We fast but painfully learn that to join two objects (ehem - components) in Fusion 360, the one that should move needs to be selected first. Period.   This is an arbitrary rule. Who did it? Why the moving one first?   Wouldn't it be cool to just allow the person to select the objects, either way, and then help him/her get the right result out of it. This is how.   1. If either of the objects is grounded, it doesn't move.   - Currently, a grounded object is simply dimmed when selecting the first entry (well, makes sense with the current rules - but Less Rules Is Good!)     2. If both objects can move, the current behavior (move the first) can be the default. But there should be a 'flip'-like icon to change the order.   The nice animations show how the joint would happen. The dialog is still there. Place the 'swap selection order' button in between the component selections.     Now, if the selections are swapped, the animation will show the components joining in the other order. Voilá.   Show More

This is a components list from Keqing's blade model. It shows a problem I faced in real life.   Why does every component need to be tailed with the ':1' postfix? It makes sense to count / separate components with identical names, but if the name is unique, why not just show it without the postfix to the user?    The current behavior was especially annoying when I had a component called "pillar 200" for a 200 mm diameter. That is shown as "pillar 200:1" which implies a scaling ratio. I see no need for dropping the ":1" on unique component (and any other element) names.     Version: Fusion 360 1.8.601   btw, Browser could be added in the "Idea Labels" Show More

Everytime I grab the view cube and my drag goes outside the window ( where the actual mouse pointer would be ), the viewport flips instead of just smoothly roatating in relation to the mouse.   Drives me nuts, please, please fix it! Show More

  ( I didn't find anything with "annotation" on the forums - has this not been suggested yet? )   I finished a model but would like to mark some "to do" items next to it, to remember what could be further developed next time I return to it.   Currently, there doesn't seem to be any way to add such textual remarks? I believe it should be very handy - I use it with i.e. PDFs all the time.   I hope this is coming in at some stage. How do other CAD systems implement it? Show More

Reporting here, though it's not ideation.   Versions:Fusion 360 1.8.568 -> 1.8.601, OS X 10.8.4   I had noticed the Release Notes for a new version at the Forums, so clicked 'search for updates' icon in the toolbar. The program told 'no updates available' so I continue the work (or whatever it is I'm doing).   Later, I move the mouse too fast, and Fusion 360 starts beach balling (gets stuck).   I notice the dock now has duplicate icons for Fusion 360 and Sim 360.     This is not normal (other self-updating apps never show two sets of dock icons).   Notice that the leftmost Fusion 360 has the 'running' indicator. The others don't.   Happened:  Jul 31st 21:00 .. 22:20 GMT+3   I'll Force Quit the running instance now and see what happens.   The left icon points to: webdeploy/69e5777f7670ab8fe6a5d402b114295c37eba7a4/Fusion360.app   (no version info, 1.0)   The right icon points to: webdeploy/1b540d9427bb7bbd438f42f69735ab27b95b8d7b/Autodesk Fusion 360.app(version 1.0)   I'll start the new version now.   All seems okay.   Launching the new version removed the old version's icons from the Dock (but what if I had launched the old icon, not the new one?). Show More

I'd want to fork an existing design so I can continue it in two different ways. Wasn't able to find a way to do this.   So the idea is: there should be 'fork' entry at the Dashboard 'details' dialog, alongside 'Latest' and 'Versions'.   As a bytour, I tried exporting the design as a Fusion 360 archive (hoping it retains all the information in it). I was expecting a file to be transfered to my local machine, but this never happened. I got an alert, and an email. With link. Which require Chrome. Where's my archive?   Then there's this new design in my Activity feed:     The 'Note' I was asked to type seems to have become the description of the new design (please Fusion 360 team, be *consistent* with terminology. If it's a description you want, state so!).   So now, instead of the archive I actually got what I wanted - a fork of the design.   I'm so puffled.   Am I missing something or isn't the Dashboard part in a serious need of testing and revise (UI layout, terminology, etc.). Wow.   Let's make a Fork feature that actually creates the archive file? Then it's at least symmetrical. Show More

