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Improvements to Onshape - August 20th, 2018
It’s the middle of August and while a lot of people may be on vacation we’ve been working on a large release for those still in their offices with us. As always, let us know what you think in the comments below.
CAD IMPROVEMENTS
CREATE A SKETCH FROM A MATE CONNECTOR
You can now define a sketch using a mate connector in addition to planes and planar faces. The advantage is the ability to define the sketch horizontal and vertical using the mate connector axes - which do not have to match the global orientation.
ADJUST ARROWHEAD SIZE IN ONSHAPE DRAWINGS
You can now adjust the arrowhead size and type in both the dimensions tab and annotations tab of the drawing properties panel.
AUTOMATIC INCREASE IN TESSELLATION QUALITY
USER NOTIFICATION PREFERENCES
Users now have more control over email and mobile notifications in Onshape. Under the account settings, you can now specifically manage when and how you are notified about actions that occur for sharing and commenting.
IMPORT FEATURE CHANGES
Onshape now defaults to importing parts with faults in the import dialog. After an import occurs you can edit the import feature and toggle the option to allow faulty parts. If there are faults in imported geometry, the error graphics will help reveal where a part is problematic.

DRAWING EXPORT IMPROVEMENTS
DRAWINGS TABLE PROPERTIES PANEL TAB
Drawings tables now have a tab in the properties panel to adjust line thickness, text height, text color, and more for both BOM tables and tables created in a drawing.
RENAME SELECTION SUPPORT FOR DRAWING VIEWS AND SHEETS
The hotkey 'Shift + N' to rename is now supported for drawing views and sheets.SKETCH FILLET IMPROVEMENTS
Sketch fillets now better support applying a radius that is smaller than the default value. An indicator of where the current radius is located on the sketch will assist you to click and drag the radius to an appropriate value.IN-CONTEXT INTERFACE IMPROVEMENTS
The interface for editing in context now organizes multiple contexts and helps to avoid the creation of any unneeded contexts. The right-click menu is now organized based on the action you want to perform first, and then the choices for which context you would like to be affected.
REFERENCE PARAMETERS IN FEATURESCRIPT
Consuming Part Studio, imported CSV, and imported image data in custom features has been improved with the addition of Reference Parameters. Custom features can now prompt the user to select geometry from a Part Studio, CSV data from an imported file, or an image as input to the feature. You can use Reference Parameters to import sketch profiles to build your own custom library features or to import CSV data to build curves. This makes your custom features more flexible and universal and opens up an enormous amount of possibilities. The video shows Reference Parameters integrated into the Beams custom feature, referencing a standard library of 80/20 profiles.
A detailed overview of all types of reference parameters can be found in the FeatureScript imports documentation. Example features using reference parameters can be found in the Reference parameter examples document. Here is a ready to go example for a common need to import CSV data: 3D CSV Custom Feature

STANDARD CONTENT ADDITIONS
We have added standard content for DIN bolts, screws, and nuts as well as sheet metal fasteners (NAS/PEM). Take a look at the list of added components below:

