topic Re: Make finding originating geometry much easier in Fusion Design, Validate & Document Forum

Make finding originating geometry much easier

bescript — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 06:52:22 GMT

When a body created by a mirrored feature is selected in the canvas, the timeline selection indicator highlights the Mirror feature but not the originating feature. The original feature should be indicated so users know where to go to edit the source geometry.

Re: Make finding originating geometry much easier

TheCADWhisperer — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 00:02:47 GMT

@bescript

Can you File>Export your *.f3d file that illustrates this issue to your local drive and then Attach it here to a Reply?

Re: Make finding originating geometry much easier

Drewpan — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 02:31:52 GMT

Hi,

A Mirrored feature becomes completely independent after the mirror. There are

two ways to modify it. You can either rewind the Timeline, make the change and

then wind the timeline back and the change will be reflected on both sides of the

mirror; or you can direct edit the mirrored feature, but this will NOT reflect on

the original.

There are also times when you will deliberately want the two sides to be different.

Take a Boat model. The basic hull and deck will probably be identical on both "halves"

but there will be certain fittings that will be different. The anchor box will be smaller

and different to the Sail Hatch. One is a literal box with a hatch and the other is a

hole with a hatch. They need to be different.

If you need to make modifications that are reflected on both sides of a mirror then

you should be selecting the original feature to edit anyway and so the timeline does

actually show that selection. One of the reasons that a mirror is NOT expanded in

the timeline is to stop the timeline becoming huge by doubling it with a single command.

The reason that a feature on the copy is not highlighted in the original timeline is

because it can be changed and edited and so is NOT the same thing.

Cheers

Andrew

Re: Make finding originating geometry much easier

bescript — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 05:25:23 GMT

Before/After a Combine feature, illustrates how the Three Stripes disappears over the original features. Often my timeline is much longer and more complex, separating features like these by a lot and making the original feature harder to find. With Fusion's timeline devoid of labels, it's even more challenging to find early features in a large model. Also, when Selection Priority is set to Body, OR when selecting a Body from the Browser, Three Stripes doesn't highlight anything. Sure, there are workarounds and a certain design workflow/philosophy in Fusion to deal with this, but I wanted to put it out there to Autodesk that this is a source of frustration with Fusion that is not the case with Inventor. I wonder why finding things in Fusion hasn't been made much easier and more transparent.

Re: Make finding originating geometry much easier

Drewpan — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 05:52:11 GMT

Hi,

Fusion Timeline is NOT devoid of labels.

As can CLEARLY be seen here. By hovering the mouse over the timeline icon it will tell you

useful information. By actually clicking on the Icon it will highlight the part on the model

AND its location within the Browser Tree.

By clicking on a part of the design, the Part is underlined within the Browser Tree AND in

the Timeline you will see parts of the Timeline that relate to that selected Part.

Those hash marks should come up with EVERY Timeline related operation to the selected

part.

The Timeline is also Colour coded to each different part in the Browser Tree but you might

actually have to turn this feature On. I have it on by default.

I strongly advise that you actually sit down for 2-3 hours and read the Fusion Documentation

and do the embedded tutorials, then do some of the Self Paced Learning. This will NEVER be

wasted time and you will learn a great deal.

Cheers

Andrew

Re: Make finding originating geometry much easier

bescript — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 07:04:54 GMT

Hovering the mouse over many identical timeline icons and waiting a second for a label to pop up... vs. skimming a list of feature names.

Only the latest "Modify" feature (or a base "Create" solid, unmodified) associated with a part/body, will show hash marks in the timeline; for bodies that are the product of multiple modification features (mirror-join, combine, array, move...), it would be helpful if the base solid and its sketch were also hash-marked in the timeline. But in my app, this is not the case. I'm still on Windows 10. Has this been addressed for Win 11 Fusion?

Re: Make finding originating geometry much easier

Drewpan — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 11:58:38 GMT

Hi,

There is only so much information that can be displayed in a limited space in a reasonable time.

If you actually want Encyclopedia Galactica displayed instantly then you are going to have to

build it yourself. The Documentation will tell you how to use the Fusion APIs to do this. Fusion

is used by many different people in wide and varying Industries. The Devs can only incorporate

so much new stuff and there has to be a real need from a wide audience.

There are many things that would be helpful to make fusion better. The forum is full of user

suggestions. I have seen one suggestion that asks for a full text log of the information in the

Timeline and Browser Tree that is user editable. If that is the sort of thing you want then find

the post and add your own support to it. The Devs read the messages in the forum to work out

their priorities and roadmap directions. Fusion is Proprietry software not Open Source so

sometimes you get stuck with what you get and not what you want.

I use fusion for Win 11. I don't know what features are in Win 10 anymore since I haven't used

it for a year or maybe longer. Whenever the hard cutoff happened.

Cheers

Andrew

Re: Make finding originating geometry much easier

jhackney1972 — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 16:11:35 GMT

Take a look at the attached video and see if this gives you some ideas on how to navigate the timeline for existing features.

