Improvements to Onshape - January 31st, 2022

Jake_Delano · January 2022

It's here! Onshape's second release of 2022 comes with the launch of Onshape Render Studio and many more modeling, visualization, and drawing improvements.

ONSHAPE RENDER STUDIO

We are excited to announce the beta launch of Render Studio. Onshape users now have the ability to create photo realistic renderings of designs from within the Onshape platform. With this integrated rendering capability designers and engineers can now create hyper-realistic images using sophisticated materials, textures and lighting within a high resolution, 360-degree environment - allowing faster, easier communication of design ideas.

Onshape Render Studio will initially be launched as a beta capability. During this initial release, we have included Render Studio with all of our Professional and Enterprise subscriptions while we continue to refine the experience and offering.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/9cg7jce5h3

?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=640

MODELING IMPROVEMENTS

CONTROL POINTS FOR BRIDGING CURVES

Bridging curves now allow direct control of the curve via control points. This gives you enhanced control over the curves that you are creating and leads to higher quality curvature transitions.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/6f10hloig4?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=640

VISUALIZATION IMPROVEMENTS

HIGHLIGHT SELECTED FACES

In this release, faces that are used in feature creation and editing are highlighted for improved visibility.

SELECT THROUGH TRANSLUCENT OBJECTS

When working with geometry that is behind a translucent part, you can now hold down ALT on Windows or Option on Mac to select edges, faces, and vertices that would otherwise be occluded.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/6c5saj9yt7?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=640

DRAWING IMPROVEMENTS

DOT ADDED FOR DIMENSION ARROWHEAD STYLE

You can now change the dimension arrowhead style to a dot in the Dimensions section of the Drawing properties pane.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/5tiz6tvs2p?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=640

COLORED NOTES

You can now change the color of text in notes directly from the notes tool.

https://onshape.wistia.com/medias/r0cg7f0xe8?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=640

FEATURESCRIPT IMPROVEMENTS

FEATURESCRIPT EVALUATION IMPROVEMENTS

In this release, evSurfaceDefinition and evCurveDefinition now return b-spline surfaces and curves respectively. There is also a new function named evApproximateBSplineCurve that will approximate any curve as a b-spline. Both of these updates give you more flexibility in capturing existing geometry for use in Custom Features.

ENTERPRISE IMPROVEMENTS

FILTER PROJECT DASHBOARD BY PROJECT ROLE

A project role filter has been added to project dashboards in the Analytics section of Onshape Enterprise.

LEARNING CENTER IMPROVEMENTS

LOCALIZATION UPDATES

All of the technical briefings in the Onshape Learning Center are now available in Spanish. Change the language by navigating to the article and selecting the language in the pulldown.

SEARCH OPTION WITHIN COURSES

A new search field is enabled at the top of a course outline in any self-paced course. This enables you to search for keywords and topics within the course.

VIDEO UPDATES

There have been new videos added to existing courses as well! Check out the updated Measure video in the Navigating Onshape course, updates to the DXF/DWG import video in the Importing and Exporting Data course, and a new video explaining how to use the Dependencies feature in the Part Design Using Part Studios course.

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. Over the next few days, these features will also be available in Documents created before this update.

3D_Brooklyn · February 2022

A dream update!

S1mon · February 2022

On a Monday no less. Always keeping us guessing.

This is one of the more exciting ones for me. Thanks to the Onshape team!

(BTW the Change Log is missing the evSurfaceDefinition and evCurveDefinition improvements)

john_mcclary · February 2022

oohhh, rendering Sweet!

konstantin_shiriazdanov · February 2022

evApproximateBSplineCurve is very promising, does it respect end derivatives of the underlying edge? However for the kind of things that I'm doing with curves the best option would be if that function would take an optional argument with transform function of the form:

(point: Vector, tangent: UnitVector, parameter: unitless[0, 1], edge: Qeury) -> 3dVector. That would be absolutely killing feature providing high-level control over nonlinear curve transforms, which is the basis of geometry manipulation.

Hans_Leirvik_1 · February 2022

Rendering - Thank you

ian_d_gardiner · February 2022

Rendering! Thank you!

lemon1324 · February 2022

It looks like the alt-select doesn't let you select through context entities when editing in context, I was hoping that would work.

3dcad · February 2022

Can't wait to test out rendering .. if it works - it's gonna be huge for us.

Thanks Onshape for giving it a stab. I'm sure within few updates we can put our rendering workstations for sale.

hans_van_de_burgt · February 2022

It’s a pitty the new render function isn’t available in the Education license version.

3dcad · February 2022

First touch of rendering .. no instructions just dive in and see how it goes - this is the way I chose Onshape and Keyshot years ago they both have intuitive ui that is simple enough to just use and figure out things as you need them (ok maybe few pro tips will speed up the progress).

At first everything looks good, easy to drag & drop materials and environment / lightning. There seems to be plenty of everything (materials, scenes etc.)
Very nice to play with and create things that look nice.

But unfortunately my work doesn't benefit about creating thing that doesn't exist so I need to mimic our material as close as possible and use similar lightning to photo studio or real world room where I could position our furniture.

When I actually started working view seems a bit too crowded and model itself is too small to see the details. I would like to move model into another screen (browser window) and have only tools on other. This would be perfect also for team work with big screen for model.

Manipulating model / position in environment needs a lot of refining. I like model manipulating in Onshape and would expect same in rendering studio. There is three things to manipulate: camera, model and environment - now they all somehow move together which makes it very difficult to position and scale model to environment. Scrolling should zoom camera in/out not scale model against background.

