topic Bug: Cannot reference driven dimensions in Parameters for use in Patterns. in Fusion Support Forum

Bug: Cannot reference driven dimensions in Parameters for use in Patterns.

jeffwPP4JQ — Wed, 10 May 2023 23:54:23 GMT

Trying to use Patterns where the count and spacing is specified in parameters. There's a bug that prevents using driven dimensions. I've included two screen shots of the parameters dialog.

In the first I've created a construction line with a user specified dimension. It works just fine for the pattern's count parameter.

In the second I've tried to use a dimension that is driven. No other changes. It fails miserably.

Re: Bug: Cannot reference driven dimensions in Parameters for use in Patterns.

jhackney1972 — Thu, 11 May 2023 00:18:30 GMT

This is not a bug, this is a restriction on the use of Driven Dimensions. Driven Dimensions can only be use as parameters "within" the sketch that they are a part of.

Re: Bug: Cannot reference driven dimensions in Parameters for use in Patterns.

jeffwPP4JQ — Thu, 11 May 2023 00:33:29 GMT

I clicked "solution" because you are correct; not because my problem is solved. This is another example of the many stupid limitations that Fusion 360 has. There are so many convenient workflow possibilities that this restriction prevents that it's crazy.

Re: Bug: Cannot reference driven dimensions in Parameters for use in Patterns.

jeff_strater — Thu, 11 May 2023 21:19:16 GMT

I think that your characterization of this as a "stupid limitation" does not really help the discourse here. This forum is not Twitter...

For an explanation of why that limitation exists, please see:

This decision was made as a conscious choice, due to limited resources, and the desire to solve as much of the requirement as possible without further delay. Using a driven dimension within a sketch is a much easier solution to implement than the more general case, as it does not introduce dependencies between parameters and the timeline items. Would it be better to have the more general solution? Certainly. But, that would have come with a tradeoff of some other functionality or bug fixes that we felt were higher priority.

Re: Bug: Cannot reference driven dimensions in Parameters for use in Patterns.

geogod2066 — Sat, 13 May 2023 23:08:02 GMT

I agree. I'm no software engineer, but this seems like a large oversite in the scope of parametric modeling. Using reference/driven dimensions outside of their parent sketch would eliminate the hassle of hunting down and properly defining the dimension. I can, however, understand the complexity of missing references in the case of changing the geometry outside of the sketch. Really wish this was a feature :(.