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Mate Connectors vs Planes - Why oh Why??
A question about in-context part editing reminded me of something that's been bothering me in the back of my mind....
There's a lot of overlap between the functionality of planes and mate connectors. They started as clearly different things with different purposes, but they're evolving to cover many of the same uses. Why are they still different things?
Both can be used for:
Planes are not owned by a part, but independent MCs in a part studio have to be owned by a part. A MC "inline" another feature isn't visible outside of that feature and it doesn't need to be owned by a part.
Planes are not visible at the assembly level, but MCs are. At an assembly level, planes can't be used for cross sections or in-context editing.
MCs are not as powerful/flexible as planes when it comes to some geometric creation constraints, but MCs can be moved around and re-oriented much more easily than planes.
MCs don't need to be manually resized because they're just a symbol with an orientation. Planes can be resized, have names on screen and can be selected more easily if they are resized appropriately.
Due to some of these weird combinations of issues I've found myself using MCs in some places where I would have used planes in Creo or Solidworks.
I'm sure I'm missing some other key differences, but how are other people navigating this? What changes or improvements would make this make more sense?
There's a lot of overlap between the functionality of planes and mate connectors. They started as clearly different things with different purposes, but they're evolving to cover many of the same uses. Why are they still different things?
Both can be used for:
- sketch planes
- cross section planes
Planes are not owned by a part, but independent MCs in a part studio have to be owned by a part. A MC "inline" another feature isn't visible outside of that feature and it doesn't need to be owned by a part.
Planes are not visible at the assembly level, but MCs are. At an assembly level, planes can't be used for cross sections or in-context editing.
MCs are not as powerful/flexible as planes when it comes to some geometric creation constraints, but MCs can be moved around and re-oriented much more easily than planes.
MCs don't need to be manually resized because they're just a symbol with an orientation. Planes can be resized, have names on screen and can be selected more easily if they are resized appropriately.
Due to some of these weird combinations of issues I've found myself using MCs in some places where I would have used planes in Creo or Solidworks.
I'm sure I'm missing some other key differences, but how are other people navigating this? What changes or improvements would make this make more sense?
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Those are important distinctions. I would also add to that analysis: the number of clicks it takes to adjust or reorient a plane or MC. For instance, the rotate option in a MC is much easier to use than trying to reverse engineer what the plane tool has done behind the scenes to orient itself. If I sketch something and want to move it around other places on the model, if I use a MC I can quickly change the angle or location in a way that's not so easy with a plane. However if I need something through 3 points, or tangent, I'm kinda stuck with a plane.
Note that you can use the excellent "multi mate connector" feature to get around this (using the "path" setting) and locate it anywhere along the path:
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/5d8da63844bedebe5cff72b1/v/a2f8d68037aff39e9d20f7a1/e/11dcab8f665add80b9aced0a
Stumbled upon this thread again after someone asked me why they shouldn't just use mate connectors instead of planes. I don't understand why we have both anymore, if mate connectors could be created with the options that planes use we wouldn't need the overlap and two distinct features that are almost the same but not quite.
@rhett_robinson, Certain features can't use mate connectors, like intersect curve for example.
Mate connectors have gotten more powerful and flexible since this thread was created, but one of the few things that I still use planes for is when I need to define it by 3 points. As far as I know, there's no native way to do so with a mate connector. I don't know if any of the custom features out there have that option.
3 points define a plane, not a coordinate system. A 3 points to mate connector feature is trivial, but requires deciding where the origin and X direction are. But if that doesn't matter you can just arbitrarily assign them.
Like this:
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/f48a9eeb29030a62164655de/w/bdfce252a6613fbac812717e/e/6128b12380b3a53e8a0c7fc6
Custom FeatureScript and Onshape Integrated Applications
Yes, technically you're correct, but the way that planes are defined the first point you select is the origin, the second defines the X axis and the third gets rid of the last degree of freedom. The same could happen with defining a mate connector.
That should be a reasonable thing that could get taken care of though. I don't see why a mate connector shouldn't be an option.
That is a great point. I also love how quickly you whipped up that code. 😆
Multi-mate connector can do it but it's more clicks than ideal…
Place the MC on your first point and use reference vertex option for both primary and secondary axis, the only issue is that you 3 points are now on the xz plane of the MC so you have to add a 90deg rotation on X to have the z axis normal to the plane defined by your 3 points.
Also agree that origin, x and a 3rd selection would make a lot of sense for defining a 3pt MC, that's really the only thing that I think is "missing" from the multi-mate connector FS!
3pt MC FS should be trivial. Might try when I have a moment during FRC robot design season rn.
I've finished up the feature with an icon, user manual, etc
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/f48a9eeb29030a62164655de/w/bdfce252a6613fbac812717e/e/6128b12380b3a53e8a0c7fc6
@S1mon I've updated the origin/xaxis as per your suggestion to use the first point as the origin and the 1st to 2nd as the x axis.
@Rhett_Robinson - I work quickly ;)
@joshtargo - I've beat you to it
Custom FeatureScript and Onshape Integrated Applications
@Caden_Armstrong
This is great.
Ideally this functionality would be build into the first party MC feature, along with some of the features of MultiMateConnector.
At a bare minimum, the flip direction and rotate buttons would be good to have, but again, it would be better if there was one, more powerful, standard, way to do all of this.
But won't someone think of the traditional CAD users? I can see the forum posts already.… 😀
I'm guessing mate connectors would be the future with the plane button possibly hidden but kept for backwards compatibility?
😤
Again, a nice easy to use FS which can be applied to lots of situations. One of the first I just tried is to quickly create connectors for 3D section views that actually make sense. I can think of a lot more applications. Thank you! :0)
I also have Center Mate, one of my first FS. I need to maybe work on it a bit more, but it can be very useful for doing a "Between" Mate among multiple entities.
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/d57ab129ace0b2436049095c/w/bb8f5d1770f7c22ad70c7906/e/e82d0e227fa7011dc08e340c