The current aligment tools in Fusion 360 are very impressive. They handle all sorts of hard cases, and clearly a lot of thought went into them.   However, for the easy cases, they are actually kind of a hassle. To do something simple like align the center of one object to the center of another,  I had to jump through a lot of hoops (I had to create components, learn about making components active, create joints, etc).  While it is true that I now know how to do some powerful things, it is still cumbersome, and the initial UX was really not very good. (I literally spent about 3 hours figuring out how to align one object to another).   My Idea then, is to incorporate some quick-and-simple alignment tools as well.  I found myself really wanting the kind of alignment tools we see in 2D vector graphics editors. For example, here is the alignment panel from Inkscape, an open-source tool:     The tools are basically variants of "align-side-to-side" and "align-center-to-center". These are not sophisticated tools, and they operate on bounding boxes rather than snap points/planes/etc.They don't make a lot of sense in a generic 3D view, but when I am in (for example) a top view or side view, these simple bounding-box level tools would let me get a lot of my alignment tasks done very, very quickly.    Similarly, it would be awesome to have these tools when working on a Sketch, Using these simple alignment tools I can use a sort of constructive approach that will let me very quickly "compute" things that would otherwise be a lot of work.    Also, many users who are less familiar with CAD, and ideas like point-to-plane snapping, are going to know these kinds of tools (for example Powerpoint has literally the exact same tools as Inkscape).      Show More

Prepare: - open some model and create a solid body (I had a plate with three corners, each cut by a circle)   Steps: - start to move a solid body (the whole body, right click from the browser) - first enter 25000mm as the direction to move (observe that preview is fine and machine works normally) - start editing the number to 24995mm starting by adding numbers in the middle     Expected: - editing a number in such way should be okay, as well as the eventual number is less-than-astronomical   Actual: - the whole machine gets stuck, until (after 25 mins) I did a Force Quit on Fusion (with great difficulty - the machine was so stuck)   Cure: if move numbers would lead the preview too far (outside of the viewport or too far into the horizon), preview should not even try to do this, until the numbers are confirmed (that is, 'OK' is pressed) Even in the case of pressing 'OK' for a distance s.a. 249955000mm, the above (full stuck machine) should not happen.   Versions:Fusion 360 1.8.568, OS X 10.8.4   Show More

  The ability to set pivot points and orbit a model directly from the use of mouse button combinations, without having to select the Orbit icon or use the View Cube (which itself is a nice feature) would be very useful. Complete model viewing manipulation (zoom, pan, rotate/orbit, set pivot point) using only combinations of mouse buttons, is very common in other CAD Systems and even some viewing applications (e.g. 3D PDF in Adobe Reader and Acrobat), although Fusion 360 already includes mouse button support for panning and zooming   Simultaneous 1st then 3rd, or 2nd then 3rd mouse button combinations appear to be available. Show More

  A less expensive read-only or restricted version of Fusion 360 for commercial use, except that it would still include the ability to import 3D models from other CAD systems such as Catia V5 (as Fusion 360 currently does) and from neutral file formats STEP AP 203, AP 203ed2, AP 214, and AP 242. There are already low cost and no cost CAD products from well known CAD Vendors that provide this type of limited functionality, and one no-cost CAD system version even lets you open and save models and assemblies (neutral format) that have no more than 60 components. This type of viewing, interrogating, and restricted editing of CAD parts and assemblies would be primarily for downstream non-design users of the data. An option then, in Fusion 360, to upgrade to the fully enabled version would be a good idea too, for suppliers and engineers that used Fusion 360 to access models from PDM type systems, but needed their own fully functional copy of the software for design, analysis, and manufacturing purposes. Show More

  Ability to generate additional Physical/Mass Properties of a model (e.g. to be used for Manufacturing, Quality Inspection, CAE, and model integrity validation purposes when importing to or exporting from Fusion 360). In addition to the physical properties already calculated by Fusion 360, Moments of Inertia and Center of Gravity (Center of Mass) should also be included. Also, the ability to export all physical properties to a textual format that can be imported into a database, or compared to physical properties from original model already stored in system database to validate design integrity of any derivative models. Show More

