Cropped Views, Drawing Model Tree, and Other Issues with the Drawing Functionality

tlewis3348

Cropped Views

I'm trying to create "closeup views" of portions of my model without using the section view tool (since I don't need to visually reference the full model). In SolidWorks, I do this by creating a cropped view; however, the closest alternative I've been able to find in OnShape is doing multiple Break Views and trying to either find a way to hide the portions I don't want seen off the screen or just minimize them down to black dots on the page and be satisfied that it's as good as it's going to get for the time being. Clearly, this is not the ideal solution, and actually, the only reason I'm willing to be satisfied with it is because the project I'm using OnShape for is just for personal use, so I'm the only one looking at it.

Drawing Model Tree

In SolidWorks, there's a model tree on the left side of all drawings where the drawing views, tables, etc. can be accessed. This is useful for several reasons:

1. It's easy to access the various different views in the drawing and modify them as needed.
2. Expanding the tree node allows for the simple inspection of the model being referenced by the view.
3. All the tables on the sheet can be accessed and modified as needed.

In contrast, once OnShape creates things such as detail views and other such things, the sketch which defines the viewing window cannot be modified other than to change its radius. Furthermore, I will often turn the visibility of sketches in the 3D model on in the drawing either because I would like the sketches printed or because I would like to reference them in the drawing in some way. Both of these things as well as several others are not possible because there is no model tree in drawing tabs.

Other Drawing Functionality

A few other things that I've noticed are lacking in the drawing tab are:

1. The ability to add borders to notes (as well as several other formatting features).
2. Other than the text included in the balloon, there's no formatting of the appearance of the balloon at all.
3. I routinely create sketches overlaid on top of drawing views. These sketches may or may not get printed, but they always provide useful references for adding dimensions later.

In short, while the modeling capabilities are coming right along and coming very close to being able to rival SolidWorks' capabilities in their entirety, the drawing capabilities have a long way to go to catch up to SolidWorks. And I don't even consider SolidWorks' drawing capabilities to be all that good in many cases.