Foundational Concepts Preview

[Aaron.Magnin]

About a month ago, a number of Autodesk employees and Fusion 360 community members entered into a discussion regarding our "Tutorials & Philosophy". In that discussion, we realized that although our lessons are typically informative (although not perfect), we were glancing over some very important concepts.  

Since then, we've been working to right this with a series we're calling "Foundational Concepts". In this series, we're not necessarily teaching users how to sketch, model, or analyze, but taking a step further out to look at things like components vs bodies, top down vs bottoms up, and data management considerations for the cloud environment.   If you have some time, take a look at these and let us know what you think.

Video 1: design intent, top down vs bottoms up assembly design, and rule #1

https://autodesk.wistia.com/medias/78l6s9ldms 

Video 2: the data panel, Fusion Team, and supported files types

https://autodesk.wistia.com/medias/3ufkwvqxcb 

Video 3: preferences & workspaces, before spending the majority of the time looking at the timeline and browser

https://autodesk.wistia.com/medias/qw4avrv5ek 

Video 4: design methods including freeform, parametric surfacing, direct editing,  and our newest design method, meshes

https://autodesk.wistia.com/medias/4dvxxo8wpk 

Video 5: brings it all together in the design of a simple bracket

https://autodesk.wistia.com/medias/4eriocgds3 

 Thanks for reading/watching, and for any feedback you might have.  

~Aaron & Bryce  

[Anonymous]

Howzeabout a standalone help file in pdf format?

This would be a huge godsend to us old farts who like to have reference materials at hand vice a bunch of video tutorials.

Chris

[TheCADWhisperer]

[TrippyLighting]

That last video #5 needs to be automatically playing in the user's native language right after the installation of Fusion 360 and every upgrade of Fusion 360 without the ability to stop it 😉

Many concepts explained in a cohesive fashion.

It would have been tremendously helpful for the OP of this thread.

[TrippyLighting]

The last video actually starts with a workflow that is a valid exception to Fusion 360's R.U.L.E #1.

You start with a skeleton sketch that already has many features of the final design and then you create bodies, which you turn into components.

But in that case you don't start with making a component.

Your guideline to create a component as early as you can is also very important for that workflow because you start collecting features in that component and not just littered across the timeline.

Excellent!

[Beyondforce]

Hi @Aaron.Magnin,

The videos are great, but I'm with @TrippyLighting. Video no.5 should be a welcome video when the a user starts F360 for the first time, without the option to skip it!

R.U.L.E 1# should be introduce in the beginning. Users should know, now matter what, they MUST always start with a new Component and to activate it! That is because, people are coming from different CAD programs and with a different routines. They must know that F360 has it's own routing and for a reason.

A post with those videos should be pinned to the top of every section in F360 forum. The title should catch their eyes like, "How to start with Fusion 360" or something like that.

Keep up the good work.

Ben.

[LMD001]

Hello @Aaron.Magnin,

Very useful videos!

These will help many new (and maybe even not so new) users to quickly come to grips with the Fusion 360 philosophy.

As @TrippyLighting wrote, should be mandatory viewing for every new user.

This is great work!

Best regards,

Ludo

[TrippyLighting]

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@Beyondforce wrote:

R.U.L.E 1# should be introduce in the beginning. Users should know, now matter what, they MUST always start with a new Component and to activate it!

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There are a number of exceptions to the R.U/L.E #1 , perhaps more applicable to top-down modeling workflows.

Starting with a single sketch to extrude multiple bodies from is a perfectly fine workflow. It provides you with some base geometry for your components and Aaron explains that you should create a component as soon as you can in the video.

Also, let's say your design starts with a T-Spline which you want to later  split into several bodies, say the 2 halves of a housing for your product. In that case you also start with a T-Spline that is converted into body and then split into 2 or more separate bodies. Then you turn those bodies into components. You would not necessarily start with a component.

When you create a single component that you want to use as a linked component (X-REF)in several separate designs, you also don't start with making a component.

[HughesTooling]

I noticed in video 5 when you make the first extrusion and create the 2 bodies, the sketch doesn't auto hide. Is that a new feature, if it is I hope it's an option in preferences because I try to stick to one feature per sketch and I don't want to have sketch stay visible after use.

Mark

[JDMather]

How do I turn on Closed Captioning in these videos?

[mcramblet]

Very good information! The most complete and understandable explanation of Rule #1 that I've heard. I must admit that I didn't follow it, primarily because I didn't know what the actual benefits were. Now I understand and see the wisdom in following that method and will change accordingly, from this point on.

This Foundational Concepts series will be extremely useful! Besides now understanding Rule #1, there were other things gleaned from these 5 videos. Another reason I enjoy Fusion 360 so much; besides being a great CAD program, the resources available for learning are great and continue to grow. Excellent job, Fusion 360 Team!

[Aaron.Magnin]

@thecadwhisperer Hahah....good catch regarding that misspelling. We'll fix that. 

@JDMather , this is an option within wistia, but we haven't started adding that yet. You need a special file format (srt) and its something we're still learning about. 

@HughesTooling I think whats happening there is it has already been used for another feature, and at that point Bryce was forced to manually show it...from then on it will always show it until you manually click the bulb icon. 

@HughesTooling & @TrippyLighting I'll see what I can do to force this on new users...ha! 

To everyone else, thank you much for the feedback, and again, for encouraging us to make this series. 

[TrippyLighting]

Fusion 360 R.U.L.E #1
When in doubt, before doing anything, create a component and make sure it's activated.
All objects created after activating the component such as sketches, bodies, construction geometry, joint origins, etc.  are created in that component.

This has several advantages:

1. On activation the timeline is filtered to show only those items in the timeline that pertain to that component. That will make the quickly growing timeline much easier to work with.
2. If a component is exported to the data panel with "save as" this will also export the complete parametric design history. 
3. The joints in the "Assemble menu only work with components.
4. Drawings can only be created from components
5. Only components show on the BOM
6. Only components can be added to slection sets.
7. Only components can be isolated

I just added #6 and #7 to what I've posted now 100+ times on the forum.

[HughesTooling]

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@Aaron.Magnin wrote:

@HughesTooling I think whats happening there is it has already been used for another feature, and at that point Bryce was forced to manually show it...from then on it will always show it until you manually click the bulb icon. 

I was a bit unsure whether Bryce might be using a development version, I understand how Bryce could get the workflow shown in the video but someone new trying to follow along might find that confusing. I've had to explain how to turn sketches back on a few times in the forum, quite often users didn't spot the Sketch folder could be expanded so couldn't see the light bulbs, the same is true in the video.

One other comment, the videos seem a bit fast, I've noticed screencasts I've made run faster than I worked at. Do these videos seem fast to you or does Bryce drink a lot of coffee and talk  and work that fast always.

Mark

[BryceHeven]

@HughesTooling Actually that is not a new feature. While I was recording i screwed up and started over. After the sketch is hidden due to a feature and you show it manually it will be shown till you hide the sketch again.

To answer your most recent question: I do drink alot of coffee. =]

[JDMather]

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@Aaron.Magnin wrote:

@JDMather , this is an option within wistia, .... 

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So when will CC be an option in Autodesk Screencast? 

Everything used in Edu must be Close Captioned.

[vkmonu9]

Excellent!!!! So much information to learn more.

[Anonymous]

hi rocmen iam lost need direction  i want to cut letters out of a foam board in fusion 360 maybe you could help

thanks rocmen

[TheCADWhisperer]

@Anonymous

Can you start a new thread.

Can you Export your *.f3d file (as much as you have been able to attempt) to your local drive and then Attach it to the new thread?