Onshape Drawings announced today

moengineering

Hello togehter,

I prefer ISOCPEUR. Reminds me on the early days, starting with technical drawings and using templates to draw on transparent paper with ink



Best regards
Martin

caradon

Devon_Sowell said:

@DriesVervoort_Caradon what do you mean by "HUGE"? Thanks

I've always found the default dimension font in SOLIDWORKS to be relatively large.

Dries

andrew_troup

+1 for painless, 1:1 dxf export in the earliest version possible, ideally R12

It's not just a question of whether we, the Onshape user, have a recent app which can use a recent version; sometimes the suppliers who do profile cutting do not, and that's beyond our control.

+1 for Arial on drawings (aka Helvetica on a Mac)

brucebartlett

@Andrew_Troup I'd look out for R12 in the right click .dxf part studio export in the next release. 

Must be getting close for the next update soon.

devon_sowell

DriesVervoort_Caradon said:

Devon_Sowell said:

@DriesVervoort_Caradon what do you mean by "HUGE"? Thanks

I've always found the default dimension font in SOLIDWORKS to be relatively large.

Dries

Easy to change

brucebartlett

Devon_Sowell said:

DriesVervoort_Caradon said:

Devon_Sowell said:

@DriesVervoort_Caradon what do you mean by "HUGE"? Thanks

I've always found the default dimension font in SOLIDWORKS to be relatively large.

Dries

Easy to change

Better if you don't have too. But don't think it will be an issue in Onshape Drawings. 

jon_mcintyre

Devon_Sowell said:

@Jon McIntyre please include single line Fonts for Water/Laser/Plasma cutting/etching and make these special Fonts easily identifiable for use without having to remember their names/location. Thanks

Devon, are you talking about stencil fonts?   Also, are you talking about using these fonts in otherwise blank (or almost blank) drawings, or perhaps putting stencil fonts into 3D geometry then using our DXF export of surfaces?

andrew_troup

By "single line fonts" usually what is meant is a collection of "open" strings of lines, arcs and splines (ie, not enclosing any area) such as a monumental mason would inscribe on a marble slab, in preparation for following those single lines with the tip of a V-chisel.

These do not by themselves serve any purpose in a solid model, in terms of creating solid protrusions or recesses, and it is traditionally difficult in most packages to manipulate and proces them to yield a realistic depiction of (say) an engraved line of text (using a V-pointed engraving tool). *

That's a "nice to have", but what is essential is a way of attaching (if necessary, wrapping) the geometry to a face


*One way to do it is to team up a single line font with a corresponding "rounded terminal" outline font, like VAG Rounded, originally designed (IIRC) for VW.
http://cdnimg.fonts.net/ImagingService.ashx?imagetype=thumbnail&shopid=47971&RenderText=The+quick+brown+fox+jumps+over+the+lazy+dog.+The+quick+brown+fox+jumps+over+the+lazy+dog.&TextSize=32&width=1000&TextColor=#000000&BgColor=#ffffff

The latter can then be extruded with draft, which (if the depth is specified overdeep) produces a sharp-bottomed V - at least in Solidworks. However it is necessary that outline text is able to split a face into multiple discrete areas for this to work. This used to be difficult in Solidworks.

onshaper

I'm confused as to why people want Arial for drawings. Doesn't Y14.5 spec fixed width fonts? I quite like this one.

https://cstools.asme.org/csconnect/CommitteePages.cfm?Committee=C64041150&Action=40068

devon_sowell

@Jon McIntyre 3D such as " Water/Laser/Plasma cutting/etching " is the main use. VAG Rounded as mentioned by @Andrew_Troup looks good. Wrapping Text for Extruding on a curved surface is required.

Here's a link for single line Fonts, easy to machine. https://www.google.com/search?q=single+;line+Font&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=y9g3VZDgCYyfgwTSkICYAg&ved=0CCEQsAQ&biw=1920&bih=920

Also, really I'm not that picky about the Font used in 2D drawings. I would never spend any time changing the Font on an existing drawing unless someone else complained about it.

There used to be an issue in SolidWorks Drawings many years ago that 1:1 DXF drawings weren't actually 1:1, fixed these days.

Finally, I tell my SolidWorks students that 2D drawings is a misnomer; they're locked views of wireframe 3D models Look for the Rotate icon in SW to spin the drawing views in 3D.

ales_1

moEngineering said:

Hello togehter,

I prefer ISOCPEUR.

Also prefer Isocpeur, we use it on production drawings and it is very readable and technical.

brucebartlett

@Jon McIntyre Just walked past a stack of part's with part numbers etched from the laser. Please give Onshape ability to pump the dxf straight out with a single line font. No messing around in other packages or having to be added by the laser programer.