Hex set screw with half dog point and flat cone point DIN 564
Hex set screw fine pitch with half dog point and flat cone point DIN 564
Hex set screw with full dog point DIN 561
Hex set screw fine pitch with full dog point DIN 561
PH Pan head cross recess screw with collar DIN 967
PZ Pan head cross recess screw with collar DIN 967
Cross recessed pan head tapping screw DIN EN ISO 7049
Cross recessed flat head countersunk tapping screw DIN 7050
Cross recessed oval head raised countersunk tapping screw DIN 7051
Cross recessed pan head tapping screw with collar DIN 968
Hex socket head cap screw DIN 912
Slotted pan head screw with shoulder DIN 923
Lifting eye bolt DIN 580
Eye bolt DIN 444
Wing screw DIN 316
Square head bolt with collar DIN 478
Square head bolt with short dog point DIN 479
Square head bolt collar and dog point DIN 480
Square nut grade C DIN 557
Square weld nut DIN 928
Square thin nut grade B DIN 562
Hex nut style 2 grade A & B DIN EN 24033
Hex nut style 2 grade A & B fine pitch DIN EN 28674
Hex thin nut fine pitch grade A & B DIN EN 28675
Hex thin nut grade A & B DIN EN 24035
Hex nut style 1 grade C DIN EN 24034
Hex nut style 1 grade A & B fine pitch DIN EN 28673
Hex nut style 1 grade A & B DIN EN 24032
Sheet metal fasteners (NAS)
Hex head self-locking clinch nut NASM 45938/2
Self-locking clinch nut without self-locking threads NASM 45938
Self-locking clinch nut with self-locking threads NASM 45938
Plain clinch flush nut NASM 3214
Self-clinching flush nut NASM 45938/4
Self-clinching blind standoff NAS 1129
Self-clinching thru standoff NAS 1129
PROFESSIONAL FEATURES
SUPPORT FOR MULTIPLE SEAT APPLICATION PURCHASES
Companies in Onshape can now purchase multiple seats for an application within the App Store and allocate those purchased seats to users within the company. This makes all billing within Onshape centralized for each company. After buying an application for a specified number of users, an admin can go to the Application settings under the company settings and allocate which users can use the application. This is very similar to assigning users to a company's seats of Onshape licenses.
RELEASE HISTORY IMPROVEMENTS
Viewing the history of a release will now give more insight into automatic obsoletions. A new indicator will let you know when an automatic obsoletion occurs and viewing the obsoletion will reveal which part, drawing, or assembly triggered the workflow.CREATE COMPANY TEAMS
Professional users will now be able to create company owned teams. The option to create a company team is under the company settings page.
APPROVERS NO LONGER REQUIRE EDIT PERMISSIONS
With this update, approvers are no longer required to have edit permission to the document (note - they still need to be a full-user). In many cases, engineers and designers are going to have their work reviewed for release by department leads, managers, and directors. Many of these users will probably just have view rights - this enhancement allows them to perform their work without additional permissions.
ENTERPRISE FEATURES
APPLICATION VISIBILITY IN ENTERPRISE
In the dev portal, developers for an Enterprise will now be able to specify that an application may only be used by their Enterprise. This is important for companies that are developing internal processes and custom applications within Onshape.
TRANSFER DATA OUTSIDE ENTERPRISE
With this update, you will now have the additional option to transfer documents and folders outside an enterprise. Admins will be able to right-click on documents and select the option to ‘Transfer Ownership’ to a recipient email address. The transfer of ownership is not complete until the recipient accepts the pending transfer. Pending transfers can be canceled at any time.
Remember: The updates listed here are now live for all users when creating new Documents and over the next few days these features will also be available in Documents created before the date of this update.
Comments
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Thanks folks, lots to digest there, great job.
Owen S.Business Systems and Configuration Controller
HWM-Water Ltd2 -
What a great way to begin workday!!

//rami2 -
For the new import dialogue, it would be nice if it remembered last choice (like flatten to part studio).//rami6
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At this time you cooked a couple of really delicioius things. Now we can seamlessly combine the complexity of user data and the automation given by the script.
3 -
Great list of improvements!!Un saludo,
Eduardo Magdalena C2i Change 2 improve ☑ ¿Por qué no organizamos una reunión online?
Partner de PTC - Onshape Averigua a quién conocemos en común3 -
Great improvements again!
My favorites in order:- Automatic Increase In Tessellation Quality
- Create A Sketch From A Mate Connector
- Import Feature Changes
- In-context Interface Improvements
- User Notification Preferences
- Sketch Fillet Improvements
4 - Automatic Increase In Tessellation Quality
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Excellent work, guys! Reference parameters will completely change the way we develop our Feature Scripts from here on and make what was originally a tedious and complicated task easy, accessible, and simple.Applications Developer at Premier Custom Built
chadstoltzfus@premiercb.com4 -
Un saludo,
Eduardo Magdalena C2i Change 2 improve ☑ ¿Por qué no organizamos una reunión online?
Partner de PTC - Onshape Averigua a quién conocemos en común3 -
Hi All!
In addition to the improvements above, we made some additional progress in sheet metal performance. Complicated models with many corners and reliefs will benefit most from this round of improvements. We hope this helps your workflow!Jake Rosenfeld - Modeling Team2 -
"Automatic Increase In Tessellation Quality"
Any reason this can't be available in Part Studios too? This would be very welcome.3 -
@SledDriver - doing automatic refinement in the part studio context currently necessitates performing re-tessellation, which is a costly operation that would interfere with modeling performance. We are aware that refinement in part studios is a desired enhancement, and are investigating solutions for it.1
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My feedbackAutomatic Increase In Tessellation Quality: Automatic anything to improve performance! 😊

