Making sketchs internal to operations

sergio_p_ · May 2015

Hi, would be great if the sketchs could be make internal to the operations, then the history tree could be more easy to navigate. NX has the option to make internal or external, so you can use it in several operations or keep it hide.

My ideal workflow would be start with the sketch command, then select the extrude/revolve/loft command, and then in the operation window have the check to make it internal/external, so when you finish the operation you have the work done.

Regards, and keep it improving this great software!

_Ðave_ · May 2015

This would great nice suggestion @sergio_p_

lougallo · May 2015

@sergio_p_ Would differ to making portions of the sketch construction? You know you can re-use a sketch in as many features as you would like. Can you expand on your explanation? Is this more of a nested tree request?

sergio_p_ · May 2015

Sometimes when we desing, several features are derived from the same sketch, so in this case is desirable to have it outside of the feature (like Onshape is now). Another ones, every feature needs an specific sketch, so if the part have lot of features, then the history tree become a little long, and thus is desirable to have it internal to the feature (so, is not visible in the feature tree). On the other side, you could start your modeling thinking in well, I will use the sketch only in this operation, but after you realize that you could re-use it, so is good to have a mechanism to make it internal or external to the operation. All of this is independient of having or not defined curves as construction

All this escenarios are availble now on NX, and, for me at least, are very usefull.

Regards!

3dcad · May 2015

I would prefer only one type which would be similar to 'internal' (even though I'm a big fan of multi feature/part sketches) but if used in multiple features show the same sketch 'link' in each

I haven't seen NX but I suppose some + sign for expanding feature to see the sketch? This would ease up custom naming because it would be enough if features are named.

traveler_hauptman · May 2015

Creo has this as well. @lougallo It does 2 things. One, it nests and cleans up the feature tree. 2) it isolates the information, like lexical scoping in programming, you know that you don't have to check for use anywhere else.

lougallo · May 2015

I understand the nesting benefits, just was asking if nesting was what the feature was.

traveler_hauptman · May 2015

@lougallo Sorry, I did not say that well. What I should have said was:

Since we are talking about nesting, there are two different aspects to nesting that are important to me. One is the visual aspect; how the sketch is shown in the feature tree. The other aspect is scope, what things are allowed to reference it.

In creo internal sketches cannot be used for other features and are removed from the feature tree. In solidworks internal sketches can be used for other features and are available in the feature tree as children of the dependant features.

I prefer the solidworks approach where the nesting is visual and not scope.

david_sohlstrom · May 2015

I'm not sure if this has been brought up before. I would like to know where the sketches and operations for a part start and stop. So we start with sketch 1 and feature 1 the add more sketches and features this then becomes part 1. The next sketch and feature is a new part so part 2 starts we then add more sketches and features that define part 2. At present looking at the tree it is hard to see where part 1 ends and part 2 starts. We need an easy way to see that.

Dave

_Ðave_ · May 2015

david_sohlstrom if you have say 6 parts in the tree and you now decide to create a sketch and work on part 2, you can roll up your tree to the end of part 2 and your sketch and feature will be where you roll up to at the end of part 2. hth

david_sohlstrom · May 2015

Yes but finding the end of part 2 is not that easy. If each of those parts is very complicated it could take some time to find the end of part 2. If there were some form of identification showing exactly where part 2 ends life would be much easier.

Dave

_Ðave_ · May 2015

I had the same problem so now I typically name the first feature of a part in CAPITAL letters, this way I can easily find the beginning of each part. so the end of a part is where the next part starts. It would be a lot cleaner if the sketches were rolled up into the features thou.

david_sohlstrom · May 2015

That work around is a good one until OnS comes up with a way of doing it automaticly.

Dave

_Ðave_ · May 2015

Yes, that would be nice but I don't know how that will be possible seeing that they wont know what part the sketch is used on until you create a feature and then you may have multiple features on the same sketch. I'm not sure put I think that a sketch can even be used on multiple parts. I suppose the issue would be which part will onshape relate the sketch to, I imagine that would still be something that the user has to decide. They can't guess at all the possibilities.

As far as rolling the sketch into a feature I suppose it would be rolled into the first feature it's used with. But as suggested a switch/option to roll or not would be helpful for sketches used on multiple features.

traveler_hauptman · May 2015

@david_sohlstrom for big assemblies I use a dummy feature to split things up. You can see it in action here: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/3c4e14158ece451f8d1c7318/w/6e4e129fbdab428da966d8a4/e/88e72be15478404f8307f3cd where I also took advantage of the different (red) color given unbuildable features. (view only show a strike through, you'll have to copy it to see the color)

The needs for organizing the feature tree have come up a few times. Here's one of the bigger threads;

_Ðave_ · May 2015

Traveler_Hauptman I like the concept and wish I could view your link but it's not working for me.

