Improvements to Onshape - October 1st, 2019

cody_armstrong · September 2019

It's the first of October, exactly 20 days have passed since our last update and we are ready for another! This update focuses on usability and performance improvements in many different areas of Onshape. Let's dig in.

CAD IMPROVEMENTS

HOLE TABLE IMPROVEMENTS

We announced the addition of Hole Tables in our last release. In this update, we've made multiple improvements that make them easier to use.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/4jsjmdxnx5

GEOMETRIC TOLERANCE SYMBOL IMPROVEMENTS

You can now attach Geometric Tolerance Symbols to dimension extension lines in Onshape Drawings.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/1c2svp14bf

SHEET METAL IMPROVEMENTS

Improvements have been made to Sheet Metal in Onshape to better handle multi-edge bends in a single feature. This makes Sheet Metal more robust in situations where you have cuts across the bend.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/06k0cmrz3v

SEARCH RESULT IMPROVEMENTS

Part number, revision, and state now appear below the name when searching in Onshape. This makes it easy to see important information about the thing you are searching for without needing to open it. You'll also notice a new icon has been added to indicate "Latest Revision."

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/10rkhf0123

DOCUMENTS PAGE IMPROVEMENTS

You will now see the most recently edited branch when viewing the Documents list from the Documents page.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/ao/0jydhd5ftkhe.png

"SWITCH TO" CONTEXT MENU IMPROVEMENTS

When right-clicking a part in an assembly and using the "Switch to" command, you will now see icons to better delineate between the Part Studio and Assembly.

glTF EXPORT OPTION

You can now export parts and assemblies to the glTF file format.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/kc/yeshayj636mz.png

LARGE ASSEMBLY PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS

Changes have been made to improve large assembly performance in several areas. This includes changes that allow Onshape to open bigger assemblies, improve selection/highlighting performance, and decrease load time.

ENTERPRISE IMPROVEMENTS

DASHBOARD PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS

Performance improvements have been made to reduce load time of many of the Analytics Dashboards in Onshape Enterprise.

LEARNING CENTER IMPROVEMENTS

"INTRO TO CAD" COURSE

You will find a new "Intro to CAD" pathway in the Learning Center. This pathway is composed of four new courses, geared to new CAD users and focuses on understanding how to model in a 3D parametric feature-based CAD system, using Onshape.

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.

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.

bruce_williams · October 2019

ah what a nice surprise to see today! Really elegant improvements. Makes me want to do more with sheet metal and holes.

john_mcclary · October 2019

Nice QOL improvements

Thanks for the switch to icons! Now I don't have to label my part studios with a "parts" prefix/suffix

I wasn't even aware you could select the bend radius like that when importing.. I always deleted the fillet's face and did it from square edges lol..
Thanks for the lesson, and the bug fix I wasn't even aware of

emagdalenaC2i · October 2019

Ok, great improvements

owen_sparks · October 2019

Loving the icons, thanks Devs

Happy Onshaperist over here

Cheers,

Owen S.

gerhard_swanepoel · October 2019

Great sheet metal improvement.

EvanReese · October 2019

I've been wanting icons for switching for a long time! thanks for that. More icons the better IMO. It's also great to see the sheet metal improvements. good work folks!

brian_brady · October 2019

Good changes, but I already miss having my tags show up below the document name. Tags just became less helpful since you have to hav the info pane open to see them. I now have to click on every single document that is shared with me to see if it has been tagged. That's 20 assignments a semester for 52 students. In other words, a lot.

In the future can we include tag names in our searches? Currently you can click on a tag name and see everything with that tag, but cannot find which documents have the same two or more tags associated with them. For me that might be Assignment 1 and On-time and Tuesday Class.

Brian

FERNANDA_RAMIREZ · October 2019

Nice improvements!

romeograham · October 2019

Nice improvements to Search Results...

...and there's even a little icon that lets you know if it's the latest Release AND the Revision:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/pp/1q2r5566gj8j.png

Nice work folks.

brucebartlett · October 2019

Awesome, thanks for the update. The search improvement are very welcome.

brucebartlett · October 2019

I have not tried it yet but hopefully the sheet metal multiple bend edge shows up in the drawings as a single bend rather than multiples.

MBartlett21 · October 2019

@cody_armstrong
What is this in the changelog?

FeatureScript: Ability to name faces and have it export with Parasolid model

What has it changed in FeatureScript?

owen_sparks · October 2019

Oooh, is this the first step towards MBD?

