Tutorials PartCraft help Troubleshooting and limits
What is not built yet
Everything this PartCraft build does not do yet, from twisting sweeps to inch display, drawing dimensions and sub-assemblies, with what to do instead today.
Written for PartCraft 0.3. The same help is inside the app: press F1.
PartCraft is an early build. This page lists what it does not do yet, so you do not search for it, and what to do instead today. Nothing here has a date.
Features
| Not built yet | Instead, today |
|---|---|
| Face fillets, full-round fillets, fillets with radii set at points along an edge | Constant or linear variable Fillet; several fillet features |
| Shells with different wall thicknesses | One Shell thickness; add material with extrudes where a wall must be thicker |
| Draft on freeform (spline) faces | Draft works on flat, cylindrical and conical faces |
| Twisting sweeps, thin-wall and surface sweeps; guide rails and end tangency on the Loft feature; spline paths | Sweep with a fixed orientation or an end scale; for a loft that follows guide curves, a Gordon surface with closed profiles and Close to a solid: see Surfaces through a curve network |
| Rib | Extrude a thin profile |
| "Up to" a curved surface, "up to next" stopping at a curved face | Up to a flat face or a reference plane |
| Counterdrilled holes, inch and pipe threads, modelled (helical) threads | Counterbore with a small depth; tapped ISO metric holes carry a cosmetic thread and a callout |
| Thin-feature extrudes | Draw both walls of the profile |
| Pattern copies skipped one by one, fill patterns | Use separate features; patterns along a curve: Path pattern |
| A material saved in the part file | Pick one in the Measure card for mass properties, or set it on the part in an assembly: see Measure distances, angles and mass |
| Copying patterns, mirrors, fillets, chamfers, shells and imported solids | Copy the sketch or feature they are built on, or pattern it |
| Exact (G1) tangency at a form's extraordinary points; merging a form's patches into larger faces | Raise the form's Level: the approximated patches get smaller; see Freeform shapes with Form |
| A form made of several separate closed pieces in one feature; bridges between forms | One closed piece per Form feature; join them with Join |
| Picking surface bodies in the view (except trim and patch points); surface fillets; untrim; G2 patches; Gordon surfaces tangent to their neighbours | Choose them by name in the feature's panel; thicken first, then fillet the solid |
| Renaming bodies, hiding bodies one by one, a body list in the history | Bodies are named after the feature that made them; the part panel lists them |
| A non-uniform scale that keeps cylinders and cones analytic; non-uniform scaling of offset surfaces | Scale body makes curved faces close B-splines (within 0.0000004 mm); a uniform scale stays exact |
| Combining surface bodies; Minkowski sums | Stitch or Thicken first, then Combine |
Sketches
| Not built yet | Instead, today |
|---|---|
| Ellipses, tangent arcs, conics, splines with a set degree or weights (NURBS) | Splines (cubic), arcs and circles with Tangent relations |
| A point on a spline (a relation), curvature (G2) relations | Put a spline's own point where it must pass |
| Offset copies of splines that follow later changes; offsets of chains with sharp spline corners | Offset again after the change; round the corner first |
| Pattern copies that stay linked to the original; patterns along a curve | Pattern again after a change |
| Projecting free-form or tilted circular edges, projected geometry that follows the part | Project straight and parallel circular edges, then dimension |
| Driven (reference) dimensions | Read sizes from the panel or the part facts |
| Collinear relations | Parallel with a 0 distance |
| Pasting into another program (the system clipboard) | Export DXF, STEP, STL or 3MF |
| Typing arcs, relative or polar coordinates | Type lines and circles; draw arcs with the Arc tool |
| Selecting geometry without a pointer | Needs a click or a tap |
Parameters and units
| Not built yet | Instead, today |
|---|---|
| Design tables saved inside the part file | Keep the CSV beside the part; import it on the Parameters tab (Design tables) |
| Equations on the numbers of the newest features' own panels (plane, sweep, draft and similar) | Write them in a script or with partcraft set (Scripts and the command line) |
| A part shown in inches | Sizes show in millimeters; type 2in in a number box or an expression and it becomes 50.8 |
Files
| Not built yet | Instead, today |
|---|---|
| Editing an imported STEP solid's own features (it arrives without history) | Add or cut material with your own features |
| Reading colors, names, assembly structure and PMI from STEP | Not available |
| glTF, OBJ, IGES, Parasolid, DWG export | STL or 3MF for meshes; STEP for solids; DXF for 2D |
| Opening STL, IGES, DXF or other programs' own files | Ask for STEP |
| Fillets, chamfers, shells and STEP without the exact kernel | They need it: see The exact kernel and the mesh kernel |
| Assembly structure (a tree with part names) in exported STEP | Assembly STEP is one compound of the placed solids |
| Saving to a folder of your choice without the browser's download | Turn on "ask where to save" in the browser's download settings |
Drawings
| Not built yet | Instead, today |
|---|---|
| Dimensions beyond the three overall sizes (hole sizes, positions, tolerances on sizes) | Mark up the PDF, or export DXF and dimension it in a 2D CAD program |
