topic Re: Drawings: Problem Updating Drawing Links in Fusion Design, Validate & Document Forum

Drawings: Problem Updating Drawing Links

kevinwatts — Mon, 12 Feb 2018 17:10:06 GMT

Previously I have created over 30 detailed engineering drawings from one design. The drawing update link was working fine previously.

Now, after opening the drawing and licking the update icon the update hangs (runs endlessly). Since the original (30) drawings were created I have revised some components, added some components and renamed some components/bodies.

Before I select to update the link to the current version, the browser does not contain any of the new components (as expected) but some of the old components have all of the sub components and bodies visible even though they were not set to visible in the drawing or in the master design file.

After about 1 hour the update completes. The browser list has been updated. This is not a computer processor problem. I have worked on many drawings and have never had this issue. However, some components and bodies that are set as hidden are visible. Unchecking just one to hide, sends the program in to another long and endless compute process.

Urgently needed to meet deadline. What is the workaround until this is fixed?

Re: Drawings: Problem Updating Drawing Links

kevinwatts — Mon, 12 Feb 2018 17:49:23 GMT

Simple Test - After updating links, all components and bodies visible after update even though all hided in design file.

This is an old Fusion 360 programing routine used for debugging. How fast can this be corrected????

Re: Drawings: Problem Updating Drawing Links

Phil.E — Mon, 12 Feb 2018 19:19:29 GMT

@kevinwatts

I'm sorry to hear you are having issues. It sounds like you are now only stuck on updating the drawings, right?

You could try a few things, but these are just a shot in the dark.

Right click on the project in your Data Panel.
Add the whole project to offline cache.
Take Fusion 360 offline.
Then try your drawing updates.

That should eliminate any slow network issues.

Regarding model visibility in 3D vs 2D. The visibility of bodies/components in your 3D design is not connected to the 2D drawing. Is it possible you changed those components (renaming them, reordering them into sub-assemblies, etc.) that has caused the drawing to recognize them as being "new and different", and thus making them newly-visible?

Are your drawings made from Animations?

Thanks,

Re: Drawings: Problem Updating Drawing Links

kevinwatts — Mon, 12 Feb 2018 19:48:40 GMT

Thank you for the reply and suggestions Phil.

My engineering drawings are not created from animations.

WORK AROUND - (updating links for an existing drawing after extensive design file modifications and changes)

Open original drawing
In Browser: Suppress Visibility of all components
Update Link
In Browser: DO NOT MAKE VISIBLE YET
UNCHECK ALL - sub components and bodies not used in drawing
In Browser: Check (make visible) all sub components and bodies under main components
Then make the master component visible
At this point the components in the drawing should all be visible. Some dimensions may need correction.
Save drawing file.
Now repair any dimension or annotation warnings. Most can be done by simply associating them.
Save drawing file.

I just followed these instructions. The compute time depending on the complexity of a component body is still longer than it needs to be. One of the Fusion updates brought in the whole Browser list, not just the original components for drawing. Sounds nice but it is not practical. The engineering is done in the Modeling workspace not on the drawings. That is just my opinion.

Working offline should as mentioned by Phil, reduce to network delays that could occur. I am using a fiber network so it is usually very fast. But I will have to try that out. After, what is the process to continue working Online? Does that create any issues moving forward? Does the drawing relink to the online version?

Again, thank you Phil.

Re: Drawings: Problem Updating Drawing Links

Phil.E — Mon, 12 Feb 2018 20:01:18 GMT

It sounds like you don't need to use the offline workflow if you have a fast connection. There are consequences. When you reconnect, only one version is uploaded to the cloud. So if you have saved several times while offline, you will only get the last one as the new cloud version. I only suggested it based on your severe time constraints, just in case that was the problem.

It sounds like you are up and running, is there anything else we can help with?

Thanks,

Re: Drawings: Problem Updating Drawing Links

kevinwatts — Mon, 12 Feb 2018 20:11:23 GMT

Thank you Phil. Working offline does speed up the process.

I still think that the visibility should be assumed to be suppressed and then manually turned on/off after updating the drawing links.

Combining notes for the benefit of others:

==========================
WORKING OFF-LINE

To eliminate any slow network issues.
•Right click on the project in your Data Panel.
•Add the whole project to offline cache.
•Take Fusion 360 offline. To switch to the offline mode, click Work Offline in the account drop-down menu.
•Then try your drawing updates.
•To return to the online model by un-checking the Work Offline option. The documents changed in the offline mode are automatically updated and uploaded to the data panel.

Regards,

Kevin

Re: Drawings: Problem Updating Drawing Links

kevinwatts — Wed, 21 Feb 2018 18:11:56 GMT

UPDATING 2D DRAWINGS

Is anyone finding updating a drawing after a design has been modified a problem?

I just did another small update to the master design. Working offline is the only solution that seems to work in a timely fashion.

DRAWING DIMENSIONS

When moving and adjusting dimensions on a 2D drawing also seems to be a less that simple process. I am referring to adjusting the spacing and placement of dimensions extending from a profile side. This should be easy and consistent process as it is a standard requirement when cleaning up a drawing before completion.

Sometimes you can click and drag and some times click + shift but then after the first move you usually can't do it again to that dimension. In a previous post someone mentioned about the dimensions becoming disassociated if you use the Click + Move option. This also seems to move both the dimension and the dimension lines as one object not separately.

Regards,

Kevin

Re: Drawings: Problem Updating Drawing Links

cmiller66 — Wed, 21 Feb 2018 19:27:30 GMT

Hi Kevin,

For the updating issue, does your design involve xref's or native components? If the drawing updates working in offline mode that means the design-drawing link is still there. Can you provide some more information on the type of edit and result you're seeing? It sounds like Get Latest in the drawing just isn't working when you're in Online mode.

