Sketch Mode Significant BUGs? Episode 1, Copy and Paste - Selection ERROR

[OFGLLC]

Sketch Mode Significant BUG? Episode 1, Copy and Paste - Selection ERROR

I am sorry, I wanted to do the screencast with audio but I have a cold and I kept getting into coughing fits. I will perform the functions slowly so that the steps below can be visualized.

Thanks for your consideration and taking the time to look at this,
Jeff

Steps to Experience this problem:

Step 1:   Start new design, Sketch->Create Sketch
              Note: The axis is irrelevant.  I will use the Z axis origin plane.

Step 2:   Sketch-> Text
                           Position the A______ text Position cursor anywhere and Left Click

                          Text Dialog:
                             Text: ST
                             Height: 1 inch
                             Font: Calibri

               Note: There is a reason for using these characters to demonstrate, see the screencast.  The 1 inch size is approximately the minimum size letter that a shielded plasma torch can reliably cut.  The Calibri font is common to both OS platforms.  I am doing the screencast on a PC.  I have the same problem, and have since I started using Fusion, on my MacBooks.

               Special Note:  Typing a character while in the font list cancels the Text operation on the PC while on the Mac,  it positions the list. This is an important time saver.

               Step 3:  Press OK

                            Note: After Step 2, you should see the 1 inch characters in Calibri and the option to move or rotate with a manipulator. Moving is irrelevant.

                Step 4: Right Click->Explode

                             Note: You can drag the text to position easily before exploding.

                             Special Note: The Text and Explode functions are not necessary.  There are many ways to get a large number of arcs in your Sketch; By drawing them, by importing, Etc . For the sake of the screencast, this is the fastest way to demonstrate and also a common event.

                Step 5:  Zoom out (very important)

                            Note: You should now have outlined vector text on your screen.  This is two characters and they are quite large.  A word or vectorized import art would require you to zoom out to see more or select more of the sketch.

                            Special Note: Zoom out until the outlines appear to lose resolution in some portions.

                Step 6: Select the characters "ST" by dragging a box around them.

                 Step 7: Zoom in (After selecting)

                            Note: Use the scroll wheel to zoom into the sketch so that you can see the individual arcs.  In the area where the S and T are closest together at the top is good.

                            Special Note: Notice that some of the arcs have black lines and some have blue lines.

-----------------<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>---------------
IMPORTANT: We need the ability to display any portion of the sketch and be able to Select and Copy.
-----------------<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>---------------

                  Step 8: Right Click-Copy

                  Step 9: Right Click-Paste

                              Note: This will launch the Move operation after pasting.  We don't want to leave the Paste over the original characters.

                             Special Note: For no reason I can detect, on the PC only, sometime the manipulator will be hidden above the view portal.   Sometimes, I can trick it down by moving the dialog box.  Usually I have to stop the Sketch and reload it.

                  Step10: Using the manipulator, move the pasted characters below the originals.

                   Step 11: Press OK to accept.

                                Note: You will note that all the points are visible in the copy.  Many of them are black.  I have not been able to find out what this means.  Checked help and Google for Fusion 360 point colors.  I would like a link to that information.

                    Step 12: Zoom in to the same area that we did before, BUT ON THE COPY.

                                 Note: You will note that the points still exist but many of the arcs are gone. (Some of them are actually elsewhere in the sketch as random fragments, but for brevity I will not cover that in this post.)

                    Step 13: Zoom back in UNTIL the original "ST" is displayed in the center and there are no voids in the borders.

                    Step 14: Repeats steps 8 thru 11 to copy and past and move again.  Move it down below the other two character pairs.

                    Step 15: Zoom in

                                 Note: All of the arcs are copied correctly.

                                 Special Note: The black points still persist.  They are not constraints.  In this example, the characters can be moved.  They persist beyond editing sessions, which makes the sketch a mess.

-----------------<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>---------------

WHY is this important?

           It breaks the normal process of being able to efficiently move or copy block areas of a sketch.  In addition, this also happens during imports.  I may make a separate post on that.  That seems pretty important to someone trying to work on 2D art but certainly has the ability to affect every user.  You must ask yourself, "Why would the level off zoom affect what objects are selected? (And what are the black points anyway?")  It is necessary to zoom out as there isn't any way to scroll the screen during a selection process.  When you zoom out, the display becomes incomplete.

Further info: You will note that if you attempt to move the original outlined characters when the characters are displayed with voids, they will refuse to move.  You will see that in the Move selection only the points that are at the intersections of straight lines will select.  In this particular case, at the same resolution, the copies will move. (Not always true)

I have not been able to find any settings that affect this performance.  If someone has a solution as the software currently is, I would love to implement it.

[TrippyLighting]

This is frighteningly easy to reproduce! I did not have this font on my mac but found another one with enough small detail - that seems to be the key here - that when zooming out some of the smaller segments seem to disappear and when window selecting the entire exploded text, these elements are not selected.

