2017 Christmas Wish List for Assemblies

StephenG

Here is my Christmas wish list for assemblies. I realize this list is a little late but I have full confidence the OS elves will do their best.

1) Configurations. It goes without saying the lack of assembly configuration makes using the product cumbersome to use. Configurations need to capture instance visibility and mate states.

2) Override the appearance of part instances and optionally assign appearance to an entire assembly instance. It goes without saying that once instance appearance is added it should also be captured in a configuration.

4) The ability to assign "Tags" or "Labels" to instances. This would be used to facilitate repeated selection of multiple instances for some manipulation.

5) The ability to "name" (add informational text) to an instance. The name appears as part of the Instance List entry. For example, being able to change the <n> (nth instance) text with meaningful man-readable text, ex. Left, Center, Right.

6) Implement the "Select other" behavior similar to how it works in Part Studios.

7) Allow copying of assembly pattern instances with the result still being a pattern.

8) Leverage feature patterns in parts to create pattern instances in the assembly.

9) Within the Instance List the ability to expand an instance entry to list the assembly mates that reference the instance.

10) Replace "Mate Connector" text with the name of the part instance and associated geometry used in the mate. 

11) The ability to make an instance (convert an existing instance) into new unique data. (Should be easy to do for assy, a little more complicated for parts.)

12) Semantic changes: Replace the term "Fuse" with "Ground". The term "Fuse" should replace "Group" and the term "Group" should be used with a new capability to create arbitrary collections of instances that can be used to facility repeated selections of sets of instances.   

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE:
Drawing functionality needs to be able to leverage assembly configuration information so that different positional arrangements and visibility (hiding) of part instances within an assembly configuration can be realized.

I will put out extra cookies Christmas Eve for Santa to take back with him for you.

 

konstantin_shiriazdanov

Looks like a good place to discuss assembly invironment. One more thing I miss sometimes is something like "Show shared mates" command for a set of selectet parts, i.e. - only mates constraining one part of the set with another part of the set.

chrisjh777

If we are going to discuss assembly improvements, my Xmas wish is for the ability to change the transparency of a part (or selected parts) within the assembly environment without having to switch back to the part studio.  Vote for it here:

https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/1762/make-part-transparent-in-assembly#latest

StephenG

@chrisjh777, I believe your wish is #2 on my list: the ability to change (override) an instance's appearance, which includes setting a transparency value.

Are you familiar with "Isolate"? It is the inverse behavior, but is only temporary and you cannot control the degrees of transparency.  

Tony_C_

StephenG said:

 
Drawing functionality needs to be able to leverage assembly configuration information so that different positional arrangements and visibility (hiding) of part instances within an assembly configuration can be realized.
 

 

This would be very helpful. 

jackson_king

I wish we had something in part studios like “isolate” or make other parts transparent 

StephenG

I guess Santa didn't get/understand my Christmas Wish. Instead of "assembly configurations" I found "part configurations" in my stocking.

Not I am complaining; I do appreciate the present (part configurations), but assembly configurations is what I really wanted (is needed in Onshape). 

I have looked through the forum discussions and I have not found anything that explains why assembly configurations were not in Onshape from day 1. There must have been a good reason. I would like to know what the thinking is to not have assembly configurations.

Am I missing something philosophical about Onshape's approach that makes assembly configurations superfluous?  

I realize my use and familiarity with assembly configuration in other CAD system maybe has blinded me to a better approach; I just cannot see it.

Would appreciate if someone from Onshape's development team could remove the scales from my eyes.

 

ilya_baran

Assembly configurations are not by any means superfluous and we are working on them.  Multi-part modeling in part studios with configurations provides a workaround in some cases, but it is by no means optimal.  The reason they (and a huge number of other features that have now been added) were not in Onshape from day 1 is that functionality takes time to build, especially since we're improving on the state of the art and not just copying old CAD systems.