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Improvements to Onshape - September 19th, 2025
mlaflecheCAD
Member, Onshape Employees, Developers Posts: 189 
This release introduces the powerful new Assembly Mirror tool, connection to Arena PLM Enterprise for AWS GovCloud with Onshape for Government as well as a number of user interface, drawings and performance improvements.
CAD IMPROVEMENTS
ASSEMBLY MIRROR
Mirror parts and subassemblies with flexible strategies for symmetric and asymmetric components, mirrored motion, and integration with versions, configurations, and release workflows.
This is a deep and complex feature. As with any major new function, we welcome you to share any improvements you would like to see implemented with us.
CONFIGURE SKETCH PATTERN INSTANCE COUNT
Onshape now supports controlling the instance count of patterned sketch geometry through configuration controls.
DRAWINGS IMPROVEMENTS
NAMED VIEWS IN DRAWINGS
Named views with section cuts created in Part Studios and Assemblies can now be reused directly in Drawings, with support for the Exclude option.
BOM CALLOUTS
Structured Bills Of Materials tables at the top level can now reference views of subassemblies. This allows a single BOM to drive balloons across subassembly views, removing the need for multiple BOM tables.
JIS DRAWING TEMPLATES
Onshape now supports Japanese Institute for Standardization (JIS) drawing templates. Select JIS under Custom Templates and use the provided A0–A4 templates as a starting point for your drawings.
DATA MANAGEMENT IMPROVEMENTS
ACTION ITEMS SEARCH AND FILTER
The Action items panel has been updated with a new layout and tools. The Create task button is now at the top, a Search bar makes it easy to find tasks or comments, and filters now include Assignee, Part number, and other task properties.
DRAG AND DROP INTO FOLDERS
Documents can now be organized with drag-and-drop into subfolders from the list view.
ONSHAPE FOR GOVERNMENT CONNECTION TO ARENA PLM ENTERPRISE FOR AWS GOVCLOUD
Onshape for Government now connects with Arena PLM Enterprise for AWS GovCloud, creating an end to end, secure, cloud-native environment for CAD, PDM, PLM, quality, and supply chain collaboration, helping government contractors and defense organizations work with greater accuracy and confidence.
ONSHAPE FOR EDUCATION
PREVIEW AS STUDENT MODE
Onshape Educator now includes a new Preview as student toggle, allowing instructors to view classes and assignments exactly as their students see them.
CAM STUDIO
COMPONENTS LIST UPDATE
The components list in CAM Studio has been redesigned to match Onshape’s UI. It now shows parts, stock, and workholding, with options to hide, show, delete, or open referenced items for faster access and control.
RENDER STUDIO
QUICK UPDATES TO REFERENCES CHANGES
Render Studio now updates geometry and configuration changes without reloading the entire scene, improving workflow speed and making it easier to work with evolving designs.
ORIENTATION CONTROL FOR FILAMENT APPEARANCE
Added Orientation ▸ Rotation (X, Y, Z) controls for filament (FFF) appearances, allowing simulated layer lines to match the actual print orientation instead of being limited to vertical or horizontal.
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.
Regards,
Mike LaFleche @mlaflecheCAD
15
Comments
ASSEMBLY MIRROR! FINALLYYYYYY!
Wow. One of the most requested improvements is now - finally - here. Mirror in assembly. One thing that wasn't mentioned, but I assume that when a derived part is made for a true LH/RH version, that threaded holes are still all the same (e.g. typically right handed)?
All the other improvements seem more substantial than usual. Nice to see all of this.
Simon Gatrall | Product Development Specialist | Open For Work
Assembly mirror but still no assembly planes!
MADE MY DAY!!! MIRROR IN ASSEMBLY!!! THANKS!!!
Assembly Mirror is so nice to see. I'm always impressed when Onshape releases a feature like this by how clever and powerful the UI for it is. This implementation is simple, clean, and yet powerful.
Not quite sure how I feel about movement always being mirrored since this is sort of a combination of a mirror mate and a tool to create mirrored parts. But I suppose if I need an opposite-handed part that moves independently I can create that in a different assembly tab.
Thank you so much for the Assembly Mirror feature! It will save me a significant amount of time in the future, as well as reduce the likelihood of user errors.
This is an AMAZING update. If the Onshape team takes off for the rest of the year, I will not even be one bit upset. Having mirror in assemblies has removed the only legitimate excuse someone might have to hold onto SWX. Truly outstanding and implemented even better than expected.
Yep. I cringed each time @mlaflecheCAD created an implicit mate connector in the demo video on an edge which is likely to change or disappear as the design evolves.
Simon Gatrall | Product Development Specialist | Open For Work
@S1mon my bad…. I really could have placed on a more stable reference, a mate connector from the part or at the assembly level or even a layout sketch/surface. But I did want to show that it is ready for an implicit mate connector right from the get go.
David - thank you for your comment and all discourse is welcome.
Yes this comment is below Michael's, mia culpa and while there may be legitimate reasons to use an implicit MC, I agree that while 'mating as high in the tree as possible' (as a parametric modeling standard) can involve planes, there are many benefits to Onshape that obviate this. One is the use of high level mates enabling most parts to be mated using only 1 mate - this is made possible by MC's (planes encourage use of low level mates - which are still provided in Onshape because we love everyone :)). I will point out that you are more than welcome to add a MC to the origin as I agree it makes sense if this is the mid plane of the assembly that you would like to mirror. I will leave you with an ask - moving forward we intend to leverage MCs in more and increasingly powerful ways. If there is something you feel we could do to improve MC's, please let us know. Meanwhile please enjoy mirror and remember, this is our first release and we want to know where you think we should take it.