[OFGLLC]

Thank you for your confirmation.

I have 4 Mac’s and a PC that all have the problem so I know know I am not going crazy, plus my daughter is fighting it more then me. However, when you confirm, others will be less tempted to believe I am nuts.

You might tell people what font you used. I thought that was a common Font,
——> but Courier will suffice also. I just tried that on a Mac.

We mostly use stencil fonts that people would not likely have.


Thanks,

Jeff

[TrippyLighting]

[davebYYPCU]

12 months ago I inquired of a similar problem,

the work around recommended was to zoom in to select the small parts, and using the pan / orbit etc views,

to make sure all items are collected with the (Control / Cmmd key adding selections) method.

Was said to be a graphics resolution gremlin.  I don't think it was regarded as a bug.

[OFGLLC]

Dave,

  Unfortunately that would be impractical, or impossible with hundreds or thousands of points.

  There are two problems from my perspective.  1) The screen does not display properly unless zoomed in.  2)  The selection process relates to the incorrect screen display instead of the underlying data.  These are serious errors that would not be defined in my dictionary as a "gremlin" since they can be easily duplicated as I have demonstrated.  Duplicatable error are solvable errors.  I started programming in 1970 and retired from that field two years ago.  I'm pretty sure about that assertion.

Thanks for your input.  I appreciate it.  Maybe we can get the attention it needs to solve it for all the people like you and me and my daughter that are fighting this.  It took me some time to put together a simple repeatable example.  For that I apologize.

Jeff

[davebYYPCU]

Hi Jeff,

As always, the actual context is important, in my case I had <3mm parts missing from 300mm objects, so it was not so bad to make a few window selections, whilst collecting and accumulating all my bits.

I agree that revisiting this will help all of us.

[OFGLLC]

I am very sorry that no solution has been presented for this problem.  

I now know several other people locally fighting it.  I had hoped for a solution and it sounded as though the Fusion staff was going to work on it.  I'm preparing Episode 3, which demonstrates how random arc segments get dumped to the sketch during copies even within the same sketch

One partial solution to this Episode 2 issue would be to be able to use a menu option to duplicate a sketch without the need to even display it.  That's what I'm attempting most frequently.  I suppose that belongs in an idea station post.

[OFGLLC]

Here is another typical example of attempting to copy and paste in Sketch mode  and Fusion having an issue after that.

In this case, there was actually a distortion in an original copy that I didn't see until later.  Fusion would not allow me to correct it.  Hence I deleted the offending slot and copied the slot from the right side to the left and then attempted to place it.  As you can see in the screencast, it will not allow not to dimensionally restrain the slot even though there are no constraints.  The error message says there are constraints but is not able to list any at all.  You will note that the move command has no problem re-locating the slot.  There is obviously a constraint remnant left somewhere that is now garbage affecting the operation.  Stopping the Sketch does not clean it up like it does with some of the other problems.

Mac  2.0.2.727

[OFGLLC · Accepted solution]

The March 2017 update seems to have dealt with these issues without mention.  I don't understand why this was ignored and then fixed without mention but there you have it.

I should note that this does not fix the exploded text being unmovable issue.  I will create another topic for that.

[Phil.E]

@OFGLLC

Thanks for following up. Glad to hear you are having a better time with this workflow now.

To answer your question: Months ago I was the one that tested and reported this problem with zoom and sketch copy. It was based on another forum post. Unfortunately I did not see your post and thus did not comment that this is known and likely to be fixed soon. This time frame is pretty average for what it takes to find and fix a bug that is only annoying (customer not blocked, no crash, data secure).

So yes, we take your posts seriously, thanks for doing this! Sorry it took so long to get a solution found and tested and put into the product.

Regards,

[OFGLLC]

I very much appreciate that you took the time to update me on this process.

I fear that my posts may have betrayed the level of frustration that I experienced.  Many more 8 hour days became 12 hours days than I want to admit now.  This problem made some designs that should have taken a few hours take days.  I understand that it wasn't technically crashing but when it was combined with the graphic engine issue also apparently resolved in this update, we spent every week wondering if help was forthcoming or we were going to have to abandon our investment in Fusion, which includes a fair amount of CAD work. 

Many software companies maintain a publicly accessible list of known bugs and work-arounds if available.  I have only been able to see if a bug is recognized by looking to see if it mentioned in the update notes.  In this case, I didn't see that either.

The possibility of you working on a solution and not seeing posts about the problem is indicative of a problem with procedure/software notification disconnect.  If you are working on a problem and someone else posts information that is constructive in identifying or correcting the problem from a different angle than you have considered, missing that notification could be very costly.  Free help is a poor resource to miss.

Thanks again for fixing the problem and following up with your post to me.

Jeff