I couldn't quickly figure out how to edit materials and/or create my own materials. Or how to link/unlink materials. Coming from Keyshot I miss rmb menus to change properties for any part.

It is beta and I do like the result of this quick test so I am willing to put in the time to learn and work with you all to make it awesome.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/79/e297wguvzx31.jpg

Josiah_Harthcock · February 2022

Love this! Another great update!

Also, thanks for the brief overview @3dcad. Saves me from doing the same thing as in depth this morning

don_williams909 · February 2022

Wow! Just. Wow... Rendering. Fantastic. Gonna need to upgrade to Pro.

MichaelPascoe · February 2022

Onshape team is the best! Thank you!!

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/48/hs9b3i93xhpp.png

I have applied an emission, but the lights will not render. Anyone know how to get the lights to work?

emagdalenaC2i · February 2022

Excellent update!!

I am looking forward to seeing our Onshape Professional customers renders and trying out Render Studio at our Onshape trainings

En este enlace podéis ver las Novedades de Onshape en español

https://youtu.be/Lmac95RwEUk

ilya_baran · February 2022

@konstantin_shiriazdanovevApproximateBSplineCurve (as opposed to evCurveDefinition) does not make guarantees on the end derivatives. You can always project the second-from-the-end control points onto the tangent lines to get "exact" tangency matching. As for the general nonlinear transform, I've been thinking of something along those lines, but I don't think it's coming soon -- there are a bunch of more urgent things.

GregBrown · February 2022

MichaelPascoe said:

Onshape team is the best! Thank you!!

I have applied an emission, but the lights will not render. Anyone know how to get the lights to work?

Make sure you adjust the parameters of the lights particularly the "Intensity" which might need to be bumped up a couple orders of magnitude. Experiment!!

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/v1/zpegw2soczgk.png

shawn_crocker · February 2022

Finally rendering! And it comes before I run out of SolidWorks visualize standard support!

Eleanor_Coffin · February 2022

Really appreciate the custom note colors -- I'll be using that a lot.

Request to make it so the leader line changes to match the color chosen? Here's what it looks like right now.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/hf/z6cido9r9a2q.png

john_mcclary · February 2022

Almost looks like the real deal, wish I know how to scale the background though

shawn_crocker · February 2022

Just trying rendering. Hmmm, doesn't it seem almost exactly the same as before? I was hoping it was going to be a little more onshape style of intuitiveness. Does anyone know how to modify a material, save it to use again, upload texture maps? Where did all the environments go?

GregBrown · February 2022

shawn_crocker said:

Just trying rendering. Hmmm, doesn't it seem almost exactly the same as before? I was hoping it was going to be a little more onshape style of intuitiveness. Does anyone know how to modify a material, save it to use again, upload texture maps? Where did all the environments go?

Texture loading on materials is possible for sure - this is how I made this image:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/md/kuvsfaqqp2dr.jpg

There are lots more materials in the libraries which include capability to add colormaps, bumpmaps etc. And expanded library of environments is included:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/sp/d4za149dwtr2.png

In terms of usability and features, look out for a upcoming webinars and other sources of how-to's.

GregBrown · February 2022

john_mcclary said:

Almost looks like the real deal, wish I know how to scale the background though

Ok, try this. Clear the selection (i.e. hit space bar) click on the gear icon ("Options") at the top of the scene graph. Look for the properties as shown below. You need to change the Virtual Dome to "Sphere" then play with "radius":

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/m2/6vq369vhl9v2.png

christopher_quijano · February 2022

Well, I have been trying to watch the Render Studio video all morning but it is not loading. I figured I would just go play with it to see what it can to but after I add a Render Studio tab it says "Your current plan does not have access to the Render Studio feature.". I have a Professional plan. Do you need to request access? Thanks!

john_mcclary · February 2022

Well it certainly is snappier and faster at rendering than what I remember. Although I was always using the free plans

john_mcclary · February 2022

christopher_quijano said:

Well, I have been trying to watch the Render Studio video all morning but it is not loading. I figured I would just go play with it to see what it can to but after I add a Render Studio tab it says "Your current plan does not have access to the Render Studio feature.". I have a Professional plan. Do you need to request access? Thanks!

I didn't have to request access last night, but this morning I had to accept permissions when adding a tab.

It may be your drawing hasn't been updated fully yet? Sometimes it takes a while for all of the Onshape drawings to be updated after a release.
Try on a new document.

jakeramsley · February 2022

christopher_quijano said:

Well, I have been trying to watch the Render Studio video all morning but it is not loading. I figured I would just go play with it to see what it can to but after I add a Render Studio tab it says "Your current plan does not have access to the Render Studio feature.". I have a Professional plan. Do you need to request access? Thanks!

Hi christopher_quijano,

Render Studio should be working for all users on the Professional plan and does not require requesting access. We've opened a support ticket to further investigate.

billy2 · February 2022

Nice release OS!

StephenG · February 2022

Beta rendering functionality is currently available only to Professional and Enterprise users.

Does this mean when it is officially released it will NOT be available to Educational and Free users?

MichaelPascoe · February 2022

@StephenG
From what I understand. Pro and Enterprise get early access / beta functionality for some abilities. Rendering will be released to the free and edu accounts once the functionality is out of beta. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

- I was wrong.

shawn_crocker · February 2022

@GregBrown
Thanks for those details. Looks like you are pretty comfortable with the interface. I need to get my eyes checked. I remember being confused last year over the materials/environments tab when this was reality server. That galvanized sheet metal looks very believable.