topic Re: Move Feature to another component in Fusion Design, Validate & Document Forum

Move Feature to another component

dlVARTY — Wed, 07 Dec 2022 18:47:07 GMT

Hi,

This is what happens to me time and time again: I model along and I realize after a while, that I had the orange component selected instead of the pink one. (/having the wrong component selected)

Can I somehow move these features back into in my pink component, or should I continue as if nothing happened?

I know, I could delete all features and do it all over again. But that sucks. Especially if you're were already modelling for a few hours.

thanks!
-d

Re: Move Feature to another component

davebYYPCU — Wed, 07 Dec 2022 21:13:53 GMT

Your browser does not agree with the Timeline.

You have a body in each component, until the last timeline icon, there was no pink body.

Need the file to see if you have fixed the problem, with that last timeline icon, or by the settings in the five yellow Extrude features.

Might help....

Re: Move Feature to another component

dlVARTY — Wed, 07 Dec 2022 22:21:39 GMT

I moved the body to the other component. See the last feature in the timeline.

Re: Move Feature to another component

davebYYPCU — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 00:36:10 GMT

Ok.

Re: Move Feature to another component

laughingcreek — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 00:49:55 GMT

SOMETIMES you can fix this type of thing by dragging sketches around. Are all the extrudes derived from the sketch circled in the timeline?

if yes, then from the browser tree drag the sketch into the yellow component, then drag it right back to the pink component. may need to do a compute all after.

Re: Move Feature to another component

dlVARTY — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 12:02:59 GMT

Hi dave, I uploaded the file for you to tinker with.

Re: Move Feature to another component

dlVARTY — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 12:07:16 GMT

hi @laughingcreek

All 3 sketches on which the body derives from are already in the pink component. I can't move neither the sketches to another component, nor the features.

I uploaded the model, if you want to tinker with.

Re: Move Feature to another component

dlVARTY — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 12:09:15 GMT

PS
here you see the sketches are in the pink component and the body derived from it is in the yellow one.

Re: Move Feature to another component

Bunga777 — Sat, 10 Dec 2022 01:33:33 GMT

Features cannot be moved between components.

So, as an alternative, we have grouped related sketches and features together, and also swapped component names.

Features that were created in Skadis cannot be moved, so we left them as they were and re-created those features.

Since it is difficult to explain in words alone, we have taken a video for your viewing.

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/community/screencast/cbf5e852-3e49-41da-b85b-442fa170dd70

I have attached the data.

Re: Move Feature to another component

dlVARTY — Mon, 12 Dec 2022 15:14:58 GMT

Hi @Bunga777

As I understand, to avoid modelling the more complex part, you renamed "Skadis" to "Rod Holder Bottom" and then remodeled the "Skadis" manually?

This don't even know if I would call this "solving" the problem. You just project the problem to the other component.

Imagine "Skadis" has X-number of features, this will be very time consuming and you'd have to memorize all parameters before deleting the old ones. Just like remodeling the initial component in the first way.

I think the bottom line is:
Moving features to other components is impossible. If you create your features in the wrong component, you're screwed an have to delete your progress and remodel them again.

Re: Move Feature to another component

TrippyLighting — Mon, 12 Dec 2022 15:27:34 GMT

@dlVARTY wrote:

...

I think the bottom line is:
Moving features to other components is impossible. If you create your features in the wrong component, you're screwed an have to delete your progress and remodel them again.

Correct!

Re: Move Feature to another component

dlVARTY — Tue, 13 Dec 2022 09:12:29 GMT

Thanks for confirming.
Right answer, not the one I was hoping for though. 🙈

Re: Move Feature to another component

Bunga777 — Tue, 13 Dec 2022 09:25:33 GMT

I am terribly sorry.

I thought that the questioner knew that the feature could not be moved to another component.

I suggested that it would be somewhat easier to replace the features rather than rebuild from scratch instead of not being able to transfer them.

Essentially, I think it is an unavoidable conclusion due to the specifications of Fusion360 that we either have to rebuild everything from the beginning or give up and proceed as is.

Re: Move Feature to another component

dlVARTY — Tue, 13 Dec 2022 09:35:27 GMT

No worries, thanks for the help!

Re: Move Feature to another component

Bunga777 — Mon, 26 Dec 2022 04:17:40 GMT

hi, @TrippyLighting

@dlVARTY @laughingcreek @davebYYPCU

It's been two weeks now, and after much investigation, it appears that features can be moved.

If you move a sketch associated with a body to another component, the body will automatically move to the component to which it was moved, provided there are no dependency issues.

With simple models, it is possible to move the body relatively smoothly, but with slightly more complex models, it often does not move.

In the case of the Skadis Rod Holder, the dependencies were a bit complicated, so we worked around this by creating a new component, which was successfully moved.

I took a video of the demonstration for your reference.

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/community/screencast/409b8f59-bc11-4126-9d5f-3925d64e66c1

Re: Move Feature to another component

TrippyLighting — Mon, 26 Dec 2022 10:54:29 GMT

@Bunga777 wrote:

hi, @TrippyLighting

@dlVARTY @laughingcreek @davebYYPCU

...

If you move a sketch associated with a body to another component, the body will automatically move to the component to which it was moved, provided there are no dependency issues.

With simple models, it is possible to move the body relatively smoothly, but with slightly more complex models, it often does not move.

...

If you think of this ahead, and create a "feature" as a separate, fully isolated component using the BORN modeling technique, then it is easy to re-use and move features. You can then create as many copies of that component and use joints to locate them. Then you can use the combine/cut or combine join tool to join them to a target body.

But if you don't think of this ahead, usually it is more work to delete the old feature from the timeline and start that feature from scratch.

Dragging sketches into another component often works, but comes with caveats. If you created the sketch on an origin plane of component A, used it to create geometry, and then dragged the sketch to component B, the sketch and the geometry might both move to component B.

However, the owner of the sketch is still the origin plane of component A and in order for you to fully move it over to component B you'd have to change the sketch plane as well. There are a number of gotchas that can make it make it quite laborious to completely move a feature form one body to another.

Re: Move Feature to another component

dnesting — Wed, 16 Aug 2023 14:14:38 GMT

I don't know if anyone reads these, but can I just say that the inability to move features created in the wrong place (so easy to do) has caused me to lose MANY HOURS of time recreating things from scratch. I get that people should "learn their lesson" but given how easy it is to mess this up, this is really a product design issue. We either need better features to create situational awareness about what component we're in (since the costs are high if we lose this awareness), or just let us move things between components more easily. I observe this has been an issue with this product for many years.

Re: Move Feature to another component

laughingcreek — Wed, 16 Aug 2023 14:47:32 GMT

I feel like timeline management, manipulation, and visualization is the achilleas of fusion. It's been a long time since there has been any significant changes in this area. without some updated/additional tools I think this will be the thing that eventually kills fusion.

Re: Move Feature to another component

dlVARTY — Tue, 03 Oct 2023 08:36:45 GMT

100% agree with you. I see no reason why a tool should be harder to use than it needs to be.

Re: Move Feature to another component

TrippyLighting — Tue, 03 Oct 2023 10:35:32 GMT

@laughingcreek wrote:

I feel like timeline management, manipulation, and visualization is the achilleas of fusion. It's been a long time since there has been any significant changes in this area. without some updated/additional tools I think this will be the thing that eventually kills fusion.

I don't think this will kill Fusion 360, but it will turn off a lot of users that have experience with other CAD software with better tools to manage complexity.

We do get ever more sophisticated tools to cerate complexity. But the tools to mange that complexity are lagging behind by half a decade, or more!