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.
Scaling a model using configuration tables and variables
graham_lock
Member Posts: 237 PRO
Hi,
I know it's possible to use transform with the scale option to scale a complete model but that doesn't allow features to be modified based on scale.
My use case is designing RC model planes and I'd like to scale the complete model.
It would be nice for example to have a configuration list of model scales, say 1/6, 1/5, 1/4 etc and for sketch dimensions to be changed based on selection. This approach would also mean that features could be modified based on config such that extrudes for ribs and formers, etc would use standard wood sizes,
I've experimented with this but scaling splines and maintaining their original profiles seems particularly difficult.
Is the above a sensible approach or is there a better way?
Any help appreciated.
Thank you.
Answers
There are tons of different approaches here. One way would be to acquire everything before you do your finishing features like fillet. For sketch profiles, you could offset them as a Surface, then scans that instead. Or you could introduce a multiplier variable to every single dimension…
Learn more about the Gospel of Christ ( Here )
CADSharp - We make custom features and integrated Onshape apps! Learn How to FeatureScript Here 🔴
Personally my modeling philosophy here would be to model all of the exterior shape and form parts as a first step and get an envelope shape going sort of like the first example given in the Master Model Workflows tech tip Onshape put out, and build the rest of your features based off of the primitive shapes defined in the seed studio. Then if you plan your features right, a scaling operation on that seed body will preserve the shape of all of the exterior dimensions while maintaining the manufacturability of downstream features. For example if you were working with sheet metal features or a shell feature or something similar it wouldn't matter whether your input body was a 2" cube or a 20" cube, the thickness of the operation is the same between the two.
I have multiple catalog parts that run scales across an order of magnitude from the smallest part to the largest part and I always take this approach to avoid juggling sketch geometry that works at small scale and fails at the large. Variables feel like the clever way out but in my experience they are almost always a trap.