topic Re: Push-Pull MORPHS into Fillet dialog in Fusion Design, Validate & Document Forum

Push-Pull MORPHS into Fillet dialog

RogerInHawaii — Thu, 08 Nov 2018 23:45:21 GMT

I have a body with a smaller body in it, having created that smaller body using a Split Body tool.

I then want to do a Push-Pull operation on the front surface of that smaller body. I select Modify->Push-Pull, which brings up the Push-Pull Dialog. I then click on the front surface of that smaller body in order to select it as the surface tat will get Push-Pulled, and as soon as I do that it removes the Push-Pull dialog and replaces it with a Fillet dialog. What??? Why? How? What's going on?

See attached screen shots.

Re: Push-Pull MORPHS into Fillet dialog

jeff_strater — Fri, 09 Nov 2018 00:25:10 GMT

@RogerInHawaii, Press/Pull is a "meta command" in Fusion. That is, the command does nothing itself other than fire off other commands:

if a face is selected, then, depending on the setting, either an Offset Faces command is started, or the "smart Press/Pull" command, which can edit a sketch, extrude, etc, depending on what face is selected
if a sketch profile is selected, the Extrude command is started
if a solid edge is selected, Fillet is started
if an open edge of a surface body is selected, Extend is started

Re: Push-Pull MORPHS into Fillet dialog

mavigogun — Fri, 09 Nov 2018 04:39:18 GMT

Bares repeating: use the Photos button at the top of the text window when posting images- opening and expanding each image is a tedium being placed between you and help. Click on link>wait for the progress bar>expand tiny thumbnail>yadayadayada....

I see you attended to your Timeline Warnings by dispensing with Capture of Design History; I'm not sure if the implications of those Warnings don't remain- only, now beyond reach....

Re: Push-Pull MORPHS into Fillet dialog

Phil.E — Fri, 09 Nov 2018 15:55:53 GMT

@mavigogun Actually, the warnings are purely related to parametric compute. Once history is removed they are entirely irrelevant.

Yellow: This means the command is using cached data. It usually means some edit was done that removed the reference data (edge, face, sketch object) that the command was using for Compute.

Red: Entirely failed commands that don't have enough information to provide a cached solution.

Without history, there is no compute, everything just "exists". WYSIWYG.

Regards,

Re: Push-Pull MORPHS into Fillet dialog

RogerInHawaii — Fri, 09 Nov 2018 21:19:13 GMT

If a tool is named Press-Pull then it is expected that it will let you do either a Press or a Pull. The name says what it does. Having it ALSO provide the ability to do a Fillet is simply not at all obvious from its name. Filleting is not at all similar to pressing or pulling. Maybe "Press-Pull-Fillet", but not simply "Press-Pull".

If I select a tool that's named "Screwdriver" and I just happen to have a nail in my pocket I will definitely be surprised and quite a bit confused if the tool suddenly morphs into a Hammer.

Re: Push-Pull MORPHS into Fillet dialog

RogerInHawaii — Fri, 09 Nov 2018 21:41:14 GMT

I had not noticed the Photos button. Thank you for pointing it out. I use so many different programs, some of which include a full array of editing features in their forums but many that do not. I've come to expect "not".

As for the history, my design does indeed have the entire history captured and listed along the bottom line. At no time did I " dispense with Capture of Design History". It might not have shown up on the photo I posted but that's because I cropped it in order to zero in on the issue I was concerned about.

As for timeline (and other) warnings: Little messages pop up in the lower right corner, with no sound to attract attention, and then within a second or two, fade away and are gone. They don't require an acknowledgement or clicking an OK button. They just vanish almost as quickly as they appear. That's not an effective way of assuring that such warning and errors are actually addressed.

Also, I've found that a lot of the warnings (and, yes, I get a LOT simply because I'm quite new at CAD design in general and Fusion 360 in particular) really don't do enough to explain what the problem is and in many cases provide NO suggestions as to how to resolve them. No doubt engineers who have years of experience with the tool encounter very few such warnings, since they've learned how to use most of it effectively, and have probably encountered the warnings in the past and learned from them. But for those just getting into the field, these warning and error dialogs are CRUCIAL to the learning experience. They MUST be absolutely clear, tell not only WHAT the problem is but WHY it's a problem and HOW to reasonably correct it. Critical terms on the dialogs should be clickable and pop up the meaning of the term. I have found most such messages on Fusion 360 to be lacking in one or more of those characteristics.

A simple example: I have another topic that I posted and the error message that I got was:

The projection of tool curve and faces fails.

UNDEFINED ERROR!

The UNDEFINED ERROR message is totally useless. The other message just tells me that Fusion "failed" to handle what I was trying to do. But what am I supposed to do with that info? I looked at a bunch of different possibilities and spent hours trying different approaches to resolve the problem. I finally found an approach that worked, but I still have no real understanding of what Fusion was having trouble with and WHY it was having such trouble.

