Improvements to Onshape - January 10th, 2025

NeilCooke · January 7

Happy new year and welcome back to the latest Onshape update!

CONFIGURATIONS

CONFIGURATION INPUT VISIBILITY

The visibility of individual Configuration inputs can now be controlled based on user selections of previous inputs. This cleans up the user interface, removes redundant inputs, and improves the user experience.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/uh8rec8o7z?embedType=async&seo=true&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=1280

DOCUMENTS PAGE

DOCUMENT, FOLDER, AND PROJECT PROPERTIES

The Details panel on the Documents page now includes a Properties panel when a Document, Folder, or Project is selected. Using Categories and Custom properties enables company administrators to add more fields and other information to help manage and track what is related to a Project, Folder, or Document in addition to what it contains.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/4airlryxhi?embedType=async&seo=true&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=1280

SHEET METAL

EXPORT HOLE GEOMETRY

The major diameter geometry of counterbore and countersink holes can now be included or excluded from a flat pattern export. Layers in the exported DWG/DXF file separate this geometry based on hole direction (up/down).

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/hk055bzj1n?embedType=async&seo=true&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=1280

DRAWINGS

CHAMFER TEXT JUSTIFICATION

Justification of Chamfer dimension text can now be controlled by the settings in the Drawing properties or the Styles panel.

FORESHORTENED DIAMETER TEXT

A new grip point on the elbow of a foreshortened diameter dimension enables the text to be flipped to the left or right of the dimension line.

NOTE ORDER

Notes can now be ordered from Top to bottom (default) and Bottom to top to enable notes to be placed at the bottom of a drawing sheet and populate upwards when new notes are added.

SIMULATION

OVERRIDDEN MASS

Parts with assigned materials may have their mass overridden manually to allow for missing details or incorrect material properties. Simulation uses the actual material properties and ignores a mass override, so a new warning indicates that the assembly contains parts whose mass has been overridden. Create a custom material with a density that produces the required mass and assign it to the relevant parts.

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.

don_williams909 · January 10

I'm betting there's still no way to make countersink holes in curved sheet metal parts…

AngleC · January 10

Wow! Configuration Input Visibility is a game-changer! Thank you Onshape Team!

S1mon · January 10

A few lightweight changes and one massive one: configuration input visibility is a clever way to get some logic built into configurations. Hopefully logic driven configurations gets expanded to offer even more powerful things than just visibility.

bryan_lagrange · January 10

Kudos to export hole geometry!

chadstoltzfus · January 10

The configuration update is huge for us. We use configurations extremely heavily and this update is long awaited. Hopefully we can look forward to more configuration updates in the near future.

Rhett_Robinson · January 10

The configuration input updates are huge for me! Excited to dig into this more!

Caden_Armstrong · January 10

The configuration visibility is great.
I'd love to see more complex logic allowed and using variable values to set condition.

Like if a variable is within a range, show another configuration property.

Lewis_Maina · January 10

This release makes configurations extremely powerful having all possible combinations. What a big update. Thank you Onshape

dave_lapthorne · January 10

https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/comment/112024#Comment_112024

@don_williams909 , depending on exactly what your model needs to look like this might already be possible with a workaround of existing tools. Just takes some planning of the design and appropriately positioned reference planes/points for positioning your hole.
Our new Flatten surfaces tool allows you to lay things flat after modeling and then export that flat to a DXF. There are some caveats to that regarding distortion and bend allowances not being included in the current tool but it can definitely get you a starting point for sending over to a laser or waterjet.
Note that in my example below, the part is a thin extrude, not a regular sheet metal part.
Just an idea to help you out if you haven't already tried this approach.

MichaelPascoe · January 10

Thanks for the updates Team! These look pretty useful, especially conditional configuration inputs.

While were on the configuration topic, I think this one would be valuable: Conditional Configurations - Improvement Request

J_Fitch · January 10

Thank you for the sheet metal feature. This is one of many feature updates we have been asking for and it is great to finally see sheet metal getting a bit of love. Keep 'em coming!

aeromorrison · January 10

Great first update of the year! I love the configuration input visibility capability. This will be a big help. I'm also a fan of the Note Order change as bottoms-up notes are really common in many company standards. Additions to document metadata is also really powerful and shows investment into the underpinnings and robustness of the overall product. The Change Log also has 12 items that start with the word "Fixed". It's great to see Onshape staying serious about fixing bugs.

