Enhance your productivity with these updates to the Copy function and Extrude tool. We’ve also provided some fixes to the Project workflow and 2D Drawings.
New: Now you can create unlinked copies of bodies to speed up your conceptual workflow.
Improved: The Extrude tool now only automatically hides sketches in the Items Manager if all edges in the sketch are used in the extrude command, making it easier to create multiple extrusions from the same sketch.
Fixed: Now you can modify projection parameters more effortlessly when you use the Project tool in sketch mode for both 2D and 3D views.
Fixed: Section views in 2D Drawings now retain their annotations after a Drawing update.
Check out these updates and let us know what you think below.
Not going to say that the hide after extrusion functionality isn’t nice for some… but the inability to disable it altogether is definitely a pain point. It creates extra work and waste to have to go unhide a sketch and makes the use less intuitive.
Please provide an option to enable or disable entirely.
Sure. Say I am creating several pulleys or idlers for a 3D printer. I create a set of concentric circles. I extrude different circles to create the thinner inside portion, and then the outer circles for the lips of the idler.
I’ve created one. Now I need to move it over to the side and create another one with different lengths. Since I’ve extruded the entire sketch it vanishes.
Say I want to create a few different length 8mm steel rods. I create one 8mm circle. I extrude a given length. I move it to the side. I go to extrude another shorter one but the sketch is now hidden.
For myself and I can imagine many others with similar workflows, this creates more trouble than it’s worth. Even worse, it makes the workflow unintuitive which has been a hallmark and selling point of Shapr3D; it works how you expect it to.
When I decide that I’m done with a sketch and ready to hide it, I can and will do that. I don’t need the program guessing (wrong) every time.
I understand there may be some users who find this useful, so that is why I am suggesting the ability to toggle the functionality off in its entirety. I appreciate trying to simplify or find new useful functionalities but it can’t be at the expense of the original workflow which frankly had nothing wrong with it.
It also requires retraining a habitual reflex. Both of which affect usability and intuitiveness. Especially for legacy users like myself. So it’s this now. What feature or workflow will it be in the future?
Not saying it’s not possible to do it other ways. It’s just a step backward for a feature to fix a problem that doesn’t seem to exist. I certainly appreciate the work and consideration it took to incorporate this but it just created a problem that I haven’t encountered in the past four years I’ve used the program.
The program now assumes I will only use a sketch for a specified number of things, and in my case (and I’m sure others also) it is wrong the majority of the time. It feels like the program and I are working against one another, and the inability to disable this functionality is at the very least an oversight that should be willfully addressed.
I feel a toggle is a reasonable ask.
Even Model S Plaid (as I’ve seen you liken your aspirations for the program to) has many screens full of toggles to enable / disable certain features. As a Tesla owner myself, one of the things they do right is adding features that are vetted to be truly useful and don’t seriously impact or require a change in how owners use their vehicles. There is a tremendous amount of consideration that goes into each and every change or addition. And unless it’s safety-related there are always options to customize or disable.
Be like that. Don’t disenfranchise the users who have supported this faithfully, financially and otherwise for many, many years with changes that limit instead of empowering with new options.
I agree with Alex. I have been using this app for many years and this is a pain in the butt and doesn’t create any practical benefits that outweigh the added work that we now have to do all the time.
@alexanderhendrickson you perfectly and eloquently articulated frustrations I also have. There have been some recent feature concessions to people who work in ways the developers have decided are wrong - but I still get the impression this is how it’s seen: ‘users are doing it wrong’. This is a mindset that leads away from the wonderful intuitive design space that is Shapr’s core value proposition in a crowded market - and toward arrogant, user hostile, defensive behaviour and development.
I wonder, has a key person in charge of UX moved on from the company at some point? I can tell Shapr gets that they’ve upset a bunch of users, and have made efforts to improve that - but I’m still not convinced they understand why.
It’s definitely frustrating. Especially when the response you get effectively is “ok yeah so just do it this way instead”
I formally articulated a proposed solution in another thread which has received ZERO follow-up.
I can only assume that we are at the point where customer concerns are only listened to if they align with the vision the company has for the product going forward, which up until recently seemed to take a strong lead from customer feedback. Which is what happens with a lot of companies.
I understand that you have to be selective with what you choose to work on. And sometimes see your way through unpopular changes that will turn out popular in the end. Like parametric modeling. But there is nothing about taking what is intuitive and quick and making things disappear without warning and requiring extra steps that will ever turn out popular.
We started out with a great product that made 3D modeling so much easier and quicker. That seemed to be one of the most defining aspects of it, and was what drew a LOT of people in, and it became truly great because people were willing to test and give feedback. And they listened, and displayed a sense of urgency.
Now the urgency and attention seems to only exist where it aligns with THEIR goals for the product that WE pay for. The reason Shapr3D exists is because other programs made things too difficult and slow and unintuitive. If this continues it will only be a matter of time before someone comes out with something new, which I would hate for it to reach that point because Shapr3D is so good.
Just stop fiddling with it where nothing is wrong.