Also good move dropping the dxf export back to R11.   

andrew_troup

Minor but not insignificant point of terminology: generally speaking, etching differs from engraving: the former acts on an area, the latter on a line.  (polylines, line/arc strings, splines). A pedant would probably emphasise the distinction by referring to the former as 'raster etching' and the latter as 'vector engraving'. Naturally, many do not respect these nuances... but single line fonts are definitely specialised to vector methods, such as cutting and some forms of engraving. 

Amen with @BruceBartletton retrograding of dxf export: engraving machines see very light duty and last for decades, still run perfectly well on a 286 (!) era computer ... and compulsory/unhelpful/unavailable software/hardware upgrades, particularly when forced on cost-effective third party subcontractors, are Not Our Friend.

devon_sowell

Here is the Wikipedia link to the ANSI standards, scroll down & look at Technical lettering
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering_drawing

They mention Gothic Sans-Serif, I'll attached a photo of that font.

Again, these days using CAD, I think it's a minor point, not like when I took my Final Exam in college using Ink on Vellum! (I cheated by making it first in AutoCAD, then I traced over it ) I think I used RomanS.

andrew_troup

Font style on drawings (a different topic from my last post, but running hot!): in visual terms I'd be perfectly happy with whatever is in use for this very forum. (Looks a bit like "Eurostyle"). The capitals (which on a drawing are all I care about) are every bit as good as Arial. There is however a serious set of advantages for  Arial/Helvetica. It has cross-platform universality, as well as accepted, authoritative, single sources.

By contrast, Gothic Sans, mentioned by @Devon_Sowell , has 27 completely different variant families (not just styles, like bold or narrow) in the single link he posted, one of which may be the particularly offensive New Century Gothic, with insufficient heft, pointy terminals et al, chosen (perplexingly) by Solidworks.

Consistency is important, not least because nothing looks worse than a drawing where the text runs over borders or into parts, due to substitution of a font with different leading and kerning, not to mention basic width.

However going the single-width route, reverting to fonts intended for pen plotters, does not appeal to this kid. Drawings are more than just a means of communication, and if we don't care how ugly they are, we degrade our little corner of the world, just we would by entrusting the look of our place of business or residence to the lowest bidder.

onshaper

I don't see single width as ugly, I see it as authoritative. Comic sans isn't ugly, but it's the opposite of authoritative.

andrew_troup

Hmm - @onshaper- I won't attack your taste (de gustibus, etc) but for a moment there I got a whiff of blood regarding your logic ...
except I don't think you actually intended proposing a logical proposition, more of an illustration of various criteria.

Let me ask this: Do you consider Arial to be lacking in authority? 

( For those who might think earnest discussion of font style represents time wasted, I'd have to say that a study of the history of Apple Computer -- among others -- might suggest a rather different POV )

onshaper

Okay, you got me, Comic Sans is ugly. 

Arial is probably the best font that is most accessible that wasn't designed for engineering drawings.

I'm fairly certain fixed width fonts are required by ANSI Y14.5 which is more important than form. Drawings are legal documents and must meet Y14.5 specifications (or ISO whatever, DIN whatever, etc). Also, the Y14.5 font I linked earlier contains all the feature callout symbols required by Y14.5, which Arial does not have. Even if you used Arial you'd have to make use of these fixed width features and visually they won't match up!

Edit: The font I posted is not fixed width. Hmmmm. I guess I'll have to concede to not being sure about the font, except that the font I posted has feature callouts built in which is nice.  

andrew_troup

Constant width makes a lot of sense to me for width-constrained callouts, GD&T and the like.
In other situations, it seems to me that consistent width (across platforms) is what matters.

Kudos for being fair-minded, @Onshaper.
As a reciprocal concession, there is the potential problem with ambiguity in many non technical fonts.

Arial does, however, seems better than many, and in my CAD-standards negotiator days across several large and exacting organisations, we found it relatively blameless, in practice, on this score.

The lower case l vs numeral 1 is quite well differentiated, as is the 0 vs O, and in any case, many people will occasionally misremember whether the strikethrough of the latter pertains to the numeral or the alpha instance (admittely that's mainly because technical fonts are so rarely used outside niche disciplines.) Wireless router passcodes are routinely misinterpreted in this way.

r_paul

Wading into this discussion relating to Onshape's drawing capability and the fonts to be used on a drawing if I may.

The first thing I would say is that if a person (student) of mine was to had in a drawing done in a 2D package or off the back of a 3d model (ie Solidworks/Inventor etc.) and the notations used Arial as a font they would be marked down quite severely. Arial and other similar fonts are for commercial printing and newspapers NOT drawings. The reason being all the units of competency covering those tasks require adherence to AS1100. I'm sure that would go for other draughtpersons in other jurisdictions using other standards.