| More than one section or detail; aligned, broken-out and auxiliary views | One section and one detail per drawing |
| Free text, notes, tables and revision blocks on the sheet | The finish note, or text added on the PDF |
| Other sheet sizes, first-angle projection, moving views | Always A3, third angle, automatic layout |
| Section views with the mesh kernel | Needs the exact kernel |
| Pinch-zoom and touch panning on the sheet | Mouse, trackpad or keys |
| Assembly drawings with more views, dimensions or balloons you can move | One isometric (or exploded) view with automatic balloons and the parts list |
| Copy and paste of GD&T and finish symbols | Place each with Datum, Frame or Finish |
Assemblies
| Not built yet | Instead, today |
|---|---|
| Joints in a loop (more than one path to the grounded part) | Keep the joints a tree; remove one joint of the loop |
| Exploded steps that turn parts, and dragging parts that joints place | Straight explode steps; remove a joint to move a part by hand |
| Sub-assemblies | One level of parts only |
| Gears, cams, contact | Not available |
Manufacture
| Not built yet | Instead, today |
|---|---|
| 3D roughing and finishing of curved faces, adaptive clearing, rest machining | 2.5-axis face, pocket, contour, drill and chamfer: see Make toolpaths and G-code |
| 4- and 5-axis toolpaths, turning, probing | Set up one side at a time with the tool axis on the Setup tab |
| Holder and shank collision checks | Watch the flute-length warnings and check in your control's simulator |
| Editing posts or adding other controls | Fanuc-style, GRBL or LinuxCNC; adapt the downloaded file by hand |
| Inch G-code (G20) | Millimetres (G21) only |
Simulation and generative design
| Not built yet | Instead, today |
|---|---|
| Nonlinear studies: yielding, large deflections, contact between parts, fatigue | Linear static and natural frequencies: see Check stress and deflection; keep the safety factor well above 1 |
| Nonlinear buckling (imperfections, post-buckling, snap-through) | Linear buckling load factors with a generous margin: see Heat, thermal stress and buckling |
| Radiation between faces (view factors), contact resistance, temperature-dependent materials, inertia in thermal stress (thermal shock waves) | Radiation to the surroundings, steady or quasi-static thermal stress over time, constant properties: see Heat, thermal stress and buckling |
| Automatic refinement for natural frequencies, buckling, transient heat and thermal stress; making the mesh coarser where the error is small; a target on a local quantity (the peak stress at one spot) | Refine automatically for static and steady thermal studies, on the error over the whole part: see Check stress and deflection; otherwise lower the element size |
| Bearing and bolt loads, remote forces, moments, springs, prescribed displacements | Forces and pressures on faces, gravity; fixed and frictionless faces |
| Simulation of assemblies; materials that differ by direction (printed layers, composites) | One part, one isotropic material |
| Several solver threads for tetrahedral studies, heat transfer and generative design; any threads on a page that is not cross-origin isolated | Voxel studies, buckling, stress over time and laminar flow use the threads where the page allows it: see PartCraft settings |
| Turbulent flow with design accuracy (the Spalart–Allmaras model is in as experimental: pipe friction 28 to 46 % high, backward-step reattachment 28 to 54 % short; planned fix: wall treatment on staircase walls, finer wall cells), heat in flow, unsteady (time-accurate) flow, free surfaces, non-Newtonian fluids, rotating parts | Laminar, steady, isothermal flow of a Newtonian fluid, or the experimental turbulent model for qualitative patterns: see Simulate fluid flow; the panel warns when the Reynolds number is past laminar |
| Stress limits and manufacturing rules (overhangs, milling directions) in generative design; several materials in one shape | Stiffest shape for a volume; check the outcome in Simulation: see Grow a shape from loads |
| An outcome as an editable (smooth, parametric) solid | STL, faceted STEP or a part with the outcome as an imported faceted solid |
Scripts
| Not built yet | Instead, today |
|---|---|
| Find and replace, folding, autocompletion and hover help in the script editor | Your own editor: Save and Open in the Script group move scripts in and out; built-in functions are listed in The CraftScript language |
| Breakpoints and stepping through a script | disp and fprintf along the way; ⌘ ReturnCtrl+Enter runs a few selected lines at a time |
| Several plots side by side; saving a plot as a picture | One sub-display at a time, switched by its tab; save the numbers as CSV or JSON from the Variables tab |
| Python, Pascal Script | CraftScript and Lua: see Write and run scripts |
| Calling the analysis library from Lua; passing Lua functions to built-in functions | Call library functions from a CraftScript script; Lua reaches the built-in functions through cs. |
The app
| Not built yet | Instead, today |
|---|---|
| Cloud saving, sharing and version history | Not available yet. Save files to your computer and keep versions by name |
| Desktop builds (Windows, macOS, Linux) | Not available yet. Use PartCraft in a current browser |
| Context (right-click) menus | Toolbar and right panel |
| Customizing keys and the toolbar | Not available |
| Working fully offline from a fresh start | Only when the app has been saved for offline use: see Working offline |
Report what you miss most through the site's support page: it shapes what comes next.