Improvements to Onshape - August 1st, 2018

cody_armstrong

It's the first of August and and we are back again with another list of great improvements. These improvements includes new features as well as major performance and usability improvements. Let's get started.

CAD IMPROVEMENTS

REORDER MULTIPLE FEATURES

You can now reorder multiple features in the feature list at once. Simply left-click each feature that you want to move and drag them to their new position in the tree. In the past, this was limited to moving one feature at a time.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/oh60p94uqy

MATE CONNECTOR AS AXIS

You can now select a mate connector as a reference for an axis. This can be particularly useful in commands like transform where you may want to rotate with respect to a mate connector, or a command like circular pattern in situations where these is no easily selectable circular reference. When selecting a mate connector as an axis, the Z axis of the mate connector is used.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/0i5fvftqf8

SHEET METAL PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS

Performance improvements are something we are always working on and rarely highlight. But the performance improvements to sheet metal parts in this update are especially noteworthy. In more complex multi-part sheet metal Part Studios, we are seeing significant rebuild time improvements. Below is a simple 15 feature sheet metal Part Studio that saw over a 25% decrease in rebuild time.

LEARNING CENTER IMPROVEMENTS

Major improvements have been made to the Onshape Learning Center. The most noticeable improvement is the new, more intuitive interface with better search features. This also includes a new learning pathway dashboard that makes it easier to track your progress. New videos have also been added to Onshape Assemblies and Document Management courses. Finally, two new Learning Center courses are being added; Part Configurations and Advanced Configurations.

HELP IMPROVEMENTS

Improvements have been made to the Help homepage. These improvements include a new tiled interface that makes it easier to navigate.

PROFESSIONAL FEATURES

CHANGE TO REVISION

You can now change existing parts or assemblies to a revision in both the assembly and drawing. This means you can now change to all stages of the workflow, from the active workspace, to a version, and finally to a release.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/d5o31477bt

Please take a moment to try out these new features and improvements and leave your comments below. For a detailed list of all the changes in this update, please see the changelog.

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.

owen_sparks

Great stuff folks, well done
Owen S.

jackson_king

If only I had procrastinated 1 more hour, I could have used the "change to revision" update!!!

Great set of updates Onshape team!

brucebartlett

Awesome to see some more updates! I have been long desiring the group drag, this will really help when reordering features. Also looking forward to the Sheetmetal speed improvements. Thanks Team.

garrett_rayner

The new "Change to Revision" feature just made my week. Thank you for all the hard work, and making an already awesome product better by the month!

Paul_Arden

Just when I get finished individually dragging a whole mess of features up my feature list one at a time

Small touch but it's really great when you need it, particularly since it's easy to mess up the order when doing it one at a time.

Song_Yikun

Great idea of select a mate connector as a reference for an axis. Absolutely Onshape style！👍👍👍

EricGauthier

- Mate connector as axis
- Sheet Metal Performance Improvement
- Advanced Part Configurations Course

Make my day! 

GWS50

All improvements are brilliant, thank you.
especially - Change to version,Mate connector as axis,Multiple reorder

Don_Van_Zile

As always, Onshape is Ontrack. Great update! Like gamer's anticipating the next update, Onshape users only have to wait ~3 weeks (The "Gamification" of CAD era.

NeilCooke

We very rarely mention new additions to the mobile apps, but I think it is worth mentioning that you can now export 3D models and DXF of a model face in iOS.

emagdalenaC2i

All the improvement are welcome, but I like the most the performance improvements!!

@NeilCooke maybe you should add the mobile improvements in the changelog.
And even you could sort all the improvements in:

• Onshape Standard
• Professional
• Enterprise
• Mobile (IOs)
• Mobile (Android)

emagdalenaC2i

En este enlace podéis ver las Novedades de Onshape en español:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbOl2IjLc0o

john_mcclary

Missed this update, didn't get the usual notification when logging in.

Only noticed today when I reordered a feature on the tree and saw you improved the rollback bar and drag&drop UX/UI. It is much better now that it is a thin blue line rather than shuffling the features around in a hard to position way. Thanks a ton for that!

Can't wait to put your sheet-metal performance claim to the test 

lana

@john_mcclary and others. We continue to work on sheet metal performance. Please report if your models don't demonstrate good improvements.

Don_Van_Zile

john_mcclary said:

Only noticed today when I reordered a feature on the tree and saw you improved the rollback bar and drag&drop UX/UI. It is much better now that it is a thin blue line rather than shuffling the features around in a hard to position way. Thanks a ton for that!

I have had an issue with this and hope it has improved. Wow, this team is good.

manolito

Thanks for the revison update guys! This is what we need.

brucebartlett

NeilCooke said:

We very rarely mention new additions to the mobile apps, but I think it is worth mentioning that you can now export 3D models and DXF of a model face in iOS.

Thanks, that is so good, I've always wanted dxf export from the app. Did this happen from the forum posts last week or was it about to happen anyway? 

NeilCooke

@brucebartlett I'd like to say that we can react that quickly, but no, it had been planned for a while.

StephenG

REORDER MULTIPLE FEATURES

Love the abillity (finally) to reorder multiple selected features. Like the fact the feature selection does not have to be contigious.

MATE CONNECTOR AS AXIS

Nice to see Onshape starting to recognize the need to be able to leverage supplemental geometry (non part/model geometry) to facilitate modeling. But instead of piece meal trying to make a Mate Connector into something it really isn't (a coordinate system) why not add the ability to create fully capable coordinate system entities?

