Here's another hot key tip for you Toby! While drawing a line/circle/arc etc, you can tap Q on your keyboard and it will toggle between using a solid line or a construction line. I use this one a lot. You can also tap Q first, and then start your line/circle etc and it will start out in construction line mode.
Hey Toby, what's up? Very meta of you to use you own challenges against yourself like this! Going to try to answer some of your questions! - No way to re-assign dimensions in sketches (works great in drawings but not helpful here!) or change to a "double" in Onshape as far as I know... - Useful shortcuts: "q" to toggle construction geometry. Can be turned on while in a command (eg to turn the line you are about to drop in to construction), or to toggle construction. One trick is that you don't need to draw a separate construction line, just make the "axis" construction to drop your dimensions and toggle to "solid" at the end (existing double dimensions will remain). Also since you can pick whatever you want in Onshape for an axis you only need a construction line to place the double dimensions (I wish there was a way to enable doubled dims without requiring a construction line...). I personally tend to just type in the "diameter/2" than use "double" dimensions... It's obviously a personal preference but Onshape actually stores the expression so if you edit the dimension is will still show "diameter/2" rather than just store the calculated value so it does a better job retaining the design intent than say SolidWorks. I just wish you could see the expression without having to actually edit the dimension (on mouse over would be nice...). Also shortcut "d" to crate a dimension is useful. - Pre selection is a bit different: if you pre-select a line before launching one of the commands (extrude, revolve, etc...), it will default to "surface" mode (which is what happened when you tried preselecting the axis). If you select a region it will go to "solid". So effectively it means you can't pre-select the axis... Also selecting an entire sketch will use all the regions in the sketch, just like launching the command from within the sketch. Also there is new shortcut for revolve: ctrl+W. - For your half-circle, in a case like this you can actually start the command like you did with the whole sketch region and if you click "sub-regions" it will toggle them. So you could have just clicked once in the "visible" side to remove it from the extrude scope (while in the extrude dialogue). A more "general" way to deal with this is to use "select other" either from the right click or (better...) using the "~" key (pressing repeatedly will cycle through all the "stacked" things available for selection). - When you have a complex sketch with lots of regions (like a layout your are going to re-use), if you want "most" of them you can either use the whole sketch (i.e. launch extrude from sketch mode or select sketch in tree) and "remove" the ones you don't want, or start a "blank" extrude (i.e. after exiting the sketch) and pick just the regions you want. - Bonus tips: shortcut "u" for "use" (i.e. convert entity), and also "ctrl-z" works within a feature dialogue, so when you clicked and it deselected the whole sketch region, "undo" would restore the selection (i.e. you can undo whatever last change to any of the dialogue parameter as basically every click is tracked). - For that "side" part, I would just sketch the two concentric circles in the same sketch (and if you did the other "through all" side extrude first, you would have an edge to end the inner circle) and use that to remove "through all" from the same plane (rather than a new sketch to extrude "up to" the front plane) as this would save some clicks. I'd check your final math though as I don't think 6:55 is more than 3 times 3:12! PS: speaking of challenges, did you have anything to do with the Onshape "CAD Challenges" app? And if not have you tried it? It should be called the "Toby app"!
What you missed in the revolve was that it was initially set to surface (wants sketch edges) then when you went back directly to the revolve command it was set to solid (wants areas). Some commands default to whatever you used previously. Extrude, revolve, sweep & loft all have the option to create surfaces as well as solids.
Ahhhhhh - that explains it! I've also been messing around with the THIN FEATURE and I notice it often "defaults" to that mode when I jump into extrude. Excellent feedback - THANKS!!
using the ~ key will let you select other, it will pull up a list of all entities under your mouse, by pressing ~ multiple times it will cycle through the list.
DOn't understand the double dimensions while trying to do a revolve. The sketch when fully revolved should be sufficient. What am I missing? BTW, this would save time, yes?
Onshape has user experience issues. it feels clunky and I could barely get anything done with it. Weird considering the amount of experience the developers have...
Here's another hot key tip for you Toby!
While drawing a line/circle/arc etc, you can tap Q on your keyboard and it will toggle between using a solid line or a construction line. I use this one a lot. You can also tap Q first, and then start your line/circle etc and it will start out in construction line mode.