Excited to see what 2025 holds!

christopher_dziuba · January 11

Honestly thought this would come next week!! THANK YOU TEAM.
I'll be putting configuration visibility rules to good use soon!

andrew_kleinert · January 11

I've just realized - the change of feature partner on the login screen is synchronized with version updates?

That's a nice little touch - when going to log in and seeing the model is different, it creates an anticipation to see what has changed with the version! :)

randy_hommes295 · January 11

I noticed in the Documents Page video that Supplier Data was misspelled.

bryan_lagrange · January 11

Suppier Data is data that is from a parallel universe. Onshape has servers in multiple universes now. You can access with Onshape Interstellar. 😀

EvanReese · January 11

I'm so pumped about the update to configurations!

robert_stiles · January 11

https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/comment/112026#Comment_112026

Yep, this is so great for us… but still we want more power !

christopher_dziuba · January 12

Wait hang on what the hell everything was looking great and then I started excluding config options from properties and my config visibility settings got all messed up!

ilya_baran · January 12

@S1mon @robert_stiles @chadstoltzfus Could you be more specific on what you're looking for? We have our own ideas, but are always interested in hearing from customers.

@christopher_dziuba I'm guessing you're running into the (intentional) restriction that a configuration input (call it x) that is excluded from properties cannot control the visibility of one that is not (call it y). Otherwise, changing x could hide y, setting it to its default value and indirectly affecting the properties.

EvanReese · January 12

@ilya_baran This update already gets me most of what I've wanted so thank you! But ideas I've had are:

setting the min/max of a variable input based on other inputs. For example, if a user picked Pipe A from a list, then don't let them make it longer than the stock material.
hide/show inputs based on boolean logic on variable values. For example if(#myLength > 1 * ft), then show a different list below, or limit the values on a given list input
I don't know if it would work for everyone, but I daydream about setting up my config inputs with FeatureScript exactly as I would a feature UI.
simultaneous equations. This one is low on my list, but it could be interesting to allow solving simultaneous equations between variables so that a value entered in one, will update another one and vice versa. This could be similar to how Neil did the UI on the Gear feature.

Trina_Jamora · January 13

Thank you for the updates! They are very helpful.

Nath_McC · January 13

Great update! By far the best update this year 😉

ilya_baran · January 13

@Nath_McC Trust me, it's not 😉

chadstoltzfus · January 13

@ilya_baran

A few of these have already been mentioned but just to reiterate a couple of high impact ones for us:

Suppressing with logic/conditional statements
Reorder configuration inputs (drag and drop, or honestly anything other than what we currently have). *Worth noting that in our enterprise, throughout all of time, we have moved inputs over 64,000 times
Multi-editing tool for configuration parameters (shift click to move up/down several or shift click to delete)
Configure configurations parameters (have options in a drop down show/not show based on previous selections)
Configure configuration variable limits
Folders/parameter groups for configuration parameters
Descriptions for configuration options

We've made support tickets for each of these going into more detail/use cases for them. We make pretty complex configurations to the point where we have hired people whose full time job is to manage and update configuration in Onshape. Updates even as simple as speeding up reordering configuration inputs would have saved hours of work in the past.

Also what @EvanReese mentioned about building configuration UIs in a similar way to FeatureScript would also be very welcomed.

SethF · January 13

The configuration update - Absolute game changer. Biggest game changer since Minecraft added the Bundle.

nicolas_lagas_Sulzer · January 13

Wow, the configuration thing with conditions etc is all what I was waiting for! Great stuff

Theo_R · January 13

Configurations is the start of a series of features we have been waiting for. Awesome!!!
THANK YOU!

Nick_Holzem · January 13

@ilya_baran I've had a chance to use configuration visibility now, like the others have already said more logic would go a long way.

Adding and/or options, range setups, or inclusive search/sort would be even more valuable.

We'd like to set up clearance model assemblies that start from a large pick list. Then sort down based on brand, length, or other attributes and options. Multiple filter options could be chosen to narrow down options or kept broad. Most shopping websites have this sort of filter. Men's or women's, clothing type; tops/bottoms/jackets/base layer/outerwear, size, color etc. Its important it allows multiple selection per category.

The link Michael Pascoe shares a link to an improvement request with more examples. I'm glad to see this one come to fruition, configuration publisher in SolidWorks was something I had used with in a previous role. It had some shortcomings but was useful. I think Onshape has a chance to knock it out of the park.

Thank you

MK81 · January 14

Is there a way to add variable studios to configurations? Or is this feature yet to be implemented

I want to have different configurations of the variable studio, which affects all parts in the document. Currently, we can only add local variables to a configuration table, which only affects that part.