Improvements to Onshape - October 11th, 2024

Roy_Mutalik · October 10

Our 14th release of the year comes full of improvements in a lot of different areas. Let's jump right in.

GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS

EXCLUDE HIDDEN PARTS ON EXPORT

You can now choose if hidden instances are included or excluded from an output file during export.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/f9zjdy345m

PART STUDIO IMPROVEMENTS

PARTIAL FILLET END CONDITIONS

Two new end conditions have been added to the fillet feature, allowing you to parametrically define partial length fillets. The Entity End type allows you to select a reference at which to terminate the fillet. The Offset End type allows you to define a distance from the end of the fillet edge at which to terminate the fillet.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/5cjvkh8tyv

ELEVATE DEGREE OF BEZIER SKETCH CURVE

You can now elevate the degree of a Bezier sketch entity. Elevating the degree maintains the identical sketch geometry, while adding additional control points.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/xhcohmb5ul

ASSEMBLY IMPROVEMENTS

MASS PROPERTY CALCULATION WITH ITEMS EXCLUDED FROM BOM

An icon and warning have been added to indicate if a total calculated mass of an assembly does not include any part or assembly instances that are excluded from the Bill of materials. This is true for computed values in the Bill of material's table, and the assembly properties dialog.
A calculated assembly mass viewed from the Mass and section properties dialog always includes all instances, regardless of their status in the BOM.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/87uuflpk2g

UNFIX PARTS FROM TOP-LEVEL INSTANCES

Right-click on any assembly or subassembly and select the new Unfix all command to unfix all fixed instances within the selected subassemblies, folders, parametric Part Studios, patterns, and replicates.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/z1ij1yewkk

DRAWINGS IMPROVEMENTS

DETAIL VIEW STYLES

New Detail view styles have been added. The default Detail view style can be set from the Drawing properties panel.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/xyo9ux1jod

PROJECTED BREAK VIEWS SYNC WITH PARENT

If a Parent view contains a break, any Projected views created from that view inherits the break.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/hsqg3m5yj7

ENTERPRISE IMPROVEMENTS

NOTIFICATION OF GLOBAL PERMISSIONS CHANGE

When a change is made to your company's Global permissions, all Administrators are notified of the change by email.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/29/78rsj37p03m5.png

RENDER STUDIO IMPROVEMENTS

DELETE MULTIPLE INSTANCES

You can now multi-select and delete multiple instances at once in a Render Studio via the Scene list context menu. Note that you cannot delete faces or parts underneath a Part Studio/Assembly.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/ye/6os059xnowuy.gif

MERGE CHANGES

You can now Merge changes in a Render Studio. This allows you to leverage Onshape's powerful parallel design workflows through design branches, even when working on a rendering of your product.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/n5/upd1vmbag2n8.png

SELECT MULTIPLE APPEARANCES

Selecting multiple appearances at once, you can now navigate between your selections from the Appearance panel. Each appearance will independently cross-highlight the geometry it is applied to.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/up/9nyan3yw6zji.gif

INDICATION OF MANUAL TESSELLATION OVERRIDE

Any instances using a tessellation setting other than "Auto" displays a diamond icon in the Instance list. Hovering over the icon provides a tooltip showing the selected tessellation level.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/vu/mgsg0anumd6y.png

LEARNING CENTER IMPROVEMENTS

CERTIFICATION IMPROVEMENTS

The Certified Onshape Associate and Professional exams have been moved to a new platform that is embedded directly in the Learning Center. We hope this provides a more streamlined experience.

The Associate exam has been completely overhauled, including new modeling challenges and multiple choice questions.

INTRODUCTION TO THE ONSHAPE API COURSE

We are excited to release a new Introduction to the Onshape API course in the Learning Center. Learn the fundamentals of the Onshape API using the Onshape Glassworks API Explorer, which allows you to make API calls with zero code.

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. Over the next few days, these features will also be available in Documents created before this update.

shawn_crocker · October 11

Render studio looks like it is starting to pick up development momentum now. Very glad to be able to have a detail view linked with a leader.

S1mon · October 11

I'm very very happy to see that adjusting the degree of a Bézier was added to sketcher, but very very unhappy with how it was implemented.

Displaying the degree like that is really distracting. A sketch with a lot of Bézier curves in it is going to be full of visual noise. Sketcher really needs some sort of panel or pop-up window for detailed changes like this.
Increasing the degree works the way I would expect. Decreasing is a disaster. It makes no attempt to approximate the curve, nor does it work the way that Solidworks does where increasing and then immediately decreasing - while editing the degree - results in the same curve. A series of increase/decrease cycles, as this has been implemented in Onshape, results in a straight line. I really hope since this is a direct editing tool, that this will be improved in the near future.
The degree parameter looks like a dimension editing tool, but doesn't appear to be a real dimension. It won't allow a variable. The Rho parameter for Conics does allow this. I'm not sure why I would want to put a variable into this parameter, but it's definitely an odd thing.