AWWWWW MAN!!!!!!!!!! I needed this! THANK YOU @Marc !! Awesome!!!! 😀😀😀😀
Hey Toby, what's up? Very meta of you to use you own challenges against yourself like this!
Going to try to answer some of your questions!
- No way to re-assign dimensions in sketches (works great in drawings but not helpful here!) or change to a "double" in Onshape as far as I know...
- Useful shortcuts: "q" to toggle construction geometry. Can be turned on while in a command (eg to turn the line you are about to drop in to construction), or to toggle construction. One trick is that you don't need to draw a separate construction line, just make the "axis" construction to drop your dimensions and toggle to "solid" at the end (existing double dimensions will remain). Also since you can pick whatever you want in Onshape for an axis you only need a construction line to place the double dimensions (I wish there was a way to enable doubled dims without requiring a construction line...). I personally tend to just type in the "diameter/2" than use "double" dimensions... It's obviously a personal preference but Onshape actually stores the expression so if you edit the dimension is will still show "diameter/2" rather than just store the calculated value so it does a better job retaining the design intent than say SolidWorks. I just wish you could see the expression without having to actually edit the dimension (on mouse over would be nice...). Also shortcut "d" to crate a dimension is useful.
- Pre selection is a bit different: if you pre-select a line before launching one of the commands (extrude, revolve, etc...), it will default to "surface" mode (which is what happened when you tried preselecting the axis). If you select a region it will go to "solid". So effectively it means you can't pre-select the axis... Also selecting an entire sketch will use all the regions in the sketch, just like launching the command from within the sketch. Also there is new shortcut for revolve: ctrl+W.
- For your half-circle, in a case like this you can actually start the command like you did with the whole sketch region and if you click "sub-regions" it will toggle them. So you could have just clicked once in the "visible" side to remove it from the extrude scope (while in the extrude dialogue). A more "general" way to deal with this is to use "select other" either from the right click or (better...) using the "~" key (pressing repeatedly will cycle through all the "stacked" things available for selection).
- When you have a complex sketch with lots of regions (like a layout your are going to re-use), if you want "most" of them you can either use the whole sketch (i.e. launch extrude from sketch mode or select sketch in tree) and "remove" the ones you don't want, or start a "blank" extrude (i.e. after exiting the sketch) and pick just the regions you want.
- Bonus tips: shortcut "u" for "use" (i.e. convert entity), and also "ctrl-z" works within a feature dialogue, so when you clicked and it deselected the whole sketch region, "undo" would restore the selection (i.e. you can undo whatever last change to any of the dialogue parameter as basically every click is tracked).
- For that "side" part, I would just sketch the two concentric circles in the same sketch (and if you did the other "through all" side extrude first, you would have an edge to end the inner circle) and use that to remove "through all" from the same plane (rather than a new sketch to extrude "up to" the front plane) as this would save some clicks.
I'd check your final math though as I don't think 6:55 is more than 3 times 3:12!
PS: speaking of challenges, did you have anything to do with the Onshape "CAD Challenges" app? And if not have you tried it? It should be called the "Toby app"!
I'm still digesting this Airwick! (which is why I didn't respond yet) - This is such great feedback. THANK YOU SO MUCH!! More to come!!
What you missed in the revolve was that it was initially set to surface (wants sketch edges) then when you went back directly to the revolve command it was set to solid (wants areas). Some commands default to whatever you used previously. Extrude, revolve, sweep & loft all have the option to create surfaces as well as solids.
Ahhhhhh - that explains it! I've also been messing around with the THIN FEATURE and I notice it often "defaults" to that mode when I jump into extrude. Excellent feedback - THANKS!!
7:05 The features can be included in the scetch of the initial revolve.
Ohh - thats good to know thanks Hans!
using the ~ key will let you select other, it will pull up a list of all entities under your mouse, by pressing ~ multiple times it will cycle through the list.
Awwwww yeah - That's what I needed!! Thanks John!!
For the half circle I think you can temporarily hide Part1 to be able to select it.
ok Cool I'll try that! Thanks!
DOn't understand the double dimensions while trying to do a revolve. The sketch when fully revolved should be sufficient. What am I missing? BTW, this would save time, yes?
Onshape has user experience issues. it feels clunky and I could barely get anything done with it. Weird considering the amount of experience the developers have...