topic My impressions after trial period in Fusion Support Forum

My impressions after trial period

smetaniuk5DTTY — Fri, 29 Sep 2017 07:06:15 GMT

Hello!

My 30-days trial period just finished and I have to admit that Fusing 360 is really great powerful product while user friendly, easy to learn and convenient, especially, considering that it’s first 3D modeling tool I’m using in my life.

At the same time, for the last month I’ve discovered several things, that I would like to share with your team. Some of them are minor bugs, and the rest are improvements that should not be too complex to fix/implement, but can significantly extend the functionality of your product.

It’s almost impossible to manage order of the components/bodies in a tree.
- On the top level it’s impossible to reorder components by dragging – the line shows up showing the new position of the component, but when I release the mouse – the component remains on the previous place and does not move to new place.
- It’s possible to reorder bodies using the above approach, but in some moment (can’t say exactly when) all of them backs to previous order. Seems like the order is always creation order.
In some places, entering expressions, they are substituted with the constant/calculated value of the parameter and does not change when parameter value changed. I remember two such cases:
- Drive Joints. Here I’m entering user defined parameter, but when try to edit the expression next time – I see just the value the parameter. If I change the value if user parameter – it does not affect the drive joins value.
- Often, on sketches it’s very useful to add a dimension, that automatically calculated from other defined dimensions and constraints (over constraint dimension message appears and the value shown in () brackets) and reference in it expression to define some other dimention. In this case it’s just possible to reference the value of such auto dimension and so, if it’s value changed, it does not affect the expression that references it.
Browser tree disappears sometimes. Sometimes it’s remains empty (i.e. tree does not show). The only solution I found to back things to normal is Reset to Default Layout command.
The types/units conversion in expressions is a bit complicated as for me. I had hard time to understand why my expression is red. Fortunately, I found it’s because types mismatch. For example it’s not intuitive why “round(wR)“ expression is incorrect and why it should be “round(wR/mm)”. Also, it’s a bit hard “to read” such expressions.
I had a model with a lot of different options of bodies and components and often had to change visibility a lot. It would be convenient to have ability defining the visibility as expression too. So, changing just one or few user defined parameters it would be possible to manage visibility of hundreds of bodies/components according to defined rules.
Ability to define user functions in addition to expressions. Of just ability to define Motion Link relations as functions. For example let’s consider Rev + Slider motion link. It’s possible to define the linear relation between angle of rev joint and distance of slider joint (I.e. 20 mm per 360 deg, or 0.56mm per degree). But the abilities will be drastically extended and complex motions could be modeled if it’s possible to define/specify the function that calculates the distance having current angle as parameter like “distance=(angle/deg % 360) * 10mm”.

That’s all for now.

With Best Regards to all Fusion 360 team,
Victor

Re: My impressions after trial period

n8bot — Fri, 29 Sep 2017 14:12:15 GMT

Great points. Your point number 2 seems to be related to number 4: type mismatch. Often, if you find the user parameter being replaced by the value, it's because the user parameter doesn't share the same units as the field you're trying to input it into. QTY must have no units, and distance must have a length unit, for example.

Re: My impressions after trial period

smetaniuk5DTTY — Mon, 02 Oct 2017 12:56:33 GMT

Thank you for your assumption. I've re-checked both cases, but, unfortunately, neither of them does relate to types mismatch.
To test Drive Joints case I've created a user parameter and specified it's degrees. I can enter the parameter name in "Drive Joints" dialog "Rotation" field and it's works, but when I re-enter "Drive Joints" next time - I see just the numeric value (50 deg in my test case) instead of parameter name. Also, if I change the value of appropriate parameter in "Change Parameters" dialog - the joint does not reflect that change.

As for the second case with dimensions referencing - the test case is the following. Using "Dimension" tool, when I click on some previously manually defined dimension - the text box of current dimension is populated with the parameter/variable name of the dimension I've clicked on. Also, it's possible to see the name of such custom dimension on a tool tip when mouse hovers it.

In case of automatic dimensions there are no any tool tips on mouse hover, but it's still possible to click on such dimension in "Dimension" tool mode. However, in this case the text box is populated with the numeric value, but not the name of dimension variable.

Also, reviewing the IdeaStation section I've found the "Future Consideration" idea that is pretty the same as my case number two:
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-ideastation-request-a/ability-to-reference-driven-dimensions/idc-p/5868707