| by Ralph Grabowski with Cody Armstrong |
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Thing is, people don't have to use Onshape. There is freeCAD and cheapCAD, and really expensive CAD that your employer requires you to use. And until Onshape programmers implement an offline mode, this is a stumbling block to depending on Onshape. Roopinder Tara talks about the problem in his editorial "Connectivity, the Achilles Heel of Onshape" athttp://www.thecadinsider.com/2016/06/connectivitythe-achilles-heel-of-onshape.html.
"Onshape may not be a good choice for all geographies, but I would not characterize the dependency on connectivity as an 'Achilles heel'," counters Onshape director of marketing Darren Henry. Users tell him that they can access data easier and more often with Onshape, given that most companies already run CAD stations that depend on license servers, file servers, and shared drives working, all of which require Internet-like connectivity.
Nevertheless, Onshape team member Cody Armstrong last week showed me something that could become the killer feature giving people a reason to depend on Onshape: FeatureScript. It is the same programming language as was used to write Onshape.
About FeatureScript
All MCAD systems have built-in functions for creating geometric features like extrudes, fillets, and drafts, but the code that creates them isn't supposed to be reverse-engineered or modified by users. When users want features that work differently or to create new ones, they might use the CAD program's API[application programming interface], but APIs were never meant for drafters and designers.
FeatureScript from Onshape lets users write some code that generates custom, parametric, geometric features, as well as share them with other Onshape users. It is best for repetitive work, and for very specific functions that no MCAD package would probably ever implement.
Onshape went further than just releasing an AutoLISP-like programming language -- AutoLISP-like in that it gives users a near-instant way to manipulate CAD geometry relatively easily. The company is exposing and documenting all the source code used for its own built-in features as Open Source.
FeatureScript was developed in 2012-2013 during the early days of Onshape, affecting how the new MCAD program was created. All of Onshape's geometric features are built with FeatureScript, and so it is already proven to work. The programming language includes an IDE [integrated development environment] named Feature Studio. See figure.
When you see a model in Onshape, it has a feature tree that lists all of the features (fillets, extrusions, etc) in the model. Each feature is associated with FeatureScript code. Here's the point: When you click Refresh, Onshape rebuilds the model from the FeatureScript code attached to the document.
Indeed, you can open a window to see the code that defines the model. As you click on items in the feature tree, the related code is highlighted in the FeatureScript window, and you can edit the code manually, altering the look of the model. A caution: you can screw up a model by editing the code badly, just like when you edit the HTML code that defines Web pages. There is, of course, Onshape's unlimited undo mechanism to reverse any problems you create.
You can modify the code written by others, as it is open source. A company can create a private Web page with code created internally, and users can use versioning to optionally update code. Now, if you don't "get" programming, third parties can write code for you. Or you can use other people's code, if they make it public.
Onshape hopes to create a FeatureScript Market, in which programmers can sell custom features through a future expansion of the Onshape app store; right now, you'd have to create your own site to sell code you've developed. A number of scripts are freely available now athttps://www.onshape.com/featurescript.
FeatureScript Demo
The programming code lives inside Onshape documents. The CAD program's sharing mechanism lets you reuse the code in other documents. Here is how programming works:
1. To start programming, click the Feature Studio button in Onshape's toolbar.
2. Click New Feature to insert new feature snippet. This inserts the bare bones code for a new program.
3. Define the user interface, such as the features the user should select (like a face), and values the user should specify, such as a radius.
4. Define the variables that link user input to functions; you can set default values, as well as have users enter values as the script runs.
5. Define the actions, such as filleting all linked faces at the user-defined radius.
6. Finally, click Commit, and then return to Part Studio to run the script
To add an existing script to your document, click the Add Custom Featurebutton. From the dialog box, choose one of the scripts.
Q&A
Q: How many customers do you have now?
A: We have tens of thousands of active users. [Onshape has their own internal definition for an "active" user.]
Q: FeatureScript was built into Onshape from the beginning. Why release it now, rather than earlier?
A: We needed to build the Feature Studio development environment, documentation, and tutorials. We also had to develop and test the interface used to add custom features into an individual user's interface.
Q: The code created by FeatureScript looks like JavaScript, even shares the name.
A: It looks like JavaScript so that it is immediately familiar to programmers, but we created the programming language ourselves.
Q: Is it compiled or interpretive?
A: Interpreted.
Q: Where's the dividing line between using the Onshape API and FeatureScript?
A: FeatureScript is for building geometry; the API is for other activities, such as exporting data and passing metadata. So a CAM system would use the API to pass data back and forth.
Q: Getting a bit more specific, would the drafting component written by Graebert be written in FeatureScript?
A: No, it uses our API. But some partners use FeatureScript to do things like fix models.
Q: Where does FeatureScript run, in the Web browser or on Onshape servers?
A: You write and edit code in the client [the browser], but it runs on the servers.
Q: WHen code is shared, how do users know it works?
A: The custom code available on our Web site has been tested by Onshape to ensure it works properly. As users share custom code with one another, they can test the features in a new document. The worst case is the new feature may fail to rebuild with errors. If this happens, then the new feature can be simply deleted or the user can use undo or restore to remove it.
