CLOSED - "Next Relevant Feature" Suggestions

[TimeraAutodesk]

**Feedback on this item is now closed.  Thank you all for your input!**

We have been working hard to make sure Fusion is as easy to use as possible and we understand from our community that certain feature sequences could be shortened. We have been investigating for a while how we can do this effectively and provide the best experience for the community.

We have been working with an idea called “Next Relevant Feature” where fusion would suggest the next best feature to apply to the design while you are creating the last feature. For example, if you're creating an extrude, the extrude command could allow you to create a shell at the same time.

What we need from the community

1. Do you currently find yourself having to use multiple features to achieve the desired result?

2. Is this something that you find intriguing?

3. What worries or fears might you have using this kind of technology?

We are also looking for partners to be involved in the early phases of these feature sets, so if you would like to share more information on how you achieve this now and want to be involved in the early phases feel free to reach out directly to harv.saund@autodesk.com

[GRSnyder]

This is an intriguing idea; however, there's an elegance to keeping things orthogonal that I wouldn't want to see sacrificed. If you include shell controls in the Extrude workflow, it creates the impression that there's some deeper link between these two operations, which is potentially misleading. And of course, nobody wants Clippy popping up to ask "You just created an extrusion! Would you like to shell it out?" after the fact...

That said, there are a couple of two-part operations that I find myself doing all the time and that I wish were just one conceptual unit. The first is mirroring a body across a symmetry axis and then Combine-ing the two mirrored halves into a single body. The second is splitting a body with a plane or surface and then Remove-ing one of the fragments.

For the first workflow, I just wish Mirror included a standard operation popup menu from which I could select Join. I'm not sure what the right UI for the second scenario would be.

[kb9ydn]

I have to be honest.  Having Fusion suggest the next feature to add sounds very gimmicky; like one of those things that sounds really cool to marketing types and complete novices, but everyone else hates it.  The comparison to Clippy from ancient versions of MS Office is quite apropos.  Until Fusion can literally read my mind, hard pass on this one.

However, streamlining existing commands is a great idea.  Mirror for example should absolutely have an option to combine bodies.  Splitting a body and deleting one (or more) of the resulting bodies is also a no brainer.  I'm sure there are also others.

C|

[Anonymous]

Not sure if this right place to leave my comments...but just moved from Solidworks/Solidcam into Fusion user and learning curve is very very steep in CAM. For example 2D contour milling is almost impossible to understand how it works. Too many parameters to deal with (some of them could be under "advanced options"), roughing or finish, which parameter is related on what action etc not to even mention transition speed not possible to have G0 when keeping tool down.  Highly recommend to take a look how it is done in SolidCam as "profile" operation, there is clear option if you want to make rough only, finish only or both. Both actions have somewhat CLEAR, separate settings/parameters and they are logical to use.

Another tip from Solidcam could be toolpath visibility when editing operation parameters. Now it needs "OK" to calculate toolpath and when editing operation already calculated toolpath disappears. It just takes too much time when testing new settings, ie "OK" => not happy with toolpath => Edit => OK => Edit. Simple "Calculate" button within dialog box with always visible toolpath would solve this issue.

Not here to say SC is something to copy but first impression is that especially in CAM there is too much details visible and not necessary in any logical order or clearly defined per function.

[Anonymous]

  One thing I believe would be a huge improvement would be to enable a way to save and use a machined model in the cam portion of fusion.  If you have multiple setups and multiple ops it is a huge benefit to have a model that is a visual representation of where you are in that process.  I use Gibbscam and they have what is called a facet body.  Once you watch the simulation you can use that simulated machined body right then and there for your stock.  I know fusion has something similar.  The process in Fusion is not ideal.  You have to save it out to a file then  re import it.  Then you have to move it to the correct spot.  If Fusion could create a "facet body" right there that then stays in the file, in place that would be perfect.  

[jeff.pek]

@Anonymous : This is something that we are working on as we type. Hopefully we can make it available in one of the near-term updates. We are still working out details of exactly how this will work, especially in terms of the visibility of this intermediate model.

Jeff

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the quick response.  I know Fusion has its own identity and not one of the other software systems out there.  I am impressed so far.  That being said it is great you guys are at work making it better and drawing on the best things in cam to continue to improve it.

[maruska]

Not sure if this counts, but I'd like removing multiple bodies to be one timeline event.

[maruska]

I think there might something with patterning and combining bodies. But would need to play with it to see if it solves the issues I've run into - for instance..

If you're designing a spoked rim. You might make a wedge that is 1/5 of the wheel, pattern the body 5 times and combine them. Then later parametrically change your model to be 1/4 of a wheel, even so far as linking the number of spokes and patterns to a favorite parameter. All good until you get to the Combine with throws an error because there used to be 5 spokes, now there are only four.

[maruska]

I also had an old idea station post regarding Mirroring bodies. I'd really like a Mirror Body with a combine option such that I mirror my model and the other half is joined to the original body. Quite common for us designers to make half a model and mirror it to make a whole one...

EDIT: For that matter, you could have the same New Body, Join, Intersect, Subtract drop-down that extrude uses...

