Fusion 360 - Objects/bodies/components disappear in drawing mode randomly or when zooming in and out.

[toffypops]

Hello all.

I am making my own post, as I was advised to do so by Autodesk.

I have a similar if not the same problem as outlined in this post:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-design-validate/new-components-not-showing-properly-on-upd...

“I have some new components in the assembly that were added later than when the drawing was originally created from the assembly. (New components as well as new sub-components of existing components). After updating the drawing, the added parts should be shown, but to my surprise, this is not the case, (either shading is shown but no contours or nothing at all.) Also it is the same for new features of existing components.”

Now there are some things I have figured out, or think I have figured out, and then some I do not understand what is happening, so I think it is important I start with a backstory.

First of all, I have worked with IT-Tech-support for over 23 years, so I know my way round troubleshooting quite a bit.

When it comes to Fusion 360 and CAD I am more of a rookie whom have learned by YouTube vids and trial and error.

Now my problem is more or less caused by the following key points.

1. I have a model of 5 parts I want to make a single drawing on with Fusion 360 on an A0 page since I am running the free version of Fusion 360.
2. Originally, I wanted to show part 5 in several steps, of how I had made it, so I made some bodies along the way, and exported these as their own components, and totally split them away from the project. The separation was done after the project was more or less completed, so I did this by rolling back in the timeline, and exporting out the models as bodies at the various stages, and had them saved as separate components.
3. Next I deleted them all from the main project as they corrupted when I restored the timeline, since some of the objects and stuff that was in the timeline previously had been deleted later in the timeline, and thus it caused the components to no longer have references.
4. So I decided on that approach. So basically the imported f3D-files where standalone components with no references to the finished project at all.
5. Originally, in my project, all these f3D files were LINKED files, meaning if I made a change to the f3D files (which I never did) it would update.
6. However, I found this later caused significant slowdown when wanting to add new base views in the fusion 360 drawing board, so I Unlinked them, saving them as standalone components with the project.
7. I am new to drawings, and the best way I found how to draw and make base views was to incorporate new base views from scratch from each component, which again means I have to load in the project file as a whole, with all the objects every time, because many objects in different views have the same placement in the Fusion 360 space/area, and would overlap each other if I used the same base view.
8. This resulted in me making over 25+ base views, each having only tick for the model I wanted to show in the drawing.
9. The first problem I started getting was when I was on one of my last base views, the object kept disappearing when I selected other objects, zoomed, or made new objects. Or it would only show as a wireframe.

Here is a video of this problem: https://youtu.be/qucoo7YR_Wk

1. In the above video, I am using the components as linked components, so updates and everything is very slow.
2. Searching online, I found an article saying this was a problem with an outdated graphics driver, so I updated my NVIDIA driver, and the problem remained.
3. I also tried to change driver to the Nvidia Studio version of the driver, more tailored to productivity work, instead of the gaming driver, but the problem remained.
4. I also tried to change various settings in NVIDIA driver, which supposedly had fixed similar problems for other people, but none of this worked for me.
5. I do not believe this is a screen refresh issue since the issue is replicated onto physical prints, and not only on the visual screen.
6. I tried clearing the Fusion 360 cache from the Help-menu in fusion, but the problem still remained.
7. The main objects that vanish are objects where I saved a body as a component, then saved that as a Fusion360 *.f3d file. Then i re-opened these components from disk, into my project, so I would have dedicated base views, since I wanted to document each step on how I created a model. Now, I started thinking. These objects in my 2D drawing has to go through a lot of junctions, to appear in my 2D drawing.

First they are loaded into the project from disk -> Linked to the actual f3d-files on disk -> Then each of these have their own, linked components in the project. If you make a change to any of those components, fusion 360 would notice and demand an update in the project, which is fair and OK if you are designing a model.

But there is now an additional step for these links, to re-link them. And that is into the 2D drawing. Basically every time you make a change in the 2D drawing, a rewrite or whatever, a command goes back, 2D-> project-> f3d-file = Has any updates happened at any point? Fusion then checks, and checks the f3D file for updates, then the update is updated to the project model linked and loaded, then fusion tells back to the 2D drawing, nope, no changes! - Problem is, the base file here, is a file that exist on a physical disk, the f3d file. And it needs to be accessed every time you make a change if it is linked. I was wondering why adding a new base view was sooo slow for the project, and then I thought: "What if I break the link?" - Then save the project, with the files / components/bodies inside the project itself? Essentially eliminating the need for the f3d files which will not be changed anyway? Because a linked in object or component, is not actually saved IN the project itself, but loaded from disk when you load the project.  When you break the links, the components will be orphaned from their links, and becomes their own components and objects within the project files.