Any and All Drawing Improvements: Keep them coming!
Reference Parameters in Featurescript: Hoping for someone to share their ANSI Standard Library where each profile type has the different sizes Configured (This is so any downstream features don't fail if the size of the profile is changed - i.e. 3x3 Tube changed to 4x4 etc... later in the design). I would love to take the time to do this, but have to spend time elsewhere now; maybe this week I don't need any sleep.
Create a Sketch from a Mate Connector: Love these expanded Connector additions as mentioned.
Sketch Fillet Improvements: Why not just have some intelligence to automatically change the default to something that makes sense and solves? Sure it take a fraction of a second to calculate in the sketch, but it would be more intuitive. Nice none-the-less.
Added Standard Content: Screw that, keep these coming!
6 -
The Mate Connector Sketch does a lot of what I wanted from a "relative to point constraint! This is very helpful!
Thanks3 -
Trying to keep up... Already putting good use to that rename shortcut. Great work as always!
1 -
Holy crap! Y'all been busy. Good job1
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@Don_Van_Zile, I did this earlier this year, its a lot of the common US sizes and it lets you change the sizes, as you requested;) Oh, and it's configured.....
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/661b4cdeb6c1518cd9c394e3/w/3f38e99b9e74b7d16c7acf14/e/17f98cc5bea914044511bbc4
2 -
You tease...jackson_king said:@Don_Van_Zile, I did this earlier this year, its a lot of the common US sizes and it lets you change the sizes, as you requested;) Oh, and it's configured.....
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/661b4cdeb6c1518cd9c394e3/w/3f38e99b9e74b7d16c7acf14/e/17f98cc5bea914044511bbc4
@jack@jackson_king: Any chance you can share that so we can make a copy rather than view only? 1 -
I made it public back I created it and I’m on my phone right, any chance you can search for it by name?
i forgot, there is also a bunch of metric sizes in there too. That’s why the doc. units are mm right now0 -
It should be copyable @Don_Van_Zile . It wasn't for me when I first followed the link but that's because I wasn't signed in. Now that I am I have the option to copy it.
Paul Chastell
TVP, Onshape Labs1 -
Or better yet, I would link to it, so that I get any improvements that are made by @jackson_king .Paul Chastell
TVP, Onshape Labs3 -
You were right about not being signed and thanks for the "Linking" tip!paul_chastell said:Or better yet, I would link to it, so that I get any improvements that are made by @jackson_king .0 -
BEAMS!!!!
This is a great day in the history of 80/20 Frame Design!
Thanks for all the updates!3 -
great job as always - particularly the data transfer functionality!1
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5
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I would like to make an addition to the "Import Feature Changes" section as I could have been more direct. If you import a model with faults and then go and edit the import feature in the feature tree, you should see the faulty areas of the part highlighted in red. This is only visible while editing the import feature. This should help to assist in repairing imported data or for you to make the decision to not include the faulty geometry by unchecking the box to allow faults.
1







https://youtu.be/2718DL4J2ds






https://youtu.be/sVncCuYt_3k