Improving the Drawing Workspace - Fusion 360

[Six1Seven1]

Hello,

I am returning to provide Drawing Workspace feedback after perhaps 12 months, which have not been addressed yet. The point of this post is to reiterate key drawing functions that need to be implemented and inversely drawing components in the current Fusion 360 drawing module that need to be eliminated.

Comparison Criteria:

I have used a number of drawing softwares over the years. AutoDesk products and Dassault. Of those, Solidworks has been one of the smoothest most fluent tools for generate a print. It is fast, clean, powerful, and easy. That said, much of my basis for criteria will be similar to SW. 

Assumptions and Reality:

The market for F360 is primarily hobbyist / small business customers, I am assuming. With a minority of it's market being medium to large businesses. Nonetheless, this software is being sold and used commercially. We can agree on that... Because its being used commercially and sold for a price, I would assume Autodesk's intent for F360 is to be a serious drawing tool? As in -- used in the real world? 

Reality is that 2D drawings remain the international engineering standard for conveying mechanical part requirements. The 2D drawing is the end-all, be-all in most manufacturing environments. And will be for a long time. You can sculpt and design all you want. You can be a pro! But if you can't put that on paper... forget it.

Fusion's Drawing environment is the most under-developed, most-lacking component in it's suite. My opinon: forget all the fancy-dancy other stuff thats being developed in other modules and put them on HOLD. Those workspaces are more than adequate today. 

With that said, I hope you will not just consider my ideas below, but you will actually pursue them. Allocate resources to get these things done. Thank you.

DISCLAIMER:  If any of the below has been resolved or is resolve-able as the software stands today, please let me know. Thanks

1.) Fluency 

Worst part of Drawing in F360 is how terribly choppy performance is-- object flickering, "grid-like" movement of objects in the space. This module should be so efficient that its like pushing a hockey puck on a smooth sheet of ice, or dragging a desktop icon to another spot. Real-time feedback when you drag an object, and fluent movement.

P.S. I'm on a very powerful machine.

2.) Snapping Dimensions

Snapping dimensions is a feature no one wants. Its cumbersome and annoying. A dim should be placed and able to be moved freely wherever, with very few constraints. 

3.) Construction Geometry via Sketch

You can't construct geometry with a sketch. This is blasphemy! You are selling this product commercially and cannot construct geometry with a sketch? 

4.) View Labeling

Lets allow custom view designators. "Section View A-A 1:1"... What if I want "Section View S-S 1:1" Why can't I change A to S? 

5.) Section View

I've never seen something so difficult. Make it easy like SW did... Select the type of section view you want:  Horizontal, Vertical, or Custom. One point to snap the section view line to and wah-lah. Custom would be how you have it now (a "free" type of section view where you can define a more irregular profile. ).

6.) Break View

Lets implement break view. This is critical. 

7.) Detail Views are ugly 

Make details views like SW. They know detail views... The view perimeter options should be:  Round, Square, or From Construction. The style options should be:  Arrows (current), With Leader, or No leader.  Other options should be:  No border.

8.) Auto Linear Dimension Alignment

Rather than click "Aligned Dimension" Fusion 360 should give me the option of aligned or vertical/horizontal. This is relatively easy code, I imagine. Check to see if the elements are vertically or horizontally aligned, if not, turn on aligned dimension. 

9.) Default Drawing Settings

There should be an entire list of defaults you can adjust. Examples might be: Section View Label text size, Styles for Views, etc.

Conclusion:

Well, that is all for today. More to be added to this post as time goes on. Please implement these features. Afterall, its the drawing that is what matters! 

Thanks for listening,

Regards

[francoisg_mofa]

Absolutely agree with all your points. You have my vote.

And what about a BASIC copy/paste. (actually we cannot even copy a text box.)

[Anonymous]

Completely agree we are missing some very basic functionality here that is found in even the earliest versions of Autocad 2D created by the very same people! I created and posted my own list just now in frustration of having to constantly export back to autocad LT to finish off my drawings to a good enough standard to put before my clients! This process absolutely kills the time on any job after just one revision!!!!

My very basic list was:

1. The ability to use other hatch types as found in Autocad. also the ability to save these for future use as defaults.

2. The ability to create square detail boxes instead of circles, these are such a waste of paper space in most cases.

3. Ability to toggle each projected view so that the components can be turned on and off in each view without the need to create multiple base views as the work around for individual manipulation.

4. ability to be able to place basic lines and symbols within the drawing space. need to be able to add in grid lines and datums etc.

5. Ability to individually select the appearance style at component level. This would be great for making covers and doors etc see through without turning them off or making the inner details of just one thing known without the whole assembly showing every internal detail.

