topic Re: Midpoint line in Fusion Design, Validate & Document Forum

Midpoint line

Anonymous — Sat, 20 May 2017 11:40:57 GMT

Fusion offers this function for rectangles and circles, but not where it is most needed: Lines

Would like to start a challenge as I saw this as a feature request that has been closed.

I very often need to draw lines (e.g. from a snap point) which get the same length on each side and is colinear. In Solid (called midpoint line) this takes 2 clicks. Mark starting point. Pull line in either direction, line extents to the other side equally. 2nd Click, done.

I know there are tons of workarounds (mirroring, constraining, blabla). But as this is such a absolute "construction basic" thing, I don't want to make 10 clicks every time to get this done. Anyone with a faster idea ? 🙂

Re: Midpoint line

TheCADWhisperer — Sat, 20 May 2017 11:45:22 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

Fusion offers this function for rectangles and circles, but not where it is most needed: Lines

In Solid (called midpoint line) this takes 2 clicks.

In case it wasn't understood - reference is SolidWorks.

Re: Midpoint line

jeff_strater — Sun, 21 May 2017 01:41:12 GMT

Thanks for the post, @Anonymous. It looks like this suggestion has already been put into the IdeaStation: midpoint-line. It never got very many votes, though, so it has been archived. If enough people want this, we can resurrect the idea.

Jeff

Re: Midpoint line

TrippyLighting — Sun, 21 May 2017 04:46:23 GMT

@jeff_strater wrote:

It never got very many votes, though....

Of course it has not, because it really is NOT the most needed. It's a nice to have but definitely not needed. I've worked with SW for 14 years professionally and did not need it 😉

Re: Midpoint line

Anonymous — Sun, 21 May 2017 06:14:07 GMT

not sure if it helpful to know if YOU need it. And BTW you did not answer the question. Any helpful thoughts?

Re: Midpoint line

etfrench — Sun, 21 May 2017 07:45:14 GMT

Here's a three click method

Re: Midpoint line

Anonymous — Sun, 21 May 2017 10:13:17 GMT

Haha. You missed counting a bunch. I counted nine. And when the line is supposed to be non horizontally I assume another 8-9. as you need to make them collinear. Plus deleting the circle to be fair. Not bad either 🙂 Anyone better ?

Re: Midpoint line

daniel_lyall — Sun, 21 May 2017 11:00:36 GMT

yep 2 click draw a line from the center point highlight then hit X.

And you can make a center point with one click it's a bug I think or something they added.

Re: Midpoint line

Anonymous — Sun, 21 May 2017 11:06:37 GMT

Either I don't get what you are saying .... It is not about drawing a line and THEN place a midpoint. It is about selecting an existing point and THEN draw a line which extents equally and collinear in both directions, no matter what the angle is

Re: Midpoint line

HughesTooling — Sun, 21 May 2017 13:13:10 GMT

I'm another one that has never needed this so my idea might not be what you're looking for, I don't know in what situation you use it. Anyway I think this method gets the line constrained in 5 clicks and fully dimensioned in 7.

Mark

Re: Midpoint line

TrippyLighting — Sun, 21 May 2017 13:51:23 GMT

1. There is currently no such mid point line drawing function implemented in Fusion 360.

2. If you feel so strongly enough about it, then please create an idea in the idea station.

3. In the meantime you can follow one of the suggestions provided in this thread.

Re: Midpoint line

TheCADWhisperer — Sun, 21 May 2017 14:22:07 GMT

@TrippyLighting wrote:

.... I've worked with SW for 14 years professionally and did not need it 😉

Uhmm, I don't think it appeared in SWx until very recently, at least I never found it until r2015 and now use it frequently. A real convenience for me. (Before it is suggested - I have zero, zilch... ...no interest in the "Idea Station".)

Re: Midpoint line

Anonymous — Sun, 21 May 2017 14:40:04 GMT

Hey CadWhisperer, Completely agree. Makes life pretty easy. If it would not, why are there midpoint rects and circles ? 🙂

@TrippyLighting: Think we all new that but thanks anyway for the comment.

@HughesTooling: Pretty cool solution so far, thanks a lot, this one really helps.

Re: Midpoint line

TrippyLighting — Sun, 21 May 2017 14:51:17 GMT

I did not say that it is not useful of course it is!

Personally I don't care much about the idea station anymore either. Like many area's of Fusion 360 it's a concept study that showed promise but in it's current state is useless to really help drive the product to the next level.

Re: Midpoint line

HughesTooling — Sun, 21 May 2017 14:56:08 GMT

Here's what I think @daniel_lyall was trying to explain, a bit more flexible than my idea.

Mark

Re: Midpoint line

Anonymous — Sun, 21 May 2017 15:20:44 GMT

@TrippyLighting: Yep, there is just too much stuff in there and the search engine does not really help a lot. Anyway: Fusion has become a tool for kinda anybody (free for students, private persons etc), that is the strategy. We are just discussing to get licenses for about 40 designers in our design thinking lab. Honestly: We are not missing a next level in matters of more and more functions. Yes sheetmetal probably. But we are missing the very basics. We have hickups and crashes all day, it gets extremely slow when zooming in, or when you pattern by larger numbers. The fans of our MACs are running even if we don't do anything. Sculpting, which is pretty helpful, is not really connected to forms. etc etc.

If Autodesk wants to target those people, it need do the homework in UX first. My thought....and surely not related to the subject. Sorry for that. Just posting my next basic question in a minute 🙂

Re: Midpoint line

TrippyLighting — Sun, 21 May 2017 17:16:30 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

We have hickups and crashes all day, it gets extremely slow when zooming in, or when you pattern by larger numbers. The fans of our MACs are running even if we don't do anything. Sculpting, which is pretty helpful, is not really connected to forms. etc etc.

If Autodesk wants to target those people, it need do the homework in UX first. My thought....and surely not related to the subject. Sorry for that. Just posting my next basic question in a minute 🙂

I do all of my work on a mid 2010 i7 iMac. While I do also occasionally experience crashes it is fairly infrequent. it also depends on the area of Fusion 360 am working in.

I worked with a complex monster T-Spline with 19K+ faces without crashing and I have another project with 400 components also not crashing. Some of your problems are likely workflow related. If you could create a separate thread for these problems we can address them there and see what might be done about them.

As I mentioned in the other thread you started, working with T-SPlines in a timeline environment is not a god idea for exactly the reason you mentioned. Finish the T-Spline in it's own file, convert it into a BRep and then bring it into the timeline file.

Re: Midpoint line

Anonymous — Sun, 21 May 2017 17:34:38 GMT

we have 4 macs here. all from last year. the fan blows most of the time. we had a meeting with some developers and a sales guy last week. their funny comment was "ups, i thought his was fixed". posted this in jan already. it was gone with the April version. came back with the one from may. i am not posting these crashes any more as i send out the crash reports anyway.

Re: Midpoint line

daniel_lyall — Sun, 21 May 2017 23:38:10 GMT

@HughesTooling yep simple and straightforward use what's already there then you can set it to what you need horizontal, vertical, Equal (if already sketched at the correct angle), parallel and collinear. and yer 3 clicks not 2

Re: Midpoint line

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Dec 2018 12:49:48 GMT

It's these little things that you're used to use a lot that are very irritating when switching from SW to fusion.

I'd love to have midpoint line. Its a very nice funtion. Especially since relations/constrains are more buggy in fusion in my experience