Using HTML for normal desktop application layout is perfectly fine. Just DON'T SHOW IT!    It's like letting your underpants show, and it isn't pretty.     I pressed the right mouse click on 'Download'. Just out of habit.    Expected: - nothing   Actual: - got the browser (Safari?) context menu for links. "Add to iTunes as a Spoken Track"? No thanks.   ( Pressing 'Inspect Element' would be fun, though. )   Also, clicking 'Open Link' etc. here does not open them in a browser. It opens them in yet another Fusion 360 dashboard view, and in the process the program lost stuff I had written in one comment field.       Fusion 360 1.8.568, OS X 10.8.4 Show More

Part of the problem I had with Fusion 360 UI initially was that I was selecting first, then using a feature s.a. Construct > Point At Center Of Circle/Sphere/Torus.     (note that the blue ring means the cylinder's edge is selected)   I was expecting the tool to work on the *selected* edge, but instead it clears the selection and wants me to *now* select the particular edge.         This is partly learning. I suppose (= guess) that right click menu entries work on selections, and the toolbar menu entries instead clear the current selection.   Here are some things that could be done about this:   1. Nothing. Just mention it in the tutorials.   2. Extend toolbar menus to work on preselections (instead of clearing them). This could be powerful: for things needing three inputs I could preselect them and doing the 'Construct' would work right there, without showing me any menus. Snap. If some selections are missing, I would be shown which types and how many (my other post dwells on this).   3. Dim the toolbar menu entries if there are existing selections (instead of clearing them). This may not be preferable - it's always difficult to figure out why something is cleared.   4. Make a nagging dialog to the user in case there are pre-selections. "You have N elements selected. XX will clear the selection. Ok / Cancel"  This will essentially teach the current behavior to the user instead of trusting him/her to figure it out somehow.   Please have a discussion about this. As long as the UI is *discoverable* (i.e. one can learn it just by playing with it) I'm fine.   Show More

The problems with Align & Snap (discussed elsewhere) refer to working points and planes a lot. These are under the Construction toolbar menu and today I tried them out.   The UI for selecting elements (points, edges etc.) isn't completely obvious, and it's not coherent either.    Let's take the coherency issue first.   Select Construct > Offset Plane   This needs just one element, a plane and communicates it clearly:     ( What could be done here is to use color coding on the arrow icon like I think Inventor does. White background: not selected yet. Blue background: selected. Here it seems to always be blue which lead me to think I had a plane selected. Anyways - check Inventor and do alike. )   Now, take i.e. Construct > Plane Through Three Points     That's ALL you get on the screen.    And if you click the 'option' icon, you'll see this:         Seems like only one point (or something) is needed, but it's actually all three. (For the first, this means the first point, then the second point, then the third… but since there is no visual indication that some points already got selected, the user is confused - unless she/he knows the drill.)   Granted, if you do NOT do anything, this tooltip will surface:     However (based on your personality) you might never see it. I hadn't. My way was to click all possible, not to wait for a tooltip to surface.   A better way would be alongside how 'Offset Plane' selection works (and how Inventor works, I think):     This makes the tooltip unnecessary and allows changing selections of the 1st and 2nd elements, if needed (current workflow doesn't, which is part of its problem - it also only gives feedback on successful selections by changing the color of the selected elements; this method is *already* used in Fusion and should imho be the *only* method used. Or vice versa - experienced users may choose only to have the "driving blind" option since they know what they're doing. That's fine. But behavior with Construct > Offset Plane and this should always be coherent.)   (btw this is on Fusion 360 v.1.8.568)   (I'll make the selection order into another message, though these are kind of related.)   Show More

That's it. Many programs with splash screens do it. Especially since it's a cloud based solution and I envision updates could be automatic at some point(?) this would feel natural.       --- Also, it would be nice to understand a bit better how the Fusion 360 / Sim 360 version numbers are interconnected. In Sim 360 > About I can check both versions:     This probably makes sense, since Sim 360 is using Fusion 360 (edit) internally.   A small beauty issue is that the Fusion 360 license text is in way too big font (should look like the Sim 360 text above, right):     Are the version numbers of these two products always the same? (just curious)   Now, why does also Fusion 360 have both the products in its about:       Actually, launching both the products at once shows that their Home screens are identical.     Why do I need two products, then? I can launch Fusion from Sim and Sim from Fusion.   We are trying to grasp the "cloud" thing with Autodesk|Fusion|Sim 360. This is not making it very much easier.   Why not just have One Autodesk 360 launcher that will then show all the features that are installed on the particular client machine?   Show More