NeilCooke · October 2019

@owen_sparks - it's for third-party apps to maintain associativity (for example, name faces for simulation boundary conditions).

NeilCooke · October 2019

@MBartlett21 Nothing has changed in FeatureScript (I haven't looked at it myself, but I assume face naming is done with attributes), it is the Parasolid export that has been improved. If my assumptions are incorrect I will let you know!

jakeramsley · October 2019

MBartlett21 said:

@cody_armstrong
What is this in the changelog?

FeatureScript: Ability to name faces and have it export with Parasolid model

What has it changed in FeatureScript?

You can use something like

setProperty(context, {            
            "entities": someFaceQuery,
            "propertyType": PropertyType.NAME,
            "value": someString,
            "allowFaces": true
        });

which will add a name to a face and this name will be preserved with Parasolid export.

Neil is actually a bit incorrect in that it was the setting of properties that was updated and the Parasolid export that didn't change. We try to preserve properties on export, even ones that aren't possible to create in Onshape and should be true if you upload some foreign data and export it to Parasolid.

Neil is correct that it is work done to allow for third-party apps to leverage named faces for associativity.

emagdalenaC2i · October 2019

So... we could

create a FS to add information on some faces
export to Parasolid
Import in SolidWorks
Run a macro in SolidWorks and read that information

Am I right?

Cache_River_Mill · October 2019

Take my money!! These are great improvements.

Thank you Onshape.

brucebartlett · October 2019

With all this talk of face properties, hopefully the ability to colour faces and have this hold on export and import will work too soon. Colour faces was a regular feature I used in SolidWorks and I am pretty sure their colours hold after export.

emagdalenaC2i · October 2019

I love the new course "Intro to CAD".

I´m glad to see that there are many similar things in our own Onshape course in Spanish. But, of course, you have a better team of illustrators ;-)

paolo_cianci · October 2019

With the latest update on ios, the sketck tab and measurement information are hidden at the bottom

"Solved thanks"

jonathan_sessa · October 2019

cant wait for mirroring in assemblies

emagdalenaC2i · October 2019

En este enlace podéis ver las Novedades de Onshape en español

https://youtu.be/OrSvgmTwO1Y

billy2 · October 2019

gltf

hohoho Merry Christmas!

gltf is a standard for transferring the display list from onshape to webgl (the browser's graphics engine). There really is no need to have this translation unless you want to spin your OS models on your website. It's a developers thing.

This weekend, I'll be updating my website.

owen_sparks · October 2019

owen_sparks said:

Loving the icons, thanks Devs
Happy Onshaperist over here
Cheers,
Owen S.

On second thought the icons are a great improvement but they could be, um, greaterer.

As it stands:-

If we want the part studio we click the grey rectangular-ish icon.

If we desire the assembly we click the grey rectangular-ish icon...

That rather defeats the purpose of icons doesn't it?

If we think of every day real world cues, say traffic lights, they're all round lights but we determine an action based on colo(u)r not on shape.

I get the feeling that if onshape designed road signs they'd all be grey

Rant mode off, and thanks for listening.

Cheers, Owen S.

3dcad · October 2019

owen_sparks said:
If we want the part studio we click the grey rectangular-ish icon.
If we desire the assembly we click the grey rectangular-ish icon...
That rather defeats the purpose of icons doesn't it?

If we think of every day real world cues, say traffic lights, they're all round lights but we determine an action based on colo(u)r not on shape.
I get the feeling that if onshape designed road signs they'd all be grey
Rant mode off, and thanks for listening.
Cheers, Owen S.

Maybe there is Finnish UI designer? Look at our traffic signs and you see we love icons w/o any text that you just need to memorize and most of them have same shape and color.. And during winter they all turn into white/grey with fuzzy icon

3dcad · October 2019

Thanks for the update Onshape crew. It seems like I really have to dig into my FS and convert those cut-out cylinders into proper holes..

Jake_Rosenfeld · October 2019

@owen_sparks

It is very hard to pick colors that are universally accessible to people with different forms of colorblindness. Differentiating things based on shape when possible adheres much better to modern accessibility guidelines.

PeteYodis · October 2019

Our state indications on search results, while using colors - do show the full text of the state they are indicating, and so they work for a range of people. We have noticed other modern platforms indicating state or status in a similar fashion.

john_mcclary · October 2019

I am finding the part studio/assembly icons in context menus much easier to find. I will take monochrome over nothing any day.

becides, the clean/grey look is the main theme on Onshape since the beginning. Until they add custom themes/icon themes, there is no chance they will sprinkle color into the UI randomly