Extrude from offset plane

micdomin

I would appreciate to be able to extrude at a distance from the sketch plane in a more direct manner that what is offered today :

Where first Blind extrusion is the distance from the sketch plane to the end of the extrusion (i.e. 100mm) and second Blind extrusion is the required plane offset (i.e. 25mm) resulting in a part 75mm long.
It would be less confusing to - first - provide the length (i.e. Blind 75mm) of the required part and - second - provide the plane offset (i.e. 25mm).
Perhaps a tick box labeled "Offset Plane" would do the trick?

john_mcclary

It would be easier for you to insert an offset plane before sketching.
But I like the way you think here. It would be efficient to just have an offset from sketch plane. Like we get from extruding To Face.

Especially when sharing sketch geometry between parts. Right now we have to create an offset plane, create a sketch on that plane, then "Use" in order to offset the part. Or do as you have with the second end condition, Or add a translate feature to the tree.
All of which feel like work arounds to me compared to this improvement.

Mark_Matthews

micdomin said:
It would be less confusing to - first - provide the length (i.e. Blind 75mm) of the required part and - second - provide the plane offset (i.e. 25mm).

Perhaps a tick box labeled "Offset Plane" would do the trick?

This is the better solution and in line with what SolidWorks users are used to.

MBartlett21

It should have a tick box labelled "offset from sketch plane", that, when it's ticked, it changes the depth variable to "depth from start of Extrude".

brucebartlett

I agree current functionality is possible but hard to use and takes manual calculations, what we need is an offset from a plane with a checkbox which disables the "second end position" and allows an offset length and the blind extrude length to start from the offset plane, not the original. 

alex_kirkpatrick

+1 to needing a "blind from offset" option in the extrude feature. 

owen_sparks

Heck yeah, "offset distance" and then "extrude from start point by this amount"  makes more sense in my head.

Which is easier to comprehend?

(a) Build me a 10 foot long fence starting 6 feet away from where we're standing.

(b) Build me a 16 foot long fence that doesn't start for the first 6 feet.

Owen S.

stephane_fassin

+1  Just came across a situation where I could have benefited from this feature.

EvanReese

I fully agree with this. The current method feels pretty hacky and there's lots of mouse clicking. Another issue with the current method is that if you want draft, it still uses the sketch plane as the neutral plane, which makes it pretty useless in this application.

tim_hess427

I haven't had a need to do this in Onshape yet and I'm pretty surprised to see that this feature isn't already available. Outside of the extra clicks required to create the feature initially, I'd be more worried about having to update dimensions in two different places if my desired "offset" distance changes. I'm worried I'd forget to do the math and update the second dimension. 

tim_hess427

Its less than two months later and I forgot about my previous comment here. I just found myself wondering "How do I start an extrude from an offset distance? Isn't that an option?" 

Apparently not yet. 

Cris_Bowers

Was this ever turned into an improvement request? I have had many occasions on which this would have been beneficial.

david_7

Enhancement request Extrude from Blind, Surface, Vertex, etc 

Nem

I agree. This is an excellent request.
I would also like to see an option where you could also do the same at the other end of the extrude. Where you can extrude up to an entity (face, surface, plane, vertex) or an offset also from that entity? Thus you could offset at both ends of the extrude. I think this would be valuable when using a Master Sketch in multi part - part modelling.

lana

Have you tried Second end position option in extrude dialog ? 

Nem

Hi Lana.
I didn't appreciate that you could use that second direction to reverse and remove material back from the main extrude as well.
I still think having an offset option on the main extrude would be a good idea. 
Thankyou for taking the time to show me that second option.