Problem using User Parameters with CAM/2D Contour

[gerry_kmack]

There is a bug in F360 that has been around for awhile, but seems to have gotten worse with the latest update.

First of all, I use User Parameters A LOT. I'm a woodworker (using a 4-axis PCNC 1100 mill). The stock that I use varies somewhat from piece to piece, so I use User Parameters to enter the the precise size of each blank, along with any of a number of parameters related to the final desired outcome for that piece. When I enter all of the appropriate parms correctly, my model automatically resizes/reconfigures per my specs. This is AWESOME!.

Now, the bug: (I have attached a copy of a simple design & a Screencast that I created to show the problem). In my design, I have a User Parameter which specifies the finished thickness of my model. When this parameter changes, the model thickness changes appropriately, also a Sketch which is driven by the perimeter of the model adjusts to match. (This Sketch is used to define the toolpath for a 2D Contour operation on the CAM side)

When I first load the design, everything looks & works as expected: The components & Sketches match the User parameters & the CAM operations work correctly. Then I make a single change: adjust the User Parameter for the model thickness, and everything at first looks fine - the models & Sketches adapt as expected. 

When I switch to CAM mode, problems are immediately evident:

1 - When I click on the Setup button, the Setup origin appears to have moved (from the right rear corner to the right front corner)

2- When (after regenerating toolpaths) I click on the 1st 2D Contour operation (driven by the adjusted Sketch) the toolpath displayed is completely goofy.

3 - When I select edit for the Setup, the Setup origin displays correctly (right rear corner). If I just click OK (no changes), then click on the Setup button again, the Setup origin now looks OK.

4 - When I select Edit for the 2D Contour op & select the Geometry tab, various things can happen; sometimes, it indicates that there is no curve selected, other times (as shown in the screencast) the selected path no longer follows the Sketch that is supposed to be driving it. Instead, it is actually showing the path of the Sketch BEFORE it was changed via the User Parameter. Hmmm.

5 - If I clear the current path selection & attempt to select the Sketch, clicking on the visible Sketch again causes the OLD toolpath to appear.

6 - Finally, if I save the the design (only change was the one User Parameter), close the design & reopen it, I can now go into the 2D Contour operation, reselect the Sketch & now everything works fine - until I attempt to adjust the User parameters again.

[kb9ydn]

Yeah that's definitely a bug.  @jeff.walters or @al.whatmough have you seen this?

If you make a change to the job setup, then revert it back and regenerate it works correctly.  But you shouldn't have to do that.

C|

[gerry_kmack]

Thanks for the response!

Well, the bug demonstrated in my example is actually more severe than that  - the only way that I found to (temporarily) repair the glitch is save the project, close it & then reopen it. If you have slow Internet (I do), this can take forever, especially when you are working on a fairly large project. This is an incredible pain especially when fine tuning a design, which (for me) often involves switching back & forth between Model  & CAM modes, if every switch requires a save-unload-load procedure.

Also - and I probably should have mentioned this in my original post - I suspect that the issue demonstrated by my example shows just the tip to the iceberg. As I stated in my original post, I am a huge fan of User Parameters, and use them frequently to reconfigure my designs.  For months, I have struggled with my designs, as changes to the configuration (via User Parameters) would result in all sorts of bizarre behavior - and this occurs on the Model side as well.  For a long time, I assumed that all of the problems were due to my designs not being set up correctly. To that end, I have recreated several large projects several times, to clean up & simply the designs as much as possible. This actually did fix a number of issues which were caused by mistakes in the design, but a number of issues have persisted. Yesterday, I happened upon a specific situation that could be easily demonstrated, and was clearly a bug - so I decided to document that instance. I sincerely hope that when the F360 gurus dig into this, they will take a comprehensive look at the whole thing.

[gerry_kmack]

So it's been a full week since I went to the effort to document this bug - created a demo project, made a screencast, and posted to this forum - and not even an acknowledgement that the bug exists from anyone on the Fusion 360 team. As this is the only way that I know of to notify Autodesk about bugs, I'm not sure where else to go try to get this fixed.

Is there a registry of known defects somewhere online? If so, perhaps l could look there to see if this problem is acknowledged and being worked on.

Bottom line for me: I love Fusion 360, but this defect makes it nearly impossible to be productive.

[daniel_lyall]

it's your model and the adaptive where the problem is, I have fixed most of it.

the setup just needs edit and hit ok the Adaptive loses focus.

also if you have it as one component so the sketches are with the body it will help as the model adjust it moves but the sketches don't move with it,

I have forced it to cut to the body by moving the bottom height plane. and using the sketch as the stock contours 

.75 thickness

1 inch

if you re select the machine boundaries it comes good.

there are a few other problems with it when it's fixed I will post it back 

[daniel_lyall]

I have got it working better, you will see what is different.

don't worry about the stock box point bug in the setup, I have set it in the tool paths to the stock box point where you want it.

it up dates correctly the toolpath stick to the stock, I set the stock in the setup as what you have set as stock it changes if you change stock size.

I have moved the sketches in with the model component, it makes it work a little bit better, trippy's R U L E 1.

I changed the contour to a 3D contour, it has only 3 toolpaths it's all that is needed 

[LibertyMachine]

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@gerry_kmack wrote:

So it's been a full week since I went to the effort to document this bug - created a demo project, made a screencast, and posted to this forum - and not even an acknowledgement that the bug exists from anyone on the Fusion 360 team. As this is the only way that I know of to notify Autodesk about bugs, I'm not sure where else to go try to get this fixed.

Is there a registry of known defects somewhere online? If so, perhaps l could look there to see if this problem is acknowledged and being worked on.

Bottom line for me: I love Fusion 360, but this defect makes it nearly impossible to be productive.

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That link is on every main page on the Fusion forums 

If you follow that link there are instructions on how to proceed with a suspected bug. The Fusion team is often quite responsive. 

[gerry_kmack]

Thanks for the poke on that - I mistakenly believed that the Forum was the best way to report a bug. Yesterday, I sent an email directly to Fusion 360 technical support, regarding this bug, and received a response later the same day:  This issue has been officially logged as a bug (ID: CAM-4655) & sent on to the development team. Hopefully, there will be fix in the next release.