(view in My Videos)

Re: Make finding originating geometry much easier

TrippyLighting — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 18:09:48 GMT

@bescript wrote:

Hovering the mouse over many identical timeline icons and waiting a second for a label to pop up... vs. skimming a list of feature names.

I completely agree with you!

Almost everything in Fusion requires a hover-over, second or third click, or is only visible indirectly, often in muted, hard-to-discern colors if it even works.

Re: Make finding originating geometry much easier

TrippyLighting — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 18:08:40 GMT

@Drewpan wrote:

...

There is only so much information that can be displayed in a limited space in a reasonable time.

...

True, but the Fusion team hasn't even scratched the surface or made any appreciable effort to improve that.

I work with a number of CAD applications, including SolidWorks and ZW3D. I've recently looked a little deeper into Plasticity CAD. That's just CAD software.

If you look at other 3D Modeling packages, such as Blender or SideFX Houdini, you would be surprised at what can be done with a UI.

@Drewpan wrote:

... Fusion is used by many different people in wide and varying Industries. The Devs can only incorporate

so much new stuff and there has to be a real need from a wide audience....

Again, that is also true, but it has become a true stumbling block and a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Fusion attracts a lot of people due to it's low entry price. That includes a lot of people who don't have enough professional CAD experience.

If you listen to those folks too much, you end up in a situation where you implement dark mode before some utterly needed core modeling tools.

To me and other experienced users , this is readily apparent in the product!

Re: Make finding originating geometry much easier

bescript — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 18:32:11 GMT

Inventor. Preferred timeline/browser style. So Fusion costs a lot less than Inventor, but is Autodesk's choice of navigation UI really one of those "you get what you pay for" things?

Re: Make finding originating geometry much easier

TrippyLighting — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 18:28:14 GMT

You are confusing concepts 😉

Inventor does NOT have a timeline.

Similar to SolidWorks and other CAD systems, it has a feature tree that progresses through the construction process vertically. Features consume sketches, for example.

The Browser in Fusion is an object browser, and the timeline is a feature timeline. Some features are also objects. A sketch or a construction plane are an object as well as a feature.

An extrusion is a feature, and you won't find it in the browser. Solid, or surface bodies, are objects, and you won't find those in the timeline.

This isn't a matter of cost but of concept. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Re: Make finding originating geometry much easier

bescript — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 18:29:38 GMT

Thank you. I have used this occasionally in the worst cases. And it supports the point I'm making since it shows the software is on some level capable of highlighting everything that built a part including the sketch, but they buried the capability in the UI. For work efficiency and speed, we need minimal clicks and mental energy spent on navigating, especially when changes need to be made at early points in a long timeline that cause many subsequent broken dependencies and missing references then needing to be addressed.

Re: Make finding originating geometry much easier

kb9ydn — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 19:31:08 GMT

I generally use Solidworks for most of my CAD work (since 2009), but have been trying to use Fusion more. Fusion has gotten much better over the years but I still really struggle with managing the timeline when models get even remotely complicated. For the most part there is always a way to get where you want to go, but the path to get there is often convoluted and confusing. When you get beyond a dozen parts the timeline ends up being so long that it's just a hassle to work with.

To be fair, even Solidworks has the same problem of it not always being clear where the base geometry of a selected object is. Depending on which face you select, you might get an extrusion, or a fillet, or a hole feature, etc.. More recent versions of SWX have introduced a dependency tree of sorts, where it will point to parent or child features of a selected object. This helps, but it's still sometimes difficult when a complex part is made up of a large number of features.

But I think the biggest thing that makes Solidworks style CAD modelling so much easier to manage is the strict separation of "parts" and "assemblies". That separation naturally breaks up the "history" of the model into chucks that are inherently easier to manage. There are some interesting things that Fusion's single timeline approach allows you to do, but it makes the overall model management process so much more difficult. And I don't feel like AD has really put enough effort into making the timeline more manageable, considering that it's such a central part of how Fusion was designed to operate in the first place. They've done an amazing job building out the feature set, but it would be nice to get some more focus on really streamlining the UI around easier timeline management.

Re: Make finding originating geometry much easier

pkomatlapalli — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 14:58:10 GMT

Hi @bescript ,

Could you please confirm whether kb9ydn response addresses your issue. If yes, please consider marking it as the "Accepted solution" button. Doing so helps other community members quickly identify the most relevant answer and serves as a useful reference for users facing similar issues.

Re: Make finding originating geometry much easier

bescript — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 19:55:02 GMT

I mean....these are all great responses, but I can't really hit Accept Solution here unless Autodesk addresses this directly with changes to the Fusion UI and they post a reply about it. I was hoping this would turn into more of a petition and be forwarded to somewhere the Fusion engineers tally "votes" (if there is such a thing). I was also looking for feedback and maybe some influence with Autodesk, from @TheCADWhisperer.

Re: Make finding originating geometry much easier

pkomatlapalli — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 16:38:08 GMT

Tagging @TheCADWhisperer if additional help can be provided.