Dave

traveler_hauptman · May 2015

Edited the link.

david_sohlstrom · May 2015

Traveler
Nice looking router. Are you building one.

Dave

traveler_hauptman · May 2015

No, it was an exercise in doing a medium size model in Onshape. It's a copy of a chinese router and I used a publicly available solid model of it done by a russian guy as my main reference with a few parts adjusted to be more available to westerners.

From a professional viewpoint I have issues with with hobby desktop machines, but that's a different conversation.

_Ðave_ · May 2015

Traveler_Hauptman Thanks 4 the tip, I like it.

sergio_p_ · May 2015

I have the same problem having only one tree for several parts, maybe could be done by the Onshape team:

1) Assign an (automatic) color to the name of each part on the desing studio, and color every feature name on the tree with the same color. Maybe a special color can be defined for shared features. Problem is that there are not much clear different colors (and not mention if the designer is colorblind)

2) Make that the name of the feature take (automatic) the name of the part being applied (ie Part1_Extrusion; Part2_Revolution...). Again for the shared features a special name can be defined

In both cases this could be reinforced if when a part is selected on the part list, all the features be highlited in the tree as well, and having a way to sort/resort the tree by colors or names or historicly.

ilya_baran · May 2015

We hear you on the feature tree organization. One thing I personally find problematic in the way some systems make sketches "internal" to body-creating features is that the feature tree is shown as:

Feature 1
+ Extrude 1
^- Sketch 1
Feature 2

But Sketch 1 is regenerated before Extrude 1, so the tree is misleading -- placement of the rollback bar and what can reference what becomes confusing. I wonder if better feature tree filtering tools (including the ability to filter out "consumed" sketches) as well as general grouping would address the problems that internal sketches are meant to address.

_Ðave_ · May 2015

My preference would be to dump the separate parts list. Then list the parts in the tree, Have the sketches and mate connectors internal to the parts and the body-creating features internal to the sketches. Also have a RMB click in the tree area to collapse all into a tidy parts list. Additionally I would need to drag and drop the parts to reorder as needed.

brucebartlett · May 2015

I love the multi body part studio's and I find I am more and more filling out my first sketch and building my parts off this rather than creating a new sketch for each feature, Onshape seems to handle this really well, I hardly even us construction lines any more just click to add in regions (however features can fall over when editing the sketch and region is added or subtracted ). Also a fan of grabbing and extruding faces no sketches involved this keeps the tree clean too.

I like the parts list but want to drag parts to reorder the tree, will not always be possible but would work sometimes. What I also do a lot is isolate back too a single part on my screen, and will often use "Hide other parts", RMB from the parts list or from the part in the workspace. When i do this I will be focusing my attention onto the single part and would also like to see just see features related to this part in the tree. Ideally I would like the tree to collapse to show only the features related to the part, turn on another part and your see the combined features. Not sure how that would work, or if it would work.

david_sohlstrom · May 2015

OK so I have a parts studio with parts 1 to10 in it. I want to export individual parts as IGS files to load into my CAM program. Also need each part to be Z up no matter how the are in the parts studio. Can I do this.

Dave

_Ðave_ · May 2015

david_sohlstrom Looks like your gonna have to wait a bit on that request.

jakeramsley · May 2015

david_sohlstrom said:

OK so I have a parts studio with parts 1 to10 in it. I want to export individual parts as IGS files to load into my CAM program. Also need each part to be Z up no matter how the are in the parts studio. Can I do this.

Dave

Currently we do not. What I would suggest is having a delete part feature at the bottom that you rotate which parts are deleted in order to export the iges file that you want.

traveler_hauptman · May 2015

ilya_baran said:

We hear you on the feature tree organization. One thing I personally find problematic in the way some systems make sketches "internal" to body-creating features is that the feature tree is shown as:

Feature 1
+ Extrude 1
^- Sketch 1
Feature 2

But Sketch 1 is regenerated before Extrude 1, so the tree is misleading -- placement of the rollback bar and what can reference what becomes confusing.

@ilya_baran A tree is not a list and the rollback bar is portrayed as a sequential list entity rather than hierarchical tree entity. Your rollback issue is the result your CAD forefathers mixing up their UI metaphors.

I wonder if better feature tree filtering tools (including the ability to filter out "consumed" sketches) as well as general grouping would address the problems that internal sketches are meant to address.

Yes

Making sketchs internal to operations

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