[SolubleSpork]

I agree with the first few comments on this.  The idea of a next relevant feature sounds very marketing/gimicky to me, and the clippy analogy is a perfect example of my fear.  Due to the complexity of modeling and how drastically different the feature AFTER an extrude can be from part to part, yes - sometimes the dialog would be correct, I might actually want to shell after I extrude.  But the 99 out of 100 other times that I want to do something else, its just extraneous popups or inputs that get in the way and just get closed out.  I don't think there is enough benefit to adding complexity to my super commonly used extrude command (or any other feature) just to hopefully suggest the feature I would do next 1 out of 100 times.  I don't mind selecting another tool for my next sketch/feature in lieu of constantly ignoring suggestions or extra tabs/fields in a tool dialog.  The potential efficiency gain or benefit really just is not there for me and in fact I see it becoming distracting, unnecessary, or just taking up extra screen space.

[jean-michel_legoff]

Hello,

there are a lost of feature I miss in Fusion and particularly about UV's texturing and unwrapping.

But I confess that it is a little border line for a true mecanical software.

But at least one key feature which is missing is a remeshing feature to convert Tri to Quad as it is mandatory to convert scanned geometruy to t-sline and solid.

It's really boring to have to install Recap/Recap Photo to handle only this job just by opening a mesh in trangles and asking to save_it in Quads for Fusion.

Knowing that Recap/Recap Photo is an Autodesk software this is really frustrating.

[TrippyLighting]

I am not sure we need suggestions for the next feature, because there are enough tools in Fusion 360 that could benefit form being completed with an option to the next pretty obvious thing.

1. As at least one other user has already suggested , the mirror tool for solid bodies needs an option to combine the mirrored geometry with the seed geometry and or with another selectable object. For surface bodies the same goes for stitching and surface bodies.

2. The Pattern tool repeatedly breaks the parametric nature of Fusion 360. A simple change of the number of patterned instances can easily break the next feature in the timeline, and requires rework.
2.1 First of all the pattern feature for solid bodies needs a combine option to combine the patterned instances either with themselves and /or selectable geometry.

2.2 That similarly applies to surface bodies and stitching. 

2.3 Let's say we want to create a component/bolt pattern. So the initial bolt is inserted and properly joined to one of the holes in the hole pattern. Then we pattern the bolts but they are still floating and not assembled. The current workflow is to apply a rigid group joint between the patterned instances and the original bolt. If we now change the quantity to reduce the count the rigid group is missing an instance and turns yellow and has to be fixed. Or we increase the count and then have to add that instance manually to the selection in the rigid group, if we don't forget that altogether.

An auto-rigid group option to the seed instance and/or selectable component(s) would be very beneficial.

While we're at it - not exactly a next suggested feature -  hole patterns usually have exactly the same number of holes and those holes exactly in the same location as the bolt pattern. It would be incredibly useful to be able to re-use an already existing pattern, not only in the case of a bolt pattern.

3. The web tool is often used in plastic injection molded or in die cast parts. The next features almost always are applying draft and filleting. Right now that is incredibly labor intensive and error prone.

I am sure there are other users that can easily complete that list. 

[Marco.Takx]

Hi @TimeraAutodesk,

Please add the possibility to select a diameter surface within the Chamfer tool for Distance and Angle.

This is so annoying.

[Anonymous]

I know one relevant feature to be added: customer feedback that is not restricted to the topics you care about. It is quite clear you don't want my feedback, the way this forum is organized is very restricted, to a point where a nice "i'll help these guys" has turned within the last half hour to "is this another AVID that does not want to listen to the people who are using their products?". I already know this post will be deleted but i'll give my feedback here, do what you want with it.

I was trying to give feedback on one feature that has pissed me off since day 1: why doesn't the open file dialogue keep sorting, it reverts back to alphabetic each time. How many of your users will sort by alphabetic and how many sorts them "last updated"? If i had to make a guess: most of them sort by date... And it is not like this is a huge problem for you: keeping the previously used sorting has been part of Windows since... at least since win95. If your custom open file dialogue is worse than inbuilt: why use your own then? If you can't offer the very basic functionality.. what is the point?

And please, make this forum more open. Everything here feels like you ask, we will give you answers but the process is one way only. It makes things cheap for you, that is for sure..

[TrippyLighting]

1. Making demanding requests with your first post to a forum is not the best way to introduce yourself.

2. Not informing yourself about the history of the forum, which would have been very easy to do and then making unfounded accusations, again with your first post is disrespectful. For 6 years prior to your first post there has been an idea station where people were able to post ideas and make suggestions. There already is about 10 years' worth of work in those suggestions, which have in fact been taken very seriously by the Fusion 360 team.

3. Before responding to a post or thread, make sure you fully understand it's content. Clearly you haven't!

[StephenCim-001]

in the Surface work space , maybe offer a "stitch" after a "patch"  

[BioGreen360]

It would be nice to be able to control the opacity of an object quickly without having to make multiple clicks through the tree. Maybe this is already doable but when I am working to show a client a complex assembly it would be nice to have a slider available once the object is selected or with a right click.

Maybe there is already a quicker workflow but I right now I:

Right click on the object> find in browser> expand the tree to find the highlighted item> Right click on the component> select the opacity> and then select the opacity%

same issue when trying to make objects solid again, would be nice if you could group select things and have the same functionality...

[StephenCim-001]

I would be happy if the Right Click pop menu, contained the last 3 used commands instead of just the last used command