1. So I unlinked the linked components. And Fusion then was a lot faster loading and updating the drawings and components, but I still had the problem with disappearing baseviews and projected views.
2. I did find a linked object that was bugged/corrupted but even if I remade it, so it was not corrupted, the errors with disappearing views still happened.
3. All this made me wonder if Fusion 360 has problems with the way it draws objects in the drawing view, so I even tried to change to DirectX9 and OpenGL, but the problems remained.
4. My gfx card config is as follows:

[GPU Information]
GPU Device: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER
GPU RAM: 8064 MB
GPU Driver API: DirectX 11.0
GPU Driver Version: 531.68
GPU Driver Date: 04/14/2023

[Graphics Effects Settings]
Anti Aliasing: On
Ambient Occlusion: On
Object Shadow: Off
Ground Shadow: On
Ground Reflection: Off
Selection Display Style: Normal
Transparency Effect: Better Performance

[Limit effects to optimize performance]
Off

1. Even if I try to print the drawings, on the printouts the drawings that visually are not shown, are not shown on print, so it is almost like the reference to the underlying models are gone.
2. So what I found in the end was the following.
3. If I am zoomed out, having a full view of the whole drawing, and try to move objects or make them appear, usually the previously linked objects do not show.
4. If I zoom in close, say, only have those objects in a close up, I can move them, show them and everything, without problem, and they remain until I zoom in and out on a different part of the A0 sheet of the drawing. If they go out of the viewing field, and are no longer shown, when I then zoom back out, they are gone again. I also found out that part of the reason why objects are not showing, is because the parts are only disabled on the top of the hierarchy in the structure, and the bodies are still selected as showing
   Ref: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOjtw1rb8lg
5. When I went in and unselected from the lowest point to the top point in each hierarchy of the structure of EACH of the base views, the error I had with “overlapping” objects vanished. But did not remove the problem with totally disappearing objects.  REF: https://youtu.be/-l3CdU0tvwU
6. I know some will say it would be disabled if the top view was disabled, but trust me, I tried and tested this, and there were overlapping which only vanished after I removed all activations manually, and then sometimes the objects appeared without me having to refresh it, and other times I had to just update it or mark it for it to show correctly.
7. At one point, I struggled with being unable to select certain views, and the above was the fix for this.
8. The problem happens for both original project files, as well as the previously linked components.
9. If I do a change to the main project file, and then update the drawing, most of the time the original project files, except the previously linked components are redrawn, but very often visualized incorrectly. In addition, they also only show correctly, when I zoom in and modify them in the drawing board.
10. For me this feels like Fusion is unable to maintain its draw-buffer for objects that originated from linked-in-components from f3d files as well as internal project files components.
11. I found a similar issue with AutoCAD where they had given an answer to possible solutions, but since Fusion 360 does not have the same commands and settings, I am unable to test it. Ref:  https://www.autodesk.com/support/technical/article/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/objects-disappear-...
12. In my machine, I have an i9-9900K, with 32GB DDR4 memory (verified error free through testing), my gfx card is Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER WINDFORC with 8GB ram. Which I do believe should be enough. It only states about 3.5GB used on the gfx card, and about 6GB used by the Fusion 360 in system information when model is loaded.

Therefore, I am hoping someone can please tell me why my components and models are not showing, because surely Fusion 360 should be able to handle more complex drawings than mine. I have not seen any info about there being a max-limit to number of base views you can have showing on one drawing either, and neither that I need a paid version to show more than X number of base views or projected views at the same time.

Best regards.

Bård

Norway

[-KyleWilliams-]

Hey!
Sorry your post went without a reply for so long.
Are you able to provide us with the file so we can try and reproduce on our end?
You can send it directly to me kyle.williams@autodesk.com
I reviewed your steps and attempted to create something similar but was not experiencing what you've shown.

[toffypops]

Thank you.

Have sent you an e-mail.

Best reg.

Bård

[toffypops]

any news?

[toffypops]

Any news after I sent the files?

[itzelU3SNN]

I have the same problem. Did you find out how to fix it?

My drawings are a lot simpler than yours and still sometimes some bodies just don't show

[toffypops]

Last thing was i got a message above from KyleWilliams who asked me to send him files, which i did by e-mail , and i never heard anything more again. 😞

So no..still unresolved.

[-KyleWilliams-]

I'm not seeing any email or files around that date. Before I have you try sending them again...
The issue sounds like something related to graphics. @toffypops I have your driver info and settings, can you also let me know details about your monitor setup (specifically if its 4K and your scale settings). @itzelU3SNN could you post that info as well.

Thanks.
CC - @ClintBrown3D @nemadec 

[toffypops]

Have resent it now @-KyleWilliams- , sent it 29th of april to you previously.

I have tried to reinstall drivers to no avail. To me it looks like Fusion 360 is unable to remember graphics displayed in memory, it's as if it clears it's draw-cache when you zoom in and out, so things not shown on screen get "erased" from the drawcache. It happens especially a lot when you have a lot of objects and details listed in.

Thanks.

Bård