Home› Using Onshape

Welcome to the Onshape forum! Ask questions and join in the discussions about everything Onshape.

First time visiting? Here are some places to start:
  1. Looking for a certain topic? Check out the categories filter or use Search (upper right).
  2. Need support? Ask a question to our Community Support category.
  3. Please submit support tickets for bugs but you can request improvements in the Product Feedback category.
  4. Be respectful, on topic and if you see a problem, Flag it.

If you would like to contact our Community Manager personally, feel free to send a private message or an email.

Options

Perspective on vs off

HouseOfBreadCrumbsHouseOfBreadCrumbs Member Posts: 20 ✭
in Using Onshape
I'm curious why perspective is off by default. I only use OnShape for simple home projects and I'm not in any trade that would use this kind of software so I don't have any experience to draw from other than my own, and in my experience it's odd and rather unintuitive to view objects without perspective. Is there a reason it's the default? Industry standard practice or something? Again, just curious. Thanks :)

Comments

  • Options
    S1monS1mon Member Posts: 2,359 PRO
    It really depends on the industry. Designers and architects typically want perspective on all the time. Mechanical engineers spend a lot of time in orthographic views. It’s often useful to see parallel lines as parallel, not converging on a vanishing point.

    Creo and Solidworks (ME focused) have perspective options, but so many things are buggy and weird in these views. It really seems like the developers and QA turn on the perspective view to see that it exists, and then immediately switch it off again.

    Alias and Rhino (ID/architecture focused) use perspective by default for 3D views. A 4-view window set up - 3 ortho, 1 perspective - is common for these as well. 

    Onshape doesn’t have the multiple view at the same time options, but perspective does seem more robust and functional.
  • Options
    tim_hess427tim_hess427 Member Posts: 648 ✭✭✭✭
    I think @S1mon has it spot on. 

    As a mechanical engineer, it's important for me to be see, understand, and compare the size, angle, and position of the elements of my model. I also work with a lot of small components and with those, the perspective view can often feel over-exaggerated and distorted, so that it's hard to understand true size and dimension. 

    While there can certainly be a lot of overlap in how different tools are used, Onshape is solidly in the "MCAD" or mechanical-CAD territory, where tools like Rhino are used more for product design (emphasis on curves, form, and aesthetics) and things like Sketchup are used more for architecture (emphasis on textures, form, large structures). In both of those use cases, the perspective view is more common, I think. 
  • Options
    Evan_ReeseEvan_Reese Member Posts: 2,064 PRO
    I find that perspective is more useful the bigger the object is that you're working on, especially if it's something you want to see the inside of like a house. I'd use the view more if there was a way to change the camera focal length. The default option in Onshape is too extreme for what I'm doing, but I otherwise like working in perspective..
    Evan Reese / Principal and Industrial Designer with Ovyl
    Website: ovyl.io
  • Options
    HouseOfBreadCrumbsHouseOfBreadCrumbs Member Posts: 20 ✭
    I understand; it's more just a preference based on the user and what they are working on and not necessarily an official standard. Thanks for all the comments and insights. :)
Sign In or Register to comment.

Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. Sign in or register to get started.

Sign In

Categories

Vanilla Forums