6. Ability to create various types of leader.

7. Ability to adjust lineweights and to adjust individual lines within the views to display as desired.

8. All other basic paper space features as needed and currently found in Autocad LT....

[GeoffPacker7777]

Agree with all of this, drawing part need a lot of work (that and orientation of pattern on path)

@francoisg_mofa you can copy text boxes

select text

hold ctrl

left click on handle

left click destination location to copy

you can keep copying same object, letting go of ctrl after 1st copy will stop ortho

a bit fiddly to start with but excellent you can copy. Discovered by accident the other day!

[francoisg_mofa]

@GeoffPacker7777 

It work!! Thanks! You've made my day.

[Anonymous]

Thank you, Sir. Well said. I am under the impression that the powers that be at Autodesk believe that they're consumers are not interested in 2D Drawings. The future is 3D, so all the efforts and resources should be focused on that. However, as you mentioned, besides hobbyist, small businesses utilize this tool. Incorporating Fusion 360 would allow me to meet the needs of my clients, if they had an adequate drawing environment. However, because the drawing environment is lacking, in so many areas, I am forced to utilize other CAD platforms to do the work that I believe Fusion 360 can do. So, I'm imploring Autodesk and their dedicated Fusion 360 Team to put forth the effort and resources in improving their drawing environment.

[Six1Seven1]

@Anonymous :

Thank you for the kind words. But its not just small businesses and hobbyists that use 2D drawings; from automotive components to aerospace equipment, 2D drawings are alive and well -why: because anyone can access it and understand it. It is a format easily understood but most of all it is unambiguous... Say, how do you communicate tolerancing in a 3D model? ...And how might you communicate a positional geometric tolerance or requirement in 3D? I disagree that 3D is the future..partially. 2D will be around for a long time to come. AutoDesk seems to think that F360 is some upcoming Catia product. Yet, 50% of their market is CAM users. There is no industry that utilizes 2D drawings as heavily as the machining industry. Small component manufacturing thrives on 2D drawings. People want a solution today, not tomorrow, and this future mentality, if that is in fact what is happening here, will sadly hurt this product. Good discussion!

[Garret_H]

I will add my voice to this thread.

Simply put Fusion 360 can't be a complete work tool for me until the drawings feature improves.  All the work I have done previously professionally and looking ahead to my start up I cannot use this tool without improved drawings.

This needs to be addressed by Autodesk.

I created my own wish list previously:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-ideastation/drawing-wish-list-starting-with-copy-paste/idc...

[Anonymous]

@Six1Seven1 Well articulated thanks for taking the time to layout his argument and specific items to fix/implement!

A better solution for custom tags etc.. would be nice as well.

I also struggle with having to keep all views and sections of a thing on one page unless I use workarounds by placing views off the paper just to get a section.

@GeoffPacker7777

 Thanks for the copy text box tip but I wish it was as easy as ctrl+c part of my larger issue with being tied to a page of content what if I want to copy from one page to the next.

@Anonymous 

Even if you represent something in 3d you need good representative tools without having to accurately model each detail and a 3d model when looked at on a screen or on paper is still 2d. There will always be a need for quick methods of communicating visual ideas.

[Anonymous]

I just want some real X,Y & Z Positioning tools the work per i'll call it a vertex because thats what I'd describe it as when writing software, I want to be able to place new vertex on a new non existing shape then drag the initial point to its home using ctrl,alt and shift to lock to X,y & z planes. This one time set a plane and draw on that alone unless you create a new sketch is getting really annoying, so much i'm considering throwing all I have learned about 360 away and starting fresh with software that has a speedier workflow when it comes to throwing down points in 3d. Its a 3D editor? Why am I always stuck reverting to 2D? Why cant I just twist my perspective and voilla! The point now moves in relativity to my view(again using some keyboard shortcut to either toggle or select the plane, if toggle there had better be an on screen indicator to let ya know what plane your now working in.)

How come there isn't a better way to do 3d sketching? Its critical to 3D printing and workflows in regard to expectations on how the software would ask you for the required information?

I am trying to design a fan blade and this is what I find myself doing, requiring 3 sketches for what should be 1 that should be copy pasted to the 'top' location, then all the vertical lines? Manually looking at the degrees box, i dont know how to copy a line in sketch and then rotate and place it 10 degrees away from the other? How would you design a complex fan blade?

[TimeraAutodesk]

Hi All,

We are beginning to work on how the first wave of release and revision management support in Drawings will function and feel like, so I wanted to follow up on this thread with the good news! If you would like to see more details, and be a part of providing early feedback, please see this post on the Feedback Hub.

Best,

Timera