topic Re: I tried the spline tool for sketches - not really impressed... in Fusion Design, Validate & Document Forum

I tried the spline tool for sketches - not really impressed...

thburn — Sat, 02 Apr 2016 14:36:41 GMT

Hi,

since I've got some problems using imported DXFs (see HowToLoftDXFCurve) I took a look into F360 spline tool for sketches, but I found that it has just some basic features and needs some improvement. First take a look ath the screencast I made:

First I imported a canvas (made in CorelDraw X7 just to have something at hand), I tried to align the base line horizontally but this already is very difficult because the rotation tool snaps in every 15 degrees. This is a real problem because if your are close to horizontal alignment and want to rotate just for a few 1/10 degrees then the tool snaps to 0.0 degree which makes it impossible to align 100% horizontally using the handle.

What I tried then is to enter some values manually on the right hand window, but this is more or less a try and error approach until you got it aligned correctly. Turning the canvas using the mouse is very unprecise since the movement/rotation steps are too big for a small movement of the mouse.

In Blender there is a very helpful option to solve this. If you press the SHIFT key then the movement gets geared down. So for same movement of the mouse rotation gets less for a certain (customizable) factor. Using this you can work very precicely. In Blender you also have small arrows in input boxes to increase or decrease values. You just click a few times to rotate, move, scale or whatever. In F360 I also miss a tool for hotizontal/vertical alignment and the snap in every 15 degrees should be able to switch off.

Then I used the spline tool to model/follow the outline of the canvas. In the middle, where the sharp corner is I had to stop the first spline and start a new one because F360 does not support sharp splines (correct me if I am wrong).

Then I tried to match the splines more closely to the outline of the canvas. I moved single nodes and those green circles or part of circles appear which really disturb the alignment process - why they are there? How to switch them off?

If I move one node using the mouse you can see that the node snaps to the grid, even if 'snapping to grid' was disabled in the bottom.

Using the mouse to move the nodes or the handles is not very precise, if you activate one node for movement then the node already moves a littlebit so it changes its position. What I would prefer is that the nodes and handles are movable using the arrow keys on the keyboard.

This would have two benefits, first the mouse cursor would not occupy parts of the drawing, second the movement of nodes / handles would be much more precise. Again pressing SHIFT together with an arrow key could make the steps smaller to even improve accuracy.

Currently F360 provide just one type of spline nodes this is the symmetrical node where the handle is same length on both sides of the node.

Asymmetric nodes would give more freedom to align the spline. A sharp node where you can add sharp corners would also help.

What I also need is to toggle if a spline is a spline or a line. Take a look at CorelDraw there you have great features for nodes!

Another thing I found is that the spline path is very thin. I would prefer an adjustable spline thicknes and also a customizable color.

Here different types of nodes CorelDraw provides:

Here my suggestions in short:

1. Add a orizontal / vertical align tool for imported canvas, DXF, SVG

2. Provide a checkbox to enable/disable 'snap every 15 degrees'

3. Correct the problem that moving nodes are snapping to grid even 'snap to grid' is disabled

4. Add some arrows to the input boxes to increase/decrease values, better provide this by pressing up / down arrow keys together with SHIFT key for smaller steps

5. Provide using SHIFT key on rotation/scaling/move manipulator to get smaller steps for more precision

6. Provide sharp splines and also asymmetric splines

7. Procide toogling spline/straight line

8. Make thickness and color of spline customizable

What do you think?

Re: I tried the spline tool for sketches - not really impressed...

michallach81 — Sat, 02 Apr 2016 17:22:55 GMT

1. Your canvas comes in vertical/horizontal position. Based on what Fusion should align your canvas? Based on pixel color???
2. If you hold Shift button while dragging it won't snap. You can also turn off Incremental Move (small toolbar at the bottom, in the middle).
3. That might be a bug.
4. You need to share that Idea on IdeaStation, someone might like that, others won't. Try to give some arguments for that and it could get enough votes to be considered.
5. As above, except that we have already function for shift in sketch environment (suspend snap)
6 & 7. It's just matter of workflow I'll show you in screencast below*
8. Again, IdeaStation... I think there should be similar request already... find, vote.

* Ok the workflow is not perfect, because that type of spline was provided to ensure that curve no matter how complex will remain smooth between spline points (C3).
If you need "less" smooth curves (C1 or C2) you need to draw another spline and use constraint (Tangent or Smooth).
For asymmetric node you need to drag one handle (green line with green dot) to snap to the other handle, it will automatically apply parallel constraint (as you can see in my screencast).
Last but not least, you need to get rid of old habits, sketches in parametric CADs have different advantages.
In my screencast I've tried to mimic your curve, with spline points on your Nodes, but to create that shape you can make it much faster, with less effort compared to Beziers from Corel.
Designs made with Fusion spline will remain smooth where made from Corel curves, won't.

Regards

Michał

Re: I tried the spline tool for sketches - not really impressed...

HughesTooling — Sat, 02 Apr 2016 21:11:55 GMT

Although there's no built in tool to rotate the canvas there's an easy way to rotate it from within a sketch with the help of 2 lines and the measure tool. One small problem is the measure tool always measures angles as positive so if it rotates the wrong way, like it does in my screencast you'll have to add a "-". It would be nice if you could just pick 2 points you want horizontal\Vertical but this technique is quite easy. I also show how to scale the canvas.