So, my recommendation: Have your engineers and UI specialists spend a lot more time re-writing the warning and error messages so that they are informative and actually help the engineer to correct the issues. As they stand now (and especially since they merely disappear into the ozone a few seconds after appearing) they're more of an annoyance than a helpful feature.

Re: Push-Pull MORPHS into Fillet dialog

mavigogun — Sat, 10 Nov 2018 16:55:06 GMT

@RogerInHawaii wrote:

As for timeline (and other) warnings: Little messages pop up in the lower right corner, with no sound to attract attention, and then within a second or two, fade away and are gone. They don't require an acknowledgement or clicking an OK button. They just vanish almost as quickly as they appear. That's not an effective way of assuring that such warning and errors are actually addressed.

For sure. There's nothing worse than building for days on a threatening foundation. As a consequence of stubbing my own toe in this way, I've made a habit of periodically performing a Compute All- Modify>Compute All -to check for developed errors that may not already be flagged. That said, now you know. The extrema number of warnings could not have really gone unnoticed, could they? At some point you decided to move forward without confronting the challenge. I understand the temptation- but once you paint yourself into a corner over the course of a month, you won't willingly choose that path again.

Also, I've found that a lot of the warnings (and, yes, I get a LOT simply because I'm quite new at CAD design in general and Fusion 360 in particular) really don't do enough to explain what the problem is and in many cases provide NO suggestions as to how to resolve them.

That's accurate- many of the error messages suck- more on that later -still, attend to those messages and expand any pull-down menus: selecting Error Message section headers sometimes highlights the problem item in the Viewport or Browser. Sometimes.

No doubt engineers who have years of experience with the tool encounter very few such warnings, since they've learned how to use most of it effectively, and have probably encountered the warnings in the past and learned from them.

I suspect the the later is more true than the former.

Look, here's the Fusion tough love: it's an expanding blob. Every individual user has something they want it to do or do better. Sometimes, in response, the blob grows that direction. Often not. Responsive Error Messages are one of those competing priorities that would make Fusion better (much), but without which Fusion functions- so not absolutely critical. Contriving the analytical algorithms necessary to confront the multiplicity of ways a tool can break is one major undertaking; building reflexive responses to any given context is another undertaking all together. Still, these are, to some degree, surmountable challenges- subsumed- for the moment or indefinably -by the priority blob.

Re: Push-Pull MORPHS into Fillet dialog

HughesTooling — Tue, 13 Nov 2018 11:00:55 GMT

@RogerInHawaii wrote:

. As they stand now (and especially since they merely disappear into the ozone a few seconds after appearing) they're more of an annoyance than a helpful feature.

Normally the errors that disappear are just because an invalid size is entered while setting up a feature, once a valid size is used the error's gone. An easy example is try adding a chamfer to a body and drag too far and you see an error, as soon a you enter a chamfer size that fits the error disappears. If you pause while the chamfer's too big the error will fade but hovering the mouse over the red X bottom right will show the error. Because features are added in real time to give a preview there are quite a lot of times you can have an invalid size flag an error while setting up that don't need to be worried about, any real errors you do need to worry about will stay accessible by clicking the red X.

Mark

Re: Push-Pull MORPHS into Fillet dialog

HughesTooling — Tue, 13 Nov 2018 11:16:28 GMT

@RogerInHawaii wrote:

I have a body with a smaller body in it, having created that smaller body using a Split Body tool.

I then want to do a Push-Pull operation on the front surface of that smaller body. I select Modify->Push-Pull, which brings up the Push-Pull Dialog. I then click on the front surface of that smaller body in order to select it as the surface tat will get Push-Pulled, and as soon as I do that it removes the Push-Pull dialog and replaces it with a Fillet dialog. What??? Why? How? What's going on?

See attached screen shots.

Nobody really addressed your question about what's going on here. You got the info that Press Pull will add a fillet if you select an edge but no one seems to have question what you've actually got selected below. You can see the dialog has one edge selected but nothing seems highlighted! Do you use selection filters and is there a chance you left them set to select surface edges? @jeff_strater any idea what might be going on to cause this, hard to tell without the model.

Re: Push-Pull MORPHS into Fillet dialog

jeff_strater — Sat, 17 Nov 2018 04:06:01 GMT

@HughesTooling and @RogerInHawaii, sorry, just catching up on some old topics after having been at Autodesk University this week.

To be honest, I'm not sure, either. I'm pretty confident that Press/Pull should not invoke Fillet if you select a face. The one theory that I do have, though, is this: If you may have pre-selected an edge (even without knowing it), then started Press/Pull, which will then go straight to Fillet. Fillet now (as of October - we are about to undo that, because it was kind of a disaster) supports face selection. Once you are in Fillet, selecting a face will stay in Fillet.

If you still have that version of the design laying around, I'd be happy to check it out. I was not able to reproduce it on any version of your design from your other posts.