Welcome to the Onshape forum! Ask questions and join in the discussions about everything Onshape.
First time visiting? Here are some places to start:- Looking for a certain topic? Check out the categories filter or use Search (upper right).
- Need support? Ask a question to our Community Support category.
- Please submit support tickets for bugs but you can request improvements in the Product Feedback category.
- Be respectful, on topic and if you see a problem, Flag it.
If you would like to contact our Community Manager personally, feel free to send a private message or an email.
Why is not possible to change the rotation angle of the initial (principle) drawing view?
The part referenced by the drawing was created from a sketch where none of the sketch lines were parallel to any of the standard orthogonal axis planes. I compensated for this in the drawing by specifying a rotation angle to give me the view orientation in paper space I wanted. Surprize.... the design changed resulting in a slight change in the rotation of the part. Now all of the other dependent (projected/aux) views no longer show the part features (holes) in a trueview orientation.
It appears the view's rotation property cannot be changed once dependent views are created. I do not understand why this is the case. Granted, some of the dimensional annotation may go in to squirrel mode, but at least I would not have to delete, recreate every view along with its dimensional annotation.
It appears the view's rotation property cannot be changed once dependent views are created. I do not understand why this is the case. Granted, some of the dimensional annotation may go in to squirrel mode, but at least I would not have to delete, recreate every view along with its dimensional annotation.
Tagged:
5
Answers
I tend to drop the view in the wrong orientation most of time and have to re-insert or project/delete until it is what I want...
https://youtu.be/7YlrbwMWT88
IR for AS/NZS 1100
Once you have the orientation you want, save it as a named view - now on the drawing you can insert that named view and then project any additional views.
I have come to the conclusion that Onshape's assumption that the 3D "cube" view angles/predefined Part Studio planes (Top, Front, Right) should be the basis for drawing views is fundamentally flawed. It is not just that a user cannot change the rotation angle of the initial view once a child view is created.
A user should not have to be concerned about the modeling orientation of a part, or assembly, in 3D space to facilitate layout out of 2D views in a drawing.
When doing design (vs rendering) modeling you often do not know what the final design of the part/assembly looks like and what orientation of the 3D design would make best initial view for the drawing.
When I first started using Onshape and saw the main axis planes labeled Top, Front, Right, and how they were leverage to create a drawing, I thought how quaint; using antiquated board drawing terminology. Now I know it is lame. There needs to be a method to create a 2D view based on a line of sight from 3D selected geometry, and where horizontal/vertical orientation in the drawing is also based on 3D selected geometry.
The ability to create "Willy Nilly" (non standard iso) views is somewhat covered by creating a view from a "Named View", but because one cannot update (change the viewing angle) of a Named View it is a pain to adjust a non standard iso view in a drawing. It is a rare thing to be able to use the predefined Isometric, Dimetric, Trimetric views in a drawing to get a meaningful reference iso view of the design in the drawing.
I did see from your original post that there was a geometric change that you wanted to see reflected as a change in view orientation in the drawing.
I may be missing a nuance of this, but how should (any) CAD system know that a change of geometry should trigger a change in the drawing view orientation?
Today - every CAD system stores a camera position and a viewing direction. Whatever is in the field of view is rendered to the drawing view. If the geometry changes, the drawing view updates. If geometry becomes 'rotated', the camera has no frame of reference (relative to the geometry) and simply re-renders the view (showing the now rotated geometry).
I am not sure that I would agree with your assessment that Onshape is 'flawed' or 'lame' - thousands of professional users find it very productive, but we are always open to better ways of doing things.
Regarding your suggestion to define views based on a camera position, a target and entities to define horizontal and vertical, I fear that professional users would find the number of clicks needed to define such a view as 'overly burdensome' in a production environment.
Lets make this better - what else do you have?
You're both right, there is no easy way. Let us noodle on this for a bit - we will post again when we have some ideas
Once you have done that, just pick the mate connector and hit 'n' (for normal) on your kb
IR for AS/NZS 1100
"... how should (any) CAD system know that a change of geometry should trigger a change in the drawing view orientation?"
Because the trigger is based on geometry selections that define line of sight and rotation of the drawing view in paper space.
"Today - every CAD system stores a camera position and a viewing direction. Whatever is in the field of view is rendered
to the drawing view. If the geometry changes, the drawing view updates. If geometry becomes 'rotated', the camera has
no frame of reference (relative to the geometry) and simply re-renders the view (showing the now rotated geometry)."
What is the primary purpose for creating a drawing view? Is it to document part/assy orientation with respect to the global 3D coordinate system, or is it to create view of a part geometric features that best support documentation and other downstream processes? While some drawing views (ex. iso) can be said to have cinemagraphic (camera position dependent) value those exist primarily to add clarity/context for the observer of the other "critical" views. What is important is part/assy geometric feature-to-feature relationships, not geometric feature relationships to the global 3D coordinate system. Therefore, the basis for a drawing view's is better when it is associated to actual part geometry than to one of the standard cube viewing angles with a one time opportunity to introduce a drawing view rotation.
"I am not sure that I would agree with your assessment that Onshape is 'flawed' or 'lame' - thousands of professional users
find it very productive, but we are always open to better ways of doing things."
The term "flawed" was in reference to the overly simplistic assumption that a part/assy design would always be orientated in 3D space where the standard viewing cube angles would be sufficient to create drawing views. While the term "lame" appears to be hyperbole, it is not. Currently, Onshape lacks the ability to create drawing views based on actual part/assy geometry, something that other CAD systems support, therefore, Onshape's is drawing view creation capability is crippled; the term "lame" is entirely appropriate.
I do not doubt that "thousands of professional users find it [Onshape drawing view creation] very productive", but I think this has more to do with engineers being engineers.... getting the job done in spite of limitations and inefficiencies. Granted, I am not a "Professional" user and I maybe the first person to point out this apparent weakness in Onshape. The original point of this posted question was to get a better understanding why the view rotation of a initial view could not be changed; I have yet to get a clear answer.
"Regarding your suggestion to define views based on a camera position, a target and entities to define horizontal and vertical,
I fear that professional users would find the number of clicks needed to define such a view as 'overly burdensome' in a
production environment."
All things considered I think you will be surprised at how much more "productive" a geometry based initial drawing view creation method is over the current method. If more detail about what is meant by "all things" is desired, I am willing to elaborate in a separate discussion thread.
"As a "Quick-Tip" - you know that you can throw a mate connector on any face and then 'align' the SECONDARY axis with any edge?
Once you have done that, just pick the mate connector and hit 'n' (for normal) on your kb"
I have observed an interesting behavior with Part Studio "Mate Connectors" that I doesn't make sense to me... might be a bug. I am going to start a "Question - Discussion" post on the issue. Interested in any comment you might have. I plan to post the question later today.