Mark

Re: I tried the spline tool for sketches - not really impressed...

michallach81 — Sat, 02 Apr 2016 21:18:57 GMT

Nice

Re: I tried the spline tool for sketches - not really impressed...

thburn — Sun, 03 Apr 2016 11:34:38 GMT

Hi guys,

thanks for reply.

@HughesTooling:
Nice approach, but it took you more than two minutes (!!!) just to horizontal align an image 😉

Therefore I asked for an easy and quick to use tool to align images which is very common in other applications.

I created an idea on IdeaStation: Tool that helps to align canvas horizontally / vertically

@michallach81:

1: F360 should not align horizontal or vertical full automated. It is similar to what Mark did. I just want to draw a line parallel to one part of the image (in my image e.g. the bottom line of the shape) and F360 should rotate that line together with the canvas into a horizontal (or vertical) position.

2: Holding down SHIFT while rotating still snaps at 15 degree steps, I tested this again. Incremental move was already disabled. Is this a bug (in Mac version?)

3: May team F360 can take a look at it?

4: I found that someone already had the same idea (I put my kudo on it now), status is 'future consideration'

Use up/down arrow keys in edit boxes

5: This has not to be the SHIFT key it can also be any other key or a combination of other keys

6 & 7: Thanks I agree

8: This idea already exists, but it is archived due to lack of vote, is there any way to unarchive this? may in 2014 only few people were interested in this idea but today may there are more?

Or should I create a new idea with same content?

Change color and thickness of sketch lines

9: What I forget in my list, but mentioned in the text is, the nodes and handles should be able to move by arrow keys, the mouse often is unprecise

And what about these annoying green arcs which appear if I rotate a node's handle? Can I switch this off? This is really annoying and does not help at all - what is the reason for these green circles?

Re: I tried the spline tool for sketches - not really impressed...

TrippyLighting — Sun, 03 Apr 2016 12:47:51 GMT

The purpose o the green circles is ti indicate if your spline is either convex, or concave at that point.

Whether that's helpful or not is anothrher topic 😉

To #5: On the mac it's the Command Key and not the Shift Key. This also disabled off the auto constraints such as horizontal/vertical as long as the key is pressed.

Re: I tried the spline tool for sketches - not really impressed...

thburn — Sun, 03 Apr 2016 15:18:55 GMT

@TrippyLighting:

Do you mean #2?
On my Mac I cannot disable the sannping to 15 degree steps. I tried SHIFT, CMD and CTRL. None of them disables snapping during rotation 😞

Re: I tried the spline tool for sketches - not really impressed...

TrippyLighting — Sun, 03 Apr 2016 15:46:23 GMT

You have to continue to press and hold the button while editing.

Also, after playing with it for a while it seems you can also make a CV spline with te controls, soa spline thatn cannot only be controlled by fit poincs but by control vertices.

See this screencast

Re: I tried the spline tool for sketches - not really impressed...

thburn — Sun, 03 Apr 2016 16:19:21 GMT

@TrippyLighting:

This is not working for me, it always snaps at multiples of 15 degrees.

Please not I am talking of rotating canvas images!

Here is what I am doing:

1. I click the blue rotation circle with left mouse button and keep mouse button pressed

2. I press SHIFT key (also tried CMD, CTRL) keep it pressed and drag the mouse

3. It snaps on every multiple of 15 degrees

I also tried this:

1. I press SHIFT key (also tried CMD, CTRL) and keep it pressed

2. I click the blue rotation circle with left mouse button and keep button pressed

3. I drag the mouse, it still snaps at multiples of 15 degrees

You can see it in the screencast here:

😞

Re: I tried the spline tool for sketches - not really impressed...

TrippyLighting — Sun, 03 Apr 2016 16:22:47 GMT

I see. No this does not work with the "Move" command. In general, however, I don't see why you would even need to rotate the canvas.

Just design the spline shape as is and then, when properly constrined and dimensioned, perhaps al to one pivot point on the bottom line, give that bottom line a horizontal constrinnt and you're done.

I've tried to turn of the snapping within the move command as well and it's not working ( at least not on my Mac ) and occasionally annoying!

Re: I tried the spline tool for sketches - not really impressed...

thburn — Sun, 03 Apr 2016 16:45:21 GMT

@TrippyLighting:

Thanks.

I try to use the obvously things first. If I want to rotate the canvas I use the rotation feature out of the move command.

Of course there are almost workarounds but the rotation handle is there. And like in other F360 tools I just want to suppress snapping.

Re: I tried the spline tool for sketches - not really impressed...

TrippyLighting — Sun, 03 Apr 2016 16:49:33 GMT

Based on feedback form @michallach81 who I believe is on a Windows machine where the SHIFT key seems to turn off the snapping I am starting to wonder if this is simply a mac specific bug.

Re: I tried the spline tool for sketches - not really impressed...

michallach81 — Sun, 03 Apr 2016 18:54:25 GMT

@TrippyLighting I'm almost sure about that... my general impression is that mac users seems to have much more problems with Fusion, just browse randomly "Design, Validate & Document" section.

@thburn I will say that again, majority of your problems will vanish if you'll try to design with Fusion tools as they are, and not forcing yourself to mimic other toolsets. It's all about mindset... I used to work as graphic designer (I also had two years of experience in using Rhino), and in few first weeks of using Fusion , I had so many ideas about, what's need to be changed, what is missing... and non of it was essential.

Second think I need to mention is that you need to try to us SVG. Give it a chance.
To give you specific advice we need to know a nature of your designs. If you could just share some designs, there must be more robust workflow than one you struggle with.