This is the second part of my suggestions on how to improve the Fusion 360 / Sim 360 Home UI.         The idea behind a Quick Post is nice, but now it looks rather uninviting and complex.    The order of the icons is arbitrary - or thought to resemble the frequency of their actual usage (which is always a guess, unless they adapt to the user's actual use, which again shakes things by making what seems to him as arbitrary changes in the UI). Well.. we can easily make this more peaceful.   For the first, it would be beneficial to get rid of the artificial 'More' category, and instead group similar tools next to each other.   Message Link Event   These are the simplest entries. All data is entered in browser input fields.    File Photo Video Presentation   These are all upload entries. Can actually be merged into just one 'Upload' entry.   Poll Quiz Survey   Different kind of questions.   Blog post Wiki page   The last ones open a full edit page (blog or wiki). They are more elaborate than the other 'Quick Post' actions and deserve to be last (like they currently are).     At least three types of UI groupings come to my mind.   Suggestion A   Make each group's common-most entry represent the group, as currently happens if i.e. 'Photo' is selected from below 'More..'.       This looks peaceful, doesn't it.   Clicking the 'Message' tab brings up a menu (similar to the current behaviour if 'Photo' is selected as a tab) of the other entries in that group.     Event could well be set as a 'group' all of its own. I'm just bringing up ideas on how to make the UI simpler to the user.   As to the File (Photo, Video, Presentation) group, cannot they be all the same?   Photo and Video at least are just the same thing. Analyze the uploaded file contents and decide based on that. No need to separate them in the UI.   Presentation could probably be dealt with in the same way (= automatic analysis).    ( Btw, I'm impressed by the quality of i.e. PDF handling. Normally, I'm of the "one tool for one thing only" mind set (i.e. SlideShare for presentations) but these are so essential in CAD workflow, it really deserves to be nicely integrated. And it is. )   'Poll (Quiz, Survey)': why doesn't 'Poll' have an additional 'Description' field, like Quiz and Survey.  (minor observation, maybe a bug?)     Suggestion B   Have the 'Quick Post' icon bar collapse horizontally (instead of a menu as above).     This looks a bit unfinished, and may seem weird for some users. On the whole, we're going away from menus, and this would be "menus without menus".   The idea is, hovering on the icon bar would reveal those entries in the particular group. One cannot see all 12 (or so) at a time. One need not to.   There are problems if the widths of the groups differ much. Hovering on 'File' moves 'File' to the left (since the group to its left collapses). The group 'File' represents must span so long that the same cursor position is still covered by it after the swap of groups. This may or may not be a problem.   If selection happens by click (not by hover) there is no such problem. In such a case this is quite the same as the Suggestion A, but the menus are "horizontal" within the icon toolbar (and people would not think of them as menus).   Just an idea.   Thanks for a great tool. I do understand it's in the beginning of its life, and will evolve. Thanks also for actively bringing users into the beta etc. programs at an early stage. For a big company, I am in awe as to how correctly you are doing these things. You smell like a startup!  (and that's a huge compliment!)   Show More