For the dimension/editing issue, there are a few different edits you can do. Assuming you have a linear dimension when you select it you'll see grips appear. At this point if you grip-edit the dimension from the arrow grips you'll see an auto-spacing/snapping behavior. Tap Shift once to relax this, or of you are in free drag mode and want it to snap again, tap Shift again.

The grips at the end of the extension lines can also be individually grip-edited, and provided you acquire a valid snap point (you'll see a green square appear for Endpoint, green circle for Center or green X for Intersection) the dimension value should update for the new point it's associated to. There is a possibility this can also result in a dimension getting disassociated, but that is something we try to prevent.

Once a dimension is initially selected, I typically single-click the grip I want to edit (now in free drag mode), then single click again to place. Click-drag should behave the same but you'll still need to click to place the dim.

If you have a screen capture or specific file which shows the problem which you can send me (christopher.miller@autodesk.com), I'd be happy to take a look

Thanks,

Chris

Re: Drawings: Problem Updating Drawing Links

kevinwatts — Thu, 22 Feb 2018 22:21:01 GMT

Hi Chris,

I appreciate you getting in touch. I am working in the direct modeling environment.

1. DRAWING UPDATING

This is the most important of the two items discussed! Editing and improving designs is an ongoing process that everyone needs to run seamlessly. I spent the entire day yesterday updating drawings offline one at a time because of the quantity of drawing to be done. The first 3 hours were struggling to update just 1 online. I do not have an hour to wait while it locks up the processor in the online mode. The edits to the design were very small. It is not my connection speed as this has never been an issue until now.

My design uses only native components. I do not keep the links to any imported parts such as screws.
Yes, the design link remains when working offline. Which is good!
Design edits prior to drawing updates included: modifying existing body, and creating new component. This previously did not create an issue when updating the drawings. The most recent update last week did improve things as the visibility of previous objects does not change from that set in the Model workspace. Any new items however are set to visible. So the work around after opening drawings is to turn off all visibility before running any Link Update.

2. EDITING DIMENSIONS

Improvement in this area would just make a lot of sense and speed up the process of creating drawings for everyone. Just place dimensions and move as desired.

My preference is to select the dimension and “grab” the gray square of the dimension value and move it freely to the desired location. This allows more control over the final placement of the value which may or may not be in the center of the extension lines. Since the last update you can select and move only once. After that you have to return and try after working on something else before you can select and move. The auto jumping back to the original position is irritating.
Grips at the end of the extension lines – it is very useful when aligning a string of dimensions.
Using the Shift key seems to work sometimes.
The auto-spacing/snapping behavior is nice to add drawings dimensions to a simple object. It would be better if that could be manually overridden for more advanced users. At least for me. I like to add dimensions and then cleanup once they are created.
More built-in ability to align text, dimensions would be very helpful.

Regards,

Kevin

Re: Drawings: Problem Updating Drawing Links

docara — Fri, 23 Feb 2018 11:29:55 GMT

I've had a couple of situations when I make a small change (Dia of a circle say) and the drawing updates then any second and subsequent updates don't.

I don't need to do drawings I only use it occasionally to print out what I've to check something I don't need to dimension things but, anecdotally, it seems to work when you first set up a drawing then it allows one change thereafter without having to run the wizard again from the main screen

Re: Drawings: Problem Updating Drawing Links

cmiller66 — Fri, 23 Feb 2018 17:12:58 GMT

Thanks Kevin and Doc for the info. I will try this on my side again and see if I can repro. The intent is that after any design change (especially something like changing the diameter of a hole) and Save of the design, the drawing should get flagged as out of date and then update when you Get Latest. Have either of you noticed any pattern with when this fails? Maybe design is open first, update design, then open the drawing, vs. open design and drawing, update design then switch to drawing? If you do notice any pattern please let me know. Also for the drawings that fail to update, are they single component drawings or the whole design?

Thanks,
Chris

Re: Drawings: Problem Updating Drawing Links

kevinwatts — Fri, 23 Feb 2018 21:31:17 GMT

Hi Chris,

In my experiance if a design has chagned the is saved, the drawing when opened does flag that it is liked to an older version and needs to be updated. That has never been a problem that I was aware of. The key is that the design must be saved before the drawing is opened.

The realy problem that I am refering to is new. My design is of an entire multi component/subcomponent construction. Most of the drawings (30+) are of a single components some are of the whole or part of an subassembly of separate components. Last weeks update helped with the visiblty, so that all of the components are not turned on after/during the update process even if they are where not in the drawing. Only components already in the drawing or new. Offline it only takes a few seconds (5-10) to update the drawing to the new design version file. Online you have to hide all components then update the link and that it takes about and hour and the whold cpu and memory is consumed 98%. Updating should not be a problem in the work processes. Others may not have yet run into this as most only have a simple design and one drawing or a few. I have been working on this particaular project for 3 years. I have always worked live online and never had such a problem with updating the drawings. Please excalate. We must get this updating fixed!

Regards,

Kevin

Re: Drawings: Problem Updating Drawing Links

cmiller66 — Fri, 23 Feb 2018 22:02:55 GMT

Hi Kevin,
I am checking with the developers on what the issue might be. We had no recent drawings-related changes or bugfixes, so I'm not sure why any specific behavior around component visibility would have changed after the last update. It looks like the first post above about slow performance was from 2/12, I will check with the team and see if they are aware pf any changes that happened around that time.

Thanks,
Chris