topic Re: Model and Drawing Link in Fusion Design, Validate & Document Forum

Model and Drawing Link

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Nov 2019 12:31:37 GMT

Wondering if anyone has a suggestion on this: I've got a bunch of parts to make drawings for, and they're all *really* similar. They might have one or two angles or lengths that are different, but that's it. I've got the model and drawing done for the first one, and would like to be able to just tweak the model and let it update the drawing. Which it will. The problem is that I lose my ability to keep unique drawings and models for all of the individual part numbers I'm making.

I looked at just using the model/drawing versions, but we are regularly making tweaks to these parts, so I'd prefer to stay away from that. I was hoping I could copy the model and then reassign the drawing link, but it doesn't appear that is a possibility. I can appreciate why breaking drawing links would be a bad idea, I would just like to be able to reassign it.

Anyone have any suggestions? Or am I just going to have to re-create the entire drawing for every individual model?

Thanks!

Re: Model and Drawing Link

engineguy — Sat, 02 Nov 2019 09:27:40 GMT

@Anonymous

I had looked at this some time ago and unless there has been an update on this then I think you will end up doing the same as me, if you are not already doing so 😞

I had to do a drawing for each new Part right at the beginning when I did each model but once that was done it was real easy after that, I created a new Project for each part and gave it the Part# name, that way every model and every drawing is in it`s own location so they are all kept as unique models/drawings and afterwards it is really quick to open, change a model and update the drawing and if required download a new .PDF file of the drawing for printing out for the shop floor.

Example images below.

Yes, it would be nice to be able to say copy/paste a drawing into a different Project and re-name it and re-assign it the same as can be done with the model, that can be copy/pasted !!

One thing I do is when ever I create a new model and drawing I always save it to the offline cache so I can work on them when offline as I have a really lousy Internet connection and I find it is much faster working Offline 🙂

Sorry if it isn`t of any real help, looks like we are stuck with the way it is for the forseeable future 😞 😞

Regards

Rob

Example ProjectsModel and Drawing files in Project

Re: Model and Drawing Link

HughesTooling — Sat, 02 Nov 2019 11:20:11 GMT

After creating the first part file and 2d drawing, go to the online hub and download the 2d drawing. You will get an f3z file containing the model and the 2d drawing, next use Fusion's data panel to upload to a new project\folder and you'll have a copy of the part and linked 2d drawing.

You might find using one project with multiple folders works better than multiple projects.

Fusion's abilities to create copies of assemblies is terrible. You can select the part and drawing in the hub and copy. But what you end up with is a new independent copy of the part and a 2d drawing that's still linked to the original part, useless! Same goes for distributed designs, only work around is download the top assembly design as an f3z then reupload to a new project\folder.

Mark

Re: Model and Drawing Link

jhackney1972 — Sat, 02 Nov 2019 20:04:29 GMT

Fusion 360 as you now know does not support this function very well or at all. I would like to propose a workaround. It is explained in my screencast but to summarize:

Create a command assembly
Add in this assembly your various components, which contain small differences, as linked components
Create drawings for the assembly but instead of the full assembly, use component selection
Do a drawing for all the assembly linked components
You will now have one common assembly and separate drawings for each linked component.
If you open a component, edit it, and save it, update the common assembly, save it, each drawing will need to be updated BUT each drawing only updates to the same changes applied to it.

Re: Model and Drawing Link

jhackney1972 — Sun, 03 Nov 2019 13:01:01 GMT

The method I described is only an organizational method to create and maintain model -drawing relationship. It does not allow the sharing of detail drawing annotation I am sorry to say.

Re: Model and Drawing Link

Anonymous — Mon, 04 Nov 2019 13:17:59 GMT

This is a great workaround for me -- Thank you!

Re: Model and Drawing Link

tb9626U — Wed, 07 Apr 2021 11:26:15 GMT

Any news yet regarding this problem? I have a very similar issue: We have variants of the same products and I would like to use one Drawing as a "Template" for the drawings of the different variants.