Image how useful it would be to have an single entity with 3 othangonal planes, 3 perpendicular axis, and an origin point that could be referenced/leveraged during the design modeling process.

Image how useful it would be to create a coordinate system network that belongs to a Part Studio to faciliate part/feature modeling in the context of a Part Studio.

Image how useful it would be to create a Part where the first feature is a coordinate system making it possible to create named null parts as design place holders.

Image how useful it would be to be able to attach a coordinate system to part geometry and always have it move with the entity(ies) it was associated to. 

Leave the functionality of Mate Connector as-is: to faciliate assembly process. Give us true coordinate system entities to facititate geometry creation.

Don_Van_Zile

@StephenG I like the way your thinking with the Mate Connector philosophy related to true coordinate system relationships (NX has this, but it's advanced and mature). I see no reason why the Mate Connector couldn't be expanded on in the future with these capabilities. Who knows, it's may be in the "future" development path. I do think they're headed in the right direction regardless for now at least; I'm confident in this agile team and advancing quickly. 

owen_sparks

@StephenG
All that sounds great for the future, but all I wanted to do was rotate a square part so I'm already happy 😀

Owen S.

3dcad

I have learned to like Onshape way of determining direction with plane or face, using a simple sketch line as axis for revolution and using mate connectors as coordinate system. I'm happy with the approach they took here.

Reordering multiple features at once is awesome, now we can avoid things breaking while reordering

Great update!

jackson_king

3dcad said:

I have learned to like Onshape way of determining direction with plane or face, using a simple sketch line as axis for revolution and using mate connectors as coordinate system. I'm happy with the approach they took here.

Reordering multiple features at once is awesome, now we can avoid things breaking while reordering

Great update!

I totally agree with @3dcad, when I first started using Onshape and was coming from solidworks, I tried to do things the “old way” cause that’s what I knew. Which also meant I tried to make things harder than it needed to be;). Onshape’s “deceptively” simple interface and ease of use can come across as under developed or basic but I think that’s where the beauty of it all lies. Just because other CAD programs have told us to use coordinate systems doesn’t mean we have to with Onshape. We were also told that CAD has to be natively installed on an expensive workstation.....🤔

Jake_Rosenfeld

Hi All!

In addition to Mate Connectors new being usable as an axis, they are also usable in fields that take a direction!  Try it out for Direction of Linear Pattern, Translate by distance, or Move face by translation!

The direction that is used is the Z (blue) direction of the mate connector.

ilya_baran

To paraphrase Shakespeare a bit:

What's in a name?  That which we call a mate connector
By any other word would provide a coordinate system.

StephenG

I would like to take the opportunity to expand on the term "piece meal" I used in my orignal comment.

"...instead of piece meal trying to make a Mate Connector into something it really isn't..."

I really appreciate the Onshape's commitment to rolling out incremental improvements every few weeks, but often I am left scratching my head as to how incommplete incremental improvements have been implemented. The Mate Connector As Axis improvement is a prime example.

Why is the axis assumed/limited to just the "Blue" axis; shouldn't the "Red" or "Green" axis be a perfectly logical option? And why can't a Mate Connector be used to establish a sketch, or create a plane? The Mate Connector in its present form is piss poor local coordinate system.

I forgot to include an "Image" reason in my orginal comment.

Image being able to use a coordinate system to establish a frame of reference, different than the Global Coordinate System, such that coordinate locations (XYZ) and projected (DX,DY,DZ) values are returned in a meaninful way.

Confession  
I confess I may be carrying forward a bias from my prior MCAD experience with respect to using coordinate system entities, but I do not see it as wanting to do it the "old way".  When I first started using OS, I was surprised the only supplemental 3D entity available was a plane; creating a 3D point, or 3D line required creating a 2D sketch. To quote Dark Vader, "I find your lack of [coordinate systems] disturbing.".Fundementally, Coordinate Systems support workflows that begin at a lower conceptual level without the need to create 3D part geometry and allow for radical geometrical changes in parts design with greatly increased model robustness. You do not absolutely need them in OS, but they would be a wonderful addition instead of slowing expanding what can be done with a Mate Connector.       

ilya_baran

@StephenG
I agree that mate connectors need improvement (to be as useful as a general coordinate system) and we're working on it, but are you saying you'd rather us not have shipped "Mate Connector As Axis" until we've implemented other improvements?  I'm not sure what would be gained by that.  In any case, the ability to use a mate connector to establish a sketch is coming soon.

APD

More great work! Love the team at OS!

3dcad

I love the way how Onshape roll's out new stuff immediately when it's good enough to add value. Then they improve step by step according to users needs. This also makes it so easy to learn, first just basic functions then advanced, more advanced and finally special functions.

Instead of other cads who build up things for a year or two then launch something massive that no one knows how to use. And after few months launch another massive hotfix-service-pack that changes everything you have learned by then. After that they forget about left over bugs since they need to concentrate on another massive package for coming years. User ideas are pain in the *ss since they already know everything so much better than some 2nd class ordinary users who haven't even developed any software and still keep throwing ideas.. duh.. 

michael3424

What surprises me is how smoothly the updates integrate with the rest of the package.  They must have some really smart people doing the planning and implementation of new features.