@mlaflecheCAD
It's convenient that implicit MCs work, but I agree with @david_littlefair373 's basic point. We need a default way to reference the origin and/or the non-existent default datums of an assembly.
See:
https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/24162/assembly-planes-where-are-they
https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/16948/cross-section-through-origin-by-default
Simon Gatrall | Product Development Specialist | Open For Work
Easy enough to add explicit MC to any of the main part CL (or directly in the assembly)… You can just create an implicit MC at the origin on the fly in any of the 3 axes so not sure what the big deal is…
I don't work a lot with symmetric assemblies so this hasn't been a huge issue personally but it looks to be nicely implemented!
Named section views in drawings are going to be a lot quicker to setup! Now we just need the ability to control the "regions" that are cut when using multiple section planes!
Also pretty excited to not have to reload the whole render studio to change configuration!
RE default planes:
The only issue I can think off is if you have "stuff" that make selecting the origin tricky but hardly a difficult process…
Adding the option to save an assembly "template" would allow users to add 3 default MCs on the origin and solve this (and other requests…)
@eric_pesty It's easy for you or I to add/create the mate connectors, but much like manually resizing datum planes, it seems like something that we shouldn't need to do. Also having been around a number of very smart engineers at a couple companies who are relatively new to Onshape, I would say that the lack of an obvious way to pick a default plane/axis is really a stumbling block. For certain types of parts in an assembly, it makes creating cross sections impossible without adding MCs or other extra references.
Simon Gatrall | Product Development Specialist | Open For Work
Haven't had a chance to watch yet, but @GregBrown has a detailed look at Mirror in Assembly:
Simon Gatrall | Product Development Specialist | Open For Work
True,
Having the option to include MCs at the origin by default would basically solve this.
The section view is actually more of an issue. I'm not sure why the section tool doesn't allow implicit mate connectors! Especially since you can snap the section point to any implicit MC locations after it's been created! If you don't have a starting point you first have to add an explicit MC (at least you can use the right click and add to instance shortcut), which is pretty dumb… If mousing over the origin gave you the option to pick one of the directions to start the section I would think it would mostly solve the issue…
Correct we are not flipping thread tags in the hole feature but if you model threads it will.
Mate Connectors are Planes
Mate Connectors are Points
Mate Connectors are Coordinate Systems
Mate Connectors are Directions
Love the implementation of the different strategies being applied on a per-part basis and warning you when you're about to generate 8 left handed variants of parts before you let the assembly mirror rip. Now I'll just need to keep an eye out for my team members' data practices to make sure I don't end up with a left handed fastener library accidentally like last time.
I do see an gap in the derive mirror workflow where the way it would work as implemented you might find yourself mirroring a part and then selectively unmirroring faces and features on that part. Might call for a sequel to Lefty Flip. Time to write Righty Flip?
Yes, this has made my day—mirror in assembly. Looks great, and I can not wait to use it. This should hopefully save days, if not weeks, of work per year.
Twitter: @onshapetricks & @babart1977
I'm guessing you are talking about adding feature to the "original" part after it's been mirrored in the assembly but not propagating these to the mirrored part?
I would think that making mirrored parts "different" should be a bit of an edge case.
Might be easier to mirror the part in the part studio for these cases…
Probably more applicable to assemblies, although here it looks like you can already suppress some of the mirrored items and add other ones in the mirror assembly so easy enough to create a "mostly mirrored" assembly!
Just found an improvement opportunity: it's currently not possible to manually configure things in the mirrored assembly. So if you add an extra part and or suppress something from the source, you can't add that to the configurations.
I can understand how adding configuration inputs in there would get messy but adding stuff to the exiting ones would provide even more flexibility!
After seeing all of the strange cases that had to be considered with Assembly Mirror I can understand why it took as long as it did to happen. It's a lot to wrap my head around. Glad it's finally here though and the implementation is as thoughtful as ever!
The Onsherpa | Reach peak Onshape productivity
www.theonsherpa.com
I'd like if any of the 3 "planes" of a MC could be used, anywhere a MC is referenced. Either as a sketch plane, or a mirror plane, etc. Limiting it to the XY "plane" of the MC is annoying, IMO. Thanks.
It's also quite neutered. You can't even reference a MC to place another MC.
No it's a bit more edge case than that even, but something I run into often enough that it's a reason I developed Lefty flip. Say you have a purchased part that comes in only one handed configuration but you need to make left and right handed assemblies to wrap around it. Squirrel cage blowers are my everyday example, they only make em in one spiral for the products we use. To make parts that interact with these, the hole patterns and pockets and features that touch the purchased part won't want to be mirrored, but will be integral to a part which must otherwise be mirrored. So I have to mirror the whole part minus a handful of features on the part.
Lefty Flip enables me to just define all the inverting stuff above the mirror in the tree, and non-inverting stuff below it which makes all the IDs work out upstream in an assembly because the faces are the same just transformed.
Righty Flip would be the opposite direction where you've got your assembly mirror derived studio part with all the faces and features that were mirrored from the original and you want to flip some back the other way because you forgot that you had modeled thread geometry that's now opposite handed and you need the undo button.
Can I mirror a full assembly or will I have to make it a "sub assembly" in order to mirror it across
when is onshape CAM coming to EDU?? isn't it supposed to be there already?
This entire update looks terrific to me, especially the assembly mirror. Mirror has been a long waited feature but the implementation is great and worth the wait.
perhaps mate connectors need a hip cool new name that would be all the rage and go viral.
Rotational axes too.