 2D drawings anymore because we should get all of our information from the 3D model. Try building a machine by giving your assembler a computer with just the 3D models. Or how about parts that are not CNC machined, just give the production and inspection people tablets with access to the 3D models? No, we need very specific 2D prints that meet standards and conveys our design, manufacturing, and inspection intent to all parties.

I need/want to add reference parts or sketches to individual views at times. I want/need to create drawings of a portion of a large model without having a detail bubble. I want/need broken out sections. I want/need partial sections. I want/need phantom lines. I want/need control of centerlines. I want/need break lines for large/long items. I want/need 2D drawings to look as good as if I had hand drawn them according to standards.

Until OS 2D drawings meet standards 100%, they are incomplete. By my estimation, they are maybe 50% of the way there.

Just my opinion, Brian.

john_mcclary

@brian_brady

You hit the nail on the head

PeteYodis

@brian_brady @john_mcclary That is absolutely not the assumption I make, nor my colleagues here.  I worked as a design engineer for 15 years and was attempting to provide a process/tool that could be useful for people here.  I was merely offering another solution to help you today.  We know drawings are very important and are working to deliver added capability.  As I also mentioned, I completely agree inserting a sketch into an existing view or, potentially inserting a sketch into a new view would be a welcome capability.   

3dcad

I want/need full featured 3D MBD to replace drawings.
I want/need next generation to be teached to handle things naturally in 3D without switching to 2D when it's time to manufacture.
I want/need existing engineers to learn to work with 3D models without drawings.
I want/need to get rid of that double work creating drawings puts us through.

I think there is plenty of full featured standard 2D drawing software. But I don't know any FULL 3D model to manufacture software.
Maybe it could be time to consider moving on from white papers to something more intuitive than making them to be pdfs on tablets.

Onshape can be reached with virtually any device that has internet connection, so why not take it to shop floor and beside production machines. Those shops using printed drawings already has plenty of software to choose from.

Just another opinion..

john_mcclary

3dcad said:

I think there is plenty of full featured standard 2D drawing software. But I don't know any FULL 3D model to
manufacture software. 

Inventor
SolidWorks
Mechanical Desktop
Catia
Pro/E
...
...


Yea, I think we offended @PeteYodis , Sorry about that!

But that is the world I work in every day... I hope some day, when us millennials take over the world. The word paper will be erased from dictionary.com
Until then I can't use OnShape for work and I'm stuck in SW2017 with all of it's MANY MANY bugs. (I think SW looked at OS and just said "we give up")

I need/want OnShape!
I need/want OnShape to be the best!

OS is the most forward thinking CAD company out there, But its like a piece of candy at the end of a stick, and I'm on a treadmill. It's sooo close to being just good enough to make that leap.
You know what they say, "The squeaky wheel gets the grease"

I say this all with a happy face and being as patient as I can!
Hard to convey that over text sometimes...

PeteYodis

@john_mcclary No offense taken - just trying to be very clear here with our intentions.  We very much know that the drawing is still the most important piece of documentation for the majority of users.  

brian_brady

PeteYodis said:

@brian_brady @john_mcclary That is absolutely not the assumption I make, nor my colleagues here.  I worked as a design engineer for 15 years and was attempting to provide a process/tool that could be useful for people here.  I was merely offering another solution to help you today.  We know drawings are very important and are working to deliver added capability.  As I also mentioned, I completely agree inserting a sketch into an existing view or, potentially inserting a sketch into a new view would be a welcome capability.   

I'm sorry I assumed your assumption. I just hear a lot of people saying that 2D is dead and to use the 3D model for everything, so 2D drawings in CAD packages take a back seat (way in the back) relative to the 3D tools. AutoCAD is still the best I've found for 2D drawings as far as control and adherence to standards. I just want OS (as well as other packages) to take the print making part seriously enough that changes are made. Maybe I am too impatient and need to wait a couple of years before using OS for drawings and stick to exporting to ACAD. I would rather not do that though, as I like OS for the 3D modeling part.

Another thing that is wanted/needed is 2-way associativity for dimensions and the ability to use design intent dimensions from sketches and 3D feature creation in drawings without having to add every dimension over again.

3dcad

john_mcclary said:

Inventor
SolidWorks
Mechanical Desktop
Catia
Pro/E
...
...

Really? I must have outdated information if you can run these on any computer or modern tablet with browser and connection.

When I last checked they claimed me to get license for each machine used simultaneously and didn't run on any tablet or chromebook..

I agree on pushing Onshape to be The cad on market, those 2D demands are just so wide that they're gonna spend next years with those to make it perfect. Alibre had same problem and it took like 2 years to get drawings right.
Meanwhile I would like to see some resources also on MBD, maybe - just maybe - they could put the same smile on our face that came when we first realize what multi-part studios are about

brian_brady

3dcad said:

Maybe it could be time to consider moving on from white papers to something more intuitive than making them to be pdfs on tablets.

Onshape can be reached with virtually any device that has internet connection, so why not take it to shop floor and beside production machines. Those shops using printed drawings already has plenty of software to choose from.

Just another opinion..

I'll continue to voice mine as well. Coming from the machine design/build industry, I cannot imagine having a computer with a screen large enough to be useful stationed next to a machine that is being built instead of a print table. I've worked with machines that are over 50 feet long with multiple stations and hundreds of assembly and detail sheets. The assemblers needed quick and easy access to only the released drawings. They carried them all over the machine to know what to do next. Folded them, rolled them, laid them side by side. They marked up issues and additional setup instructions and figured out dimensions for minor modifications. Doing that on a computer with greasy, metal chip covered hands and gloves does not sound like something I could convince builders to do. Plus, many of these great men and women are not very computer savvy and don't care to be. Same holds true to plant maintenance/mechanics in high volume production shops. Plus drawings are often used to create inspection and routing documents. None of which I see going away easily.

Keep in mind that I now teach and do nearly everything digitally. I prefer not to use paper for most of my work. But I know there are times when a controlled, locked document is the best bet.

Brian

3dcad

@brian_brady
I agree that you describe very well the current situation.
And I wan't to mention that I'm not talking about handing over a tablet with step file opened to machinist. MBD needs to be so intuitive it's always a step ahead and gives you the data you didn't even knew you'd gonna need next, it needs to be able to take notes in and scale to big/multiscreen systems easily.

I think few years back we would have agreed that touchscreen phone is only for tech-hippies. I had long time two phones, one with buttons at production work where wood-chips cover things and smart phone at office desk. That is not the case anymore.

3 years ago I couldn't see myself using any touchscreen device for cadding - Onshape made it possible and there are already people who don't understand why we use our clomsy computers for cadding (I still think multi-screen PC with 3d mouse is the only efficient design environment).

I also agree that screens are not as good as they need to be to beat all papers at work or magazine at coffee break - but as magazines has moved to web and sites became mobile friendly, suddenly I have noticed I have no problems reading news using phone/tablet. I'm sure same will happen to production papers.

It's probably not laptop/tablet, but it will be some device - maybe hologram that doesn't bother having greasy hands and chips around. Or just AR glasses that shows 3D model together with already assembled reality. Robots will probably do most of high volume stuff and they are coming on strong to work with human and small batch production too. 

The reason I poked on this sensitive area around 2D drawings is that I just wanted to remind that many things have changed and this will too - it's just still missing that signifigantly easier option. And you people with all that experience in machine build industry can add so much value into any attempt Onshape is willing to do moving from prints to live model based definition.

PeteYodis

For the topic that started this discussion... Can users here give their thoughts if you find more value in inserting sketches from the part studio into a view - or being able to sketch directly on the drawing?

john_mcclary

If I had to choose only (1) for now, I would say import from part studio would have more advantages in the long run.
My reasoning is:
1) Design intent can be communicated between the model and the paper.
2) Sketching in a part studio could be used as a "Work Around" for having "blocks" in the Drawings.

