Tech Tip: Hide Parts Before Editing In-Context

Onshape has had the ability to edit in the context of an assembly for over a year now. This functionality has allowed engineers to no longer worry about their assemblies “blowing up” because of broken file references or even simple movements of the assembly. But I keep hearing one question in regards to Onshape’s Managed In-Context Design tools:

“Does a context have to show all the parts in the assembly?”

The short answer is no.

Parts that are hidden at the assembly level when a context is created are not shown in the context. In general, you want to limit the parts to only those that are needed for reference in the context. Take the example in the screenshot below:

This example is an assembly with hundreds of parts, and I need to create a bracket that references two of them (the two highlighted with red arrows). So before I start my new part in-context, I will hide everything except the parts that I will be referencing.

After you hide the parts you don’t need, you can create your context. Notice that only the parts showing when the context is created are included in the context. All the hidden parts are not included.

That’s it! This tip will make your assembly contexts far simpler and easier to manage.

P.S. In case you missed it, my colleague Katie Huffman recently blogged about how to use Onshape’s Managed In-Context Design with Linked Documents.