I crafted a longer email on Fusion 360 / Sim 360 Home page UI issues.   Here's the part 1.     Somewhat illogical 'add description' etc. positioning    Actually, you're already using collapsing with the 'add description/tags/...' mechanism.   Only, it's placement is not the most logical one.     It seems the 'Add: Description · Tags' entry just happened to have space in that corner. I can reason that it should rather be placed above the 'Share with' section.     Like that.    My reasons for this change (consistently throughout the tiles) are:   1. What can be added (uncollapsed entry fields, really) are dependent on the type of the entry. 'New Data' tile has same fields for all three tabs, but i.e. in 'Quick Post' these vary. They are part of the selected tab (as are the visible entry fields).   In comparison, the 'Share with' field is actually the same, regardless of the tile and the tab. It's always there.   2. As a flow of thought (from up to down within a tile), one first fills in the data, then selects to who it's being posted (or vice versa) and then presses 'Create'. Having 'Add:' below 'Share with' breaks this natural flow.   Furthermore, there are some inconsistencies in the placement of these additional fields. Let's see the 'New Data/Design' tab (both 'Description' and 'Tags' fields added).     Description goes above 'Share with' (i.e. is part of the creation itself). Tags are placed below 'Share with' (i.e. part of the metadata used for collaboration; not so much of the entry).   This may be good, if it is consistent.   ( Essentially we're finding that there are two kinds of 'Add' fields - those that are tile/tab specific and those that add fields for the sharing. Solving all this in a visual way would make the interface instantly graspable for the users. )   Then the same for 'Quick Post / Message'. We're adding both 'Subject' and 'Tags' fields.     Here, the 'Subject' comes below 'Share with:' (not like 'Description' was placed above it). This implies it's part of *telling* about the message, not the message itself. Is this so?   What I think would be in place here is a stricter division between the entry itself (above 'Share with') and the collaboration fields (below it). Change of background color could give that hint. Horizontal dividers could be used (though they often make the UI restless in themselves).       I'm leaving playing with the details to you, but something like this might well be useful?     Some ordering of additional fields is clearly faulty. Or what do you say of this:   [xxx]   To me, 'Title' and 'Description' feel like they should be part of the upload (the entry itself). Now they are placed below 'Share with', implying they are part of only notifying people of the file. Which one is it?    If they are part of the entry, maybe there needs to be two 'Add' sets for such tile:     I think there's enough here, now.     I'm interested to hear how others have found the existing Home UI, and if better suggestions than the ones presented above arise.   (also filing in another message on arrangement on icons in the Quick Post tile)   Show More

Please could we turn features on and off ( or suppress them) - like we do bodies? Show More

I would love to have something I had in Cobalt- the ability to step the view in defined increments along an axis, so I could rotate the view easily and precisely only along an X, Y, or Z axis. In Cobalt the View Cube equivalent had a "step" mode, similar to the Fusion orthographic views but with much finer gradations.   Also the ability to save and name specific views. This is very useful when you are trying to evaluate complex shapes with few flat planes.  Show More

I'd like an option to toggle the selectability of canvases (images) in the workspace.   I will often accidentally delete the canvas while sketching or modeling over the top of it. If the same selectable/unselectable feature that is available for Bodies was available for Canvases, I could disable the selectability of a canvas and stop accidentally deleting it!   Thanks for the consideration!     Show More

When I create a sketch or a sketch entity, the Origin Planes can appear to flip. While looking at the plane with the arrow, I can see this as either the bottom of a cube or looking down into a cube. I wondering if the original planes could intersect like Inventor's origin planes but also change the colors of the planes to; red, green and blue? A UCS like SIM 360 could also help orientate the perspective. Also could an option be added like Inventor's "Look at sketch plane on sketch create"?    Show More

Hey, while I love Fusion360, I'm a Wacom Tablet and laptop trackpad user. I can't use a mouse because of wrist problems.   The way Direct Entry works in Fusion360 makes it incredibly difficult for me to use.   The way it currently works is that you type in a value, which then sort of 'locks' the current sketch operation to the length entered, then you click to confirm. If you move the mouse a bit, it then cancels out the Direct Entry.   The problem is, it's almost impossible to do the click to confirm without moving the pointer a tiny bit when working with a Wacom or certain trackpads, for the act of returning your hand to the tablet moves the pointer. Even if you attempt to type in a value with your left hand, if your right hand (holding the stylus) even moves a tiny, tiny amount (the 'Pro' Wacom tables are crazy sensitive!) it then cancels out your Direct Entry.   I cannot convey with text alone how annoying this is.   So if there was an option to increase this 'move to cancel' distance or somehow turn it off altogether it would make using Fusion a whole heck of a lot more fun for me. Show More