topic Re: Cannot delete unused parameters in Fusion Design, Validate & Document Forum

Cannot delete unused parameters

Anonymous — Tue, 12 Dec 2017 15:17:30 GMT

Sorry to start of with a snarky comment, but considering F360 is a parameterized CAD package, its management of parameters is pretty terrible. I love the rest of it though (after 1 week of hard learning).

One issue is that there is no way to sort the parameters. I have quite a lot and I would have thought considering the depth of the rest of the package, having simple column based sorting would be pretty easy to implement.

My main issue is that I cannot delete parameters that I am 99% sure are not in use. I inserted a design into my main design and then select "Break the link". Once I have done that, the parameters from the new design are inserted into the parameter list correctly. However, if I then remove that component from my main design, the parameters cannot be removed, nor can they be deleted, I 5x checked the other parameters and the model elements and they are not referenced anywhere.

This is a real pain as each time I re-insert the external design, I end up with duplicate (paramname_1 etc) parameters which becomes a real mess.

Here's the design : http://a360.co/2B9yU3D

In the referenced design, you can see parameters named Box* all of which I want to get rid of.

Grateful for any ideas and hope it's me being a dolt.

Re: Cannot delete unused parameters

Phil.E — Wed, 13 Dec 2017 17:57:34 GMT

@Anonymous Welcome to the Fusion 360 community.

I looked at your model and cannot find any duplicate parameters. Can you tell me which ones you wish to delete by name?

Regarding your workflow, I'm curious, but why do you break link on inserted parts? Also, is the end goal a parametric cabinet that can be adapted to many different sizes based on where it is to be built?

Thanks, please let me know if you have more questions.

Re: Cannot delete unused parameters

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Dec 2017 19:25:08 GMT

Phil - in the design, try to delete the BoxThickness parameter for example. It won't let me delete it yet it is not used anywhere.

Regarding the workflow. Yes, the idea is to have various parameterized cabinets that I can insert into assesmblies to make, say, a kitchen. The problem is that I cannot change the parameters of the template design in the assembly design. As you are asking the question I hope that there is something I am overlooking that will allow to me achieve this. At the moment, the only way I can find to make it work is to insert and then break the link. Obviously that has drawbacks but unless I can modify the inserted design within the assembly design I have no other option.

Thanks

Freddy

Re: Cannot delete unused parameters

Phil.E — Wed, 13 Dec 2017 20:12:42 GMT

Thanks for the explanation. Your end goal is the way to do it: insert and break link.

If you plan to copy the cabinet in the target assembly, and customize the different copied instances, you may need to use Copy + Paste New to create unique instances of the cabinet.

Regarding the sticky parameters. The reason you cannot delete them is because they exist in parametric history.

At some point you might decide to roll back and edit the drawer. In which case you'd roll back prior to the Remove command and edit the drawer. All downstream modeling would update.

Here is the difference between Remove and Delete:

Remove creates a timeline entry. Prior to it in time, the object exists, after the Remove it does not. Your model must keep track of everything that exists in the timeline vis a vis parameters and references such as sketch projections.

Delete extracts all parametric information for an object, including parameters, but also including all references such as sketches and model bodies that depend on the thing you Delete.

In this case, you inserted the drawer, used it for some modeling, and then Removed it. If you roll back the timeline marker prior to the Remove node representing the removal of the drawer, and then instead Delete the drawer, you'll see some stuff disappear from your timeline, including the Remove. Most importantly, the parameters for it are now gone.

I did the Delete sequence on your model and did not find any errors, however you should examine the results to ensure your model is complete to your satisfaction.

To avoid this? I would not insert something so 'heavy' as the drawer simply to get a sketch pattern for a few holes. It's unlikely that pattern will ever change, right? It's all standard hardware as near as I can tell. You could either sketch it manually, or copy and paste a sketch into your design to carry that hole pattern information.

Why did you need to break link on the drawer, did you edit it after inserting it into the design?

I may be missing some complexity surrounding the drawer, but hopefully the basic workflow makes sense. Please let me know if I can answer more questions.

Thanks,

Re: Cannot delete unused parameters

Anonymous — Mon, 18 Dec 2017 11:18:07 GMT

Thanks for the explanation about remove vs. delete. I need to break the link because I want to have the ability to create different drawer sizes in different projects.

Having done a lot more with F360 in the meantime my abilities seems to have improved quite a lot.