Q: Can it be used to spread virii?
A: There is no possibility of viruses spreading, because Onshape uses sandboxing [to isolate running code from other parts of the system], and so it has no access to account data, etc.
Q: What pressure does this place on MCAD competitors, especially Autodesk?
A: For the first time, MCAD users can create very specialized tool sets. I don't want to comment further, except that this gives our users a unique advantage in automating and customizing Onshape and their models. Early adopters says they are seeing modeling productivity increase of 10x-30x.
We are seeing Onshape adopted by smaller companies, because of its affordability in terms of the CAD license cost, lower hardware requirements, and no IT infrastructure. Larger orgs are using it for new projects because of parallel tasks and working with external suppliers. FeatureScript is a new reason for using Onshape.
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FeatureScript does not automate the creation of assemblies or mates. "The idea is to allow users to create features specific to their needs easily, and to provide a mechanism to develop Onshape’s capabilities at a rate that the CAD industry has never seen," concluded Mr Armstrong.
http://www.onshape.com |
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Eli Laipson heads up business development for a new company, Modelo.io, and writes, "We launched publicly at the end of January and now have over 3,000 users on the platform. Right now we're a team of 11 based in Cambridge MA, and follow a roughly three-week release cycle for new features."
The idea is that you upload Revit, Rhino, SketchUp, Vectorworks, and other 3D models to the Modelo site, which then renders them in real-time. No surprise that Modelo uses WebGL plus Modelo's proprietary compression engine to get high FPS [frames per second] with large models. Sign up for a free account at http://modelo.io. |
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There is more at our WorldCAD Access blog about the CAD industry, tips on using hardware and software, and our popular travelogues. You can keep up with the blog through its RSS feed and email alert service. These are some of the articles that appeared on WorldCAD Access during the last week:
We're on Twitter at @upfrontezine with late-breaking CAD news and wry commentary throughout the day, such as....
upFront.eZine (@upFronteZine) Jun 8: PTC's new logo. Looks like 'Hands Helping Hands' charity, but apparently that isn't what it is supposed to mean.
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Re: Your Car is No Longer Your Fortress
Thanx for the nice book review! I may get a copy myself. Just got done fixing my neighbor's 98 Ram 2500 w/a broken i.p. and w/rear abs codes. One thing good: Chrysler had the best network of all auto mfgrs (but not any more!).
I agree w/you about buying older cars. These newer cars are purposely designed to lock-out the non-authorized service shop. It's a coups d'état in the auto world.
- Chris Cadman
The editor replies: I think the limit for me was the Dodge Caravan I owned in the 1990s, where the last two spark plugs could only be removed by the dealer, who would have to take the engine half out, for which I would have to pay. Grrr!
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Great article on automotive electronics. I'm sure you have plenty of horror stories already, but a friend of mine just got his John Deere tractor out of the shop for $20,000 when the CVT transmission croaked after less than ten years.
The dealer had to put two re-manned transmissions in the thing, because the first one "didn't work". He said it was obvious that none of the techs had the slightest idea how it worked, as they swapped in the new component, couldn't get it to talk to the computer, and just ordered another one.
But what do I know? I drove to breakfast this morning in a machine with a carburetor.
There's a disconnect in the automotive world, where "because we can" has become the sole reason for at least fifty percent of the design. The companies are run by a generation of engineers and managers who live in fear of being called Luddites, and so whenever someone announces "Hey, we figured out a way to add 6 components, a couple dozen wires, 12 connectors, another microprocessor, and 12,000 lines of code, and now we can tell if the tail light burns out from here in the office, and automatically email the nearest highway patrol officer so they can write a ticket", they have no choice but to say "Gee, I always wished we could do that, Make it so!"
The correct response is to put that guy to work answering phones in the service department for a couple of years, explaining to dealer service managers why the oil drain is positioned right above the suspension arm.
- Jess Davis
The editor replies: Such a change from a decade or more ago, when car makers were extremely conservative about adding new functions -- first as an option on high-end cars, and then after a few years of experience moving the function to lower-end, then finally as a standard feature. I guess the whole "CAD lets us design new models every year" mentality has its drawbacks.
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Ralph, I know you can do many things, but I never knew you could "tapping with one eye on touch screen menus to merely..."
- Herb Grabowski
The editor replies: A comma is missing after 'tapping.'
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Speaking of hacks, here's the story behind my first computer hack. Once upon a time I worked for the Canadian branch of a US company. They eventually shut us down and moved all computers to the US. Much to their chagrin, every time they booted up, a message displayed saying "Stolen from {company name} Canada." They tried re-formatting the hard drives but to no avail. I heard later that they spent considerable time on the problem, but never did solve it.
They thought they were re-formatting the hard drive from a virgin floppy, but here is what happened. Back in the days of '286 and '386 computers, IBM supplied their version of PC-DOS on 5-1/4" floppies. These disks didn't have a write-enable notch so that we could not alter them. So the command.com file was patched on the hard drive, the write-enable micro-switch in the floppy drive was bypassed, command.com was copied to the floppy diskette, and then the switch was re-enabled.
- Bill Fane |
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