Therefore any professional CAD draughting should have as its basis fonts which conform to those standards. That's an easy answers to the question and not as hard, to comply with as it would seem. There is some latitude given and, even I am flexible in understanding CAD vendors are in no way (truthfully) interested in standards other than their own.

Dare I say it, but a look at Autodesk's AutoCAD & Draftsight for a method of implementing Fonts choice and flexibility in adjusting heights, spacing, width and angle of fonts/styles used.

This is, of course, leads into one of the great challenges of 2D CAD as a stand alone or as an adjunct to 3D; it needs to be as flexible as possible in all settings to allow the drafty to produce a document which conforms to the standards of the jurisdiction and or the company in which s/h/e is working for/in.

Given we now can works so easily across the globe we live in - (Onshape extends that capability) – flexibility (and its subsequent complexity) is all the more important to ensure compliance is not a stumbling block to winning a contract.

kevin_quigley

Interesting topic on fonts and one close to my heart. Fonts are something people get their knickers in a twist about, myself included.

you have to look back into CAD history to see where and why many fonts originated.

I started my career at 11 working in my Dad's architect office doing drawings, by hand on a drawing board. AEC drawings tend to be very notation heavy, so when we used to do things by hand the style of the text was that scriptive architect style. For notation this was the best option, but for drawing title blocks and view titles we used Rotring pens with ISO lettering guide stencils. 

As I moved on, still on the drawing board, to more engineering based jobs (IBM for one...still have their drafting manual from the early 80s) we moved from scriptive notation to full stencil notation. This was exceptionally tedious. But even back then for heavy annotations we used to type, yes on a typewriter, and stick the paper onto the drawing, then photocopy.

Then CAD came along. Finally we had the capability to add notes as desired! But the downside here was output. Back in the early 80s the output options were pen plotter or dot matrix. Dot matrix was totally unsuitable for drawings so we used pen plotters.

now we get onto fonts. There had to be a typeface that allowed single stroke plotting, hence most CAD systems of the era had limited plotting fonts based on the ISO stencils we used with pens. Then came the Mac and the laser printer.

I can vividly recall in 1987 seeing a report written by a fellow student at the RCA in London (Ted from Boston) who had used a Mac and a laser printer. "But its like a printed book" I said, astounded. "Well yeah, its done on a Mac" he said looking like Ihad stepped out from the Dark Ages. And that is what it felt like to me. I could produce work that looked like a book! Suddenly we had typefaces, crisp lines, shading! Witchcraft!

So moving on a few years to when I started my design business in 1990 I bought a Mac and a A4 laser printer. I used MiniCAD for drafting and basic 3D modelling. I could use any typeface available in my drawings so I used Helvetica. I was trained in the "classic" way in drafting but to me using those archaic fonts was keeping one foot in the past and refusing to move with the times.

moving on another few years we bought in SolidWorks and switched to Windows, so the default typeface became Arial (the MS equivalent of Helvetica). In 2003 I decided to purchase VX (now ZW3D). Back then it came as a terrible shock to me to see VX drawings could ONLY use line fonts! It was like stepping back 15 years. I campaigned for them to introduce Truetype fonts, which they eventually did.

Drawing is about communication. You use what best communicates the concept. Does a drawing that uses Arial or other standard fonts communicate the notation any less well than a single width line font? No. I would argue it is more readable. 

All I ask from a drawing is that the typeface used is 'professional'. Comic Sans is a font designed for use in comics and early stage readers in school. Schools love it because it has 'proper' A's as you would teach handwriting. It is not a font for use on a drawing defining a mission critical assembly or component.

likewise with AEC. The number of architect drawings we see with Tekton as the font or another similar handwriting font is crazy. Architects love that font! Yet ask and AEC software developer and they all hate it because it creates merry hell with some systems. I used to train architects in use of 3D processes and my opening gambit was ' ditch the Tekton and use Arial' That usually created some interest from the get go!

so for Onshape, stick to what SolidWorks and the other do (and remember they have to operate in the confines of the browser eco system so some exotic line fonts might simply be impossible to do). For GD&T use symbols, like everybody else. For dimensions, titles and annotations use standard typefaces. For CAM and single path etching (I've used laser etching for 15 years...you can do standard typefaces!) add that to the CAM module or simply import a 2D profile onto the part (which is what we do in other systems). 

Far more useful for me would be to be able to import an Adobe Illustrator path onto a part for bringing in Logos and special typefaces. DXF and DWG tend to segment up these things. But then maybe I'm too used to using things like SharkFX and Rhino where importing an .ai file brings in clean editable splines.

so lets not get hung up on fonts and standards that, quite frankly, were concieved in the 70s for large corporations who had thousands of drafters. Time to move on and embrace what technology offers us now and in the future. 

But lets keep drawings. We will always need drawings until all our meeting tables are huge touchscreen panels.