The main disadvantages would be:
1) It would take more effort to swap between part studio and drawing each time you want a sketch more complicated than a line.
2) It would be kind of annoying when you just want a reference point in the drawing; to have to make a sketch in the part studio.

But I could get by on that for a while

brian_brady

john_mcclary said:

If I had to choose only (1) for now, I would say import from part studio would have more advantages in the long run.
My reasoning is:
1) Design intent can be communicated between the model and the paper.
2) Sketching in a part studio could be used as a "Work Around" for having "blocks" in the Drawings.

Ditto

3dcad

+1 for inserting sketch into drawings.

It would bring all the sketching tools available faster than pushing them one by one into drawing workspace.

brucebartlett

@PeteYodis  I'd definitely be for adding Part Studio sketches to drawings. I would like to be able to click a view and have the option to turn on the underlying sketch or even multiple sketches. This would be ideal for @john_mcclary 's angle problem above.

It would be also good to be able to get sketches from assemblies which would have previously come from a part studio. I am thinking of layout diagram I currently do with part studio sketches dropped into assemblies to indicate maximum travel positions, ground height, etc. At the moment there is no way to show these in drawings which would be really handy.

+1 for inserting sketch into drawings.

PeteYodis

Thank you all for the feedback.  

Prachi

Would like full sketch functionality by what every means in drawings.
My preference would be all sketch functions available in drawing including the universal dimension tool.
There are times when a 2D sketch is all that is wanted for schematics and other symbols to transmit functionality to customer before starting full modeling. Something like Acad blocks could be used as well to give quick repetition with modifiable designations.
Since I'm not always working with same customers it would allow quicker definition for drawing formats using OS native instead of imports.

andrew_bissett

I have to say that the Dimensioning tools in Onshape are at best extremely basic and frustrating. Not having the ability to reference a Parametric Sketch from the 3D Model or the ability to create a Datum Point within a Drawing that references intersections between edges or similar Part Geometry that can then be used as a reference Point for a Dimension defies logic and basic 2D Drafting principals. This is fundamental stuff that any CAD Package should have available in its tool set. Providing Line creation Tools that don't respect the Scale of a Drawing View are absolutely useless as this then provides incorrect Dimensions.

Come on Onshape... please provide us with the Basic Tools from the get go!

bergdesign

Sketching inside a drawing view would help solve an issue I've run into with several models... I have some assemblies that consist of welded tubing, and some tubes are both rotated at angle (so they are not aligned to the horizontal or the vertical axes inside a drawing view) and the ends of the tubing are also cut at angles. I would like to pull a dimension off of an assembly view that illustrates the rough maximum square-cut length of the tube, but I cannot get a dimension pulled parallel to a tube from the longest points on each end. Basically, I wish to draw a line on one end of the tube that is perpendicular to the tube's axis to create a "virtual sharp" where the square end of the tube would exist, and then pull a dimension from that line to the corresponding long point on the other end that is parallel to the tube. If I could force the dimension to align to a specific edge, that would solve the issue without drawing additional entities, but I don't know of a way to do that, hence drawing extra entities would be a valid solution. Maybe someone has a work-around that I'm missing

Thx, Brock

magnus_hammar

Today's problem. I have designed a house and need to submit a floor plan to the municipality. I just need to draw a few dotted lines to indicate where the sloping roof lines start. It feels absolutely unreal that such a masterpiece of engineering that Onshape  arguably is, cannot help me draw those lines. I Tried with abusing the 2 point centerline but it failed because of the slope geometry.

2D is not the enemy of 3D, its a projection that is many times awesome to use for communication and annotation. Annotation is the keyword here... sometimes I just want to sketch a few items as well as write comments to make things clearer.

brian_brady

@magnus_hammar try adding a sketch in your part studio that contains construction lines for the lines you want in your drawing. Should be on a plane parallel to the floor. Click on the view that needs the lines then right click and select "Show/Hide Sketches", highlight the sketch with the lines you want and click the green check.

terry_kuehne236

Thanks brian_brady. This helped and worked very well.