New Custom feature: Publish geometry

I'm pleased to announce that my Publish geometry Custom feature is now… published.

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/40d43cad542dccfa4772d7e1/v/856bd2b631f7e35c4a2b34ad/e/788996d08647863b81b2ff61

Like many other CAD systems (Creo, CATIA etc) the Publish geometry is intended to make Top Down Design workflows much more efficient by providing an easy way to collate references (bodies, faces, curves, sketches, mate connectors) needed for certain downstream activities into a single feature. This feature creates a (composite) part that can be Derived into other Part Studios, into the same or other documents.

Because the Publish geometry creates a part, it can be version/revision managed, ensuring that downstream collaborators always are working with the correct references.

The Publish geometry can also be inserted into an assembly to provide a "scaffold" for assembly of other instances. For this reason, the "Exclude from BOM" property is set by default, though you can override this.

Intended usage is for this feature to be used on high level, skeleton (early concept/layout) parts, and NOT at the end of a multi-hundred feature epically detailed Part studio. The reason for this? When a Derive feature is used, it regenerates and carries along with it the contents of the whole part studio. So even if you only "published" one face, it will carry the weight of everything else in the Part studio. Hence it should be used early in skeleton/layout Part Studios where you are laying out the interfaces, the key keepin/keepout bodies, the key csys/datums (Mate connectors!) and so on.

If you do have a complex assembly (either from a an existing native Onshape assembly or a giant imported STEP file) then it can be used in the following way: create an in-context Part studio (ICPS) of the assembly, then in that ICPS, use the Publish geometry feature on only the key references you need! The double good whammy here is that 1) the ICPS will ensure that the Part studio is lightweight, and 2) you get all the benefits of the Publish geometry workflow.

I made a quick video to introduce this: