Improvements to Onshape - March 24th 2017

NeilCooke

Three weeks have passed, so that means it's time for another round of updates! We hope you enjoy using these new improvements as much as we enjoy creating them for you...

COMPARE

The Compare tool can now be accessed via a new button in the Versions and History flyout. This makes it more discoverable and easier to view the differences between two versions or branches of your design.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/s0jlbggifc?embedType=async&videoWidth=640

FLAT PATTERNS IN ASSEMBLIES AND DRAWINGS

Flat patterns of sheet metal parts can now be inserted into Assemblies and Drawings.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/hpmhtxbnja?embedType=async&videoWidth=640

SURFACE FINISH SYMBOLS

You can now add surface finish symbols to Drawings.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/tltun66b7j?embedType=async&videoWidth=640

PERSISTENT DRAWING DIALOGS

Now when you create a Geometric Tolerance, a Datum, a Balloon, a Hole Callout, or a Surface Finish, the dialog will remain open and allow you to place multiple symbols one after another. You can see this in action in the Surface Finish video above. 

BOM TABLE ORDER AND UNLINKING

You can now set the BOM table to populate bottom to top so you can place the table above your title block. You can also now unlink the table from your BOM app to edit it manually.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/vbq4tchi0z?embedType=async&videoWidth=640

PROJECTED VIEWS

The Projected View command in Drawings will now activate automatically after placing the first view and remain active so you can layout your Drawing faster. New projected views now also copy the style of the parent view.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/m154ej8sna?embedType=async&videoWidth=640

VIRTUAL SHARP EDGE EXTENSIONS

Virtual Sharp style can now be set to either Centermark or Edge Extension. Open the Drawing Properties dialog and scroll down to the bottom to toggle the setting for the entire Drawing.

FEATURESCRIPT PROFILER

The Feature Studio now has a built-in profiler to help optimize your custom features for efficiency and speed. The documentation for the profiler can be found here.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/bkbqja33hi?embedType=async&videoWidth=640

PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS

With this update we have made improvements to performance in many areas including Document open, roll forward/roll to end, graphics loading, interactive frame rates, tab switching, and the Tab Manager. There are also additional performance improvements in drawings with reduced lag when moving and deleting entities and reduced delay when moving complex views and large notes.

SPACEMOUSE SUPPORT IN DRAWINGS

Onshape now supports the SpaceMouse series of devices from 3Dconnexion for panning and zooming in Drawings*. A separate section of the 3Dconnexion properties dialog is dedicated to Onshape Drawings so you can customize the controller and button actions specifically for Drawings. 

* Please note that an ongoing issue with the 3Dconnexion driver becoming unresponsive is being actively addressed by 3Dconnexion and the Windows version of the driver will be released soon. The Mac driver will follow, so please keep an eye out for updated drivers on their support website.

Please take a moment to try out these new features and improvements and let us know what you think!  

Remember: The updates listed here are now live for all users when creating new Documents and over the next few days these features will also be available in Documents created before the date of this update.

emagdalenaC2i

Once again, great improvements

brucebartlett

Once again great improvements, I really appreciate the new features added to drawings. 

3dcad

I did notice improvement in performance! Thanks!!

Great update for 2D & FS users. I hope next one pushes more into 3D modeling since we still lack some very important standard features like configurations/variants.

ps. 3D mouse pan and zoom in drawings was already listed as update when Onshape wen't out from beta over a year ago?

Jason_S

This update included support for the SpaceMouse Enterprise (the one with the environment-aware screen), as well as stability improvements for all of the mice that are already supported. 

robert_morris

Thank you for the much needed drawing improvements.
Keep up the great work guys!

fastwayjim

LOVE the time calculations in featurescript. Wow!

Tony_C_

Having a problem moving an unlinked BOM.  It just wants to edit the cells.

----

Never mind... You have to only use the dot in the upper left corner. 

JP10

Why do you have to create a drawing just to create a DXF? It would make more sense to create the dxf straight from the flat pattern of the part or assembly rather than a drawing that is set 1:1. I have personally seen people forget to change the scale and parts come out the wrong size.  It can be done in other CAD software and creating a drawing of it first only creates more clicks and more steps, which introduces more chances for error and wasted time.  Just my 2 cents.

NeilCooke

@JP10 it's on the todo list

dave_cowden

Whoa! the profiler is SO AWESOME! Been waiting for that! great work! Sadly, that probably means i have work to do updating some of my features...

NeilCooke

@dave_cowden - I just updated my Spur Gear script and get on average 3x to 4x speed improvement thanks to the profiler.

dave_cowden

@NeilCooke do you have any tips you can share?  Any 'common scenarios' that surprised you?  In my cases, I've done manual profiling and generally found most of the time to be in opBoolean-- in thread creator, i found ( not surprisingly) that having a curved surface increased the time for a boolean considerably vs the same geometry with line segments, and as a consequence added a 'use flat valleys' choice in threadcreator.

What insights did you learn? maybe i can apply those even if they do not exist in my models?

NeilCooke

@dave_cowden as in the video I was surprised how much faster pattern is than sketch solve. The original spur gear created one sketch with the tooth profile patterned and I changed it to one body tooth cutout, pattern and Boolean. 

dave_cowden

interesting!