Alex_Pitt · October 11

Thanks, some useful updates here. The new detail view options will save a lot of time in drawings and it's good to see syncing broken views. Hiding parts from export is very handy too!

romeograham · October 11

The Hiding parts from export is interesting.

The old default behaviour was to exclude hidden parts on export. This causes some problems because it could be tied to the hide/show state when an assembly was versioned or released. I ran into this when I Released an Assembly with a part hidden. The hidden part was released just fine, but was thereafter NOT able to be exported - even if it was visible in the released assembly!

This new button seems to indicate that the default has changed (meaning - by default it will export everything in the assembly, regardless of visibility state), and you can select the button to force the old default behaviour.

Nice to see the control either way!

rick_randall · October 11

I like the unfix option, it will help me go back and clean up some old models. Also the drawing improvements will be handy.

S1mon · October 11

I'm not sure which aspect of my post is spurring the down votes, but item #2 is really the important part for me. Here's an improvement request:
https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/25501/enable-decreasing-degree-of-bezier-to-attempt-to-maintain-shape-of-curve/

Lewis_Maina · October 11

Theses new features are compelling, unfixing all parts in high-level assembly is great time saver.

STEG · October 11

Always happy to see the novelties and improvements, but we rarely pay attention enough to all the bugs fixed with a new release: 13 this time and more than 220 only in 2024!

👏

Caden_Armstrong · October 11

an API learning centre course! I never thought I'd see that.

john_mcclary · October 11

Projected Break Views are now synced, About time! That took a huge load off my OCD

I'm excited about the new Detail View Styles, Unfix parts from top level (Always was annoyed by digging deep). I've been waiting for these for a long time too

I didn't realize hidden components weren't exported. That's actually nice. I like there is an option to do either.

antero_nick · October 11

Appreciate the work that went into making an improvement to the mass property management of assemblies in this update.

Curious if the feature request that I had submitted in 2020 is still on anyone's radar. Long story short: when there are multiple instances of the same part within an assembly their masses may all be the same, but their locations in space are different. Allowing for a BOM view that allows these per-instance unique attributes to be seen will help the mass property management workflow for large teams working in big assemblies - like aerospace vehicles.

https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/23741/manage-the-mass-properties-of-parts-within-an-assembly

ken_xu · October 12

“EXCLUDE HIDDEN PARTS ON EXPORT” been expecting this for a long time, great to see it.

robert_johnston · October 12

Thanks for this Update, good work Onshape.

In the changelog

"Fixed display of attempted failed geometry with when using sheet metal extrude on a closed profile"

This is a huge fix for me! Wonder if other sheet metal workers notice 😁

Chris_D_Mentes_001 · October 13

Detail View Style! Yet another checkmark off my bucket list! Now my drawings can look more like my colleagues.

Weirdly I never use splines for work but the bezier controll point adjuster still excites me.

And very VERY excited to see the API course is finally here!

Hans_Leirvik_1 · October 14

BREAK VIEWS SYNC

Finally !! Missed it for some time, long time … Thank you :) Very good!

JosefBurjeta · October 14

@S1mon +1 on the "Decrease and try to maintain the shape" improvement. Unless you go to the Degree 1, there's no excuse to create a straight line.

I already created a ticket to Detail view profile line. It's really nice to hide it completely, unfortunately you still need keep the one, which intersects 3D geometry to better understand what you're looking at. I would most likely create such line in phantom style, with option to use dashed or solid line. It's also important this line is thinner than 3D geometry so you can easily distinguish between detail boundary and 3D geometry.

Definitely need to got through API course, that sounds really interesting, thank you for that.

Partial Fillet with new options looks very promising, I need to test that but I believe it will be a great improvement for various design tasks.

Unfortunately, help URL in Enterprise is still general Help site for Structure view. Please check.

Fixed a specific help URL for Product structure view to link to proper documentation page

ole_bachmayer · October 14

https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/comment/108282#Comment_108282

This actually sounds like a great opportunity!, maybe you can manage to add the dergree-Handler (optional) to lines, so you can change a line to a spline and vice versa

S1mon · October 14

https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/comment/108295#Comment_108295

Very good points. I've added this to the improvement request thread. Other CAD tools definitely enable switching a line to spline and vice versa. Under the hood, lines are just degree one splines. Currently if you try to delete the middle control point from a degree two spline, you get this mathematically incorrect error message:

Nath_McC · October 15

I am very happy to see PRtOJECTED BREAK VIEWS SYNC WITH PARENT.