topic Re: Dwg Part Alignments in Fusion Design, Validate & Document Forum

Dwg Part Alignments

WyzeOwl — Mon, 20 Mar 2017 12:05:28 GMT

I amworking on a box with two doors in the front - bread box. I am porting the model into a series of drawings for manufacture. The model has the doors open (at any angle between 0 and 180) to show the inside. When I beginworking on a dwg for the doors, the door is ported into the dwg at the angle which it is in the model. This makes for a confusing drawing with hidden lines and edges that appear because the 2D is a representation of the 3D on a sheet. Is there a way to make the door drop onto the DWG sheet so the it can be dimensioned without moving the door to horizontal or veritcal in the model?

Re: Dwg Part Alignments

innovatenate — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 01:06:40 GMT

When you try to dimension in an isometric view, you'll get an error:

Cannot dimension object in an isometric projected view. Select objects in orthogonal drawing views only.

Similar solid modeling softwares such as Inventor have a feature called "True Dimension" for dimension annotations on isometric views that will report the actual or true length of an edge in a 3D model and not dimension the "projected" length which is different. This is a feature that will at some point be developed for Fusion 360, but is not currently available.

Today this is not possible in Fusion 360. However, you may vote up this idea in the Ideastation.
http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/ideastation-request-a-feature-or/3d-dimensions-in-isometric-drawings/idc-p/6796326#M21503

This is something that is on the radar for the future.

Today, you could create a section view in the drawing envrionment.

Or.. another Solution is to create a custom named view. Check out the below screencast for details.

I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions.

Re: Dwg Part Alignments

Murdug — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 10:26:37 GMT

Hi Nathan,

I'm sitting with the same problem as sextant08 (which is not related to 3D dimensions - for me this is not core). Your screencast solution sorts out some of the simpler difficulties, but others remain which at this time severely limits Fusion's usability should drawings be required. I posted my current case here...

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/design-validate-document/use-component-name-as-drawing-title-and-file-name/td-p/6956790

(It's post 3 & 4 on this link because the initial post refers to a different issue I had.)

The "look at" function will not give a square-on view with the correct projection view, because "look at" follows the global coordinates. You see it face-on, but still at an angle left to right. Orbit & Constrained Orbit also follow global. I'm left with the Align tool, but then it messes up my alignment in the parent assembly.

Are we missing something or is this a short-coming we have to live with for now?

MRD

Re: Dwg Part Alignments

HughesTooling — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 10:52:52 GMT

Look at will follow the component coordinates. If you can design the component parallel to the component axes then rotate the component using a joint look at should work. Don't think there's any way to set a view to a face or body that's rotated relative to the component origin.

Mark

Re: Dwg Part Alignments

Murdug — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 11:53:42 GMT

Hi Mark,

Sorry, I confused the issue by saying the alignment of "Look at" follows global. You are correct, it follows the component alignment. It's the Orbit "target" that follows the global coordinates, and that's what is causing me difficulties. As you mention, there's no way to orient something unless there's some alignment to the component coordinates.

eg. my strut:

"Look At" gives this view - not suitable for a drawing with projection views.

I can select eg the left face and Look At...

Using the Orbit/Constrained-Orbit target (or whatever you call it), you grab the side target line and rotate the component to get it face-on ... but it follows the global orientation path, so you end up with the component at an awkward angle again.

So I don't get to a suitable view to create the Named view. So then I use the Align tool (which only seems to allow me to select the global origin planes). And then the parent assembly starts misbehaving as stated in the earlier post.

For now I can use the left hand face (pic 3) as a saved view. Not my ideal Base view though. You get awkward projections.

You can of course make a projection from a projection view to get a better drawing view, but this is not ideal.

But this is only possible because I have one plane in alignment. If that was not the case I'd have nothing to work with.

And then, as mentioned, as soon as my parent model is animated, the Named views are misaligned and the drawings all indicate they are out of date, even though nothing actually changed.

MRD

Re: Dwg Part Alignments

HughesTooling — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 13:42:41 GMT

This is one area where using all components in one file versus external linked files really falls down. As well as this problem you also have the problem where every edit to the assembly forces an update in every drawing you've made.

For the problem you have it needs something like a view orientated with a joint. Just done an experiment, Look At works with a joint origin so if you can orientate a Joint Origin on a face Look At should give you the correct view.

Joint Origin created on an edge then select with Look At

Mark

Re: Dwg Part Alignments

Murdug — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 14:01:45 GMT

Ahhh, you've improved my life one notch!

I've implemented your suggestion, so while the Fusion team works day and night to offer a permanent solution for drawing views that are not assembly-position-dependent, I'll use this.

Thanks.

MRD

Re: Dwg Part Alignments

HughesTooling — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 22:04:49 GMT

@TimeraAutodesk Is there something in the pipeline for 2d drawings that'll deal with the problem of bodies not aligned with a components axes? Or should I make a request on the idea station for something a bit more automated than the workaround in post #6.

Thanks Mark

Re: Dwg Part Alignments

Murdug — Wed, 19 Apr 2017 12:06:08 GMT

@mike.tessier

In response to your comment in my parallel post regarding drawing views, I've posted the suggestion in Idea Station. (I mention this under this topic because it is more appropriately named than my original post).

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/ideastation-request-a-feature-or/create-drawing-views-from-local-not-global-coordinate-system-or/idi-p/7026458

Regards,

MRD