Tutorial on "Control Points, Surface Points or any other Points"

[Anonymous]

Hi if you want more "Natural, Self Taught or Self Made" designers to use Fusion 360 I think the Board should add a tutorial on "Points". Most successful commercial designers today did not go to university for 3D designing but they are very successful in their own field or businesses. Since Fusion360 depends on "Points" so much, for example Scaling in Point mode, Insert Point, Surface Points in Pull command, Control Points in Object Snap, sketching a point, constructing a point and so on... I think it is most important that a simple tutorial on the meaning of "Points" is important. Please consider that.

Thanks

[Helmi74]

I totally second that and to repeat more generally it would help to have more video tutorials at all or at least more documentation. Through asking in the forums i discovered lots of features i didn't know or find so far or just overlooked. Maybe that's partly just me but i also think on some level these are also UI/UX stuff and things you have to explain to users to make them getting used to every aspect of Fusion360.

Points are definitely a good point to start in getting more detailled.

[patrick.miller]

Hey guys, thanks for the feedback. I'll add this to the list of topics and watch this post for any more comments. 

Have you looked at the videos in the help (fusion360.autodesk.com/resources)? Specifically take a look at the videos "Manage topology of T-Splines bodies" and "Why did my model turn boxy?" and let me know what you think. There is also a video specifically on the Pull command.

These concept or workflow style videos can be challenging to anticipate what users will need. So this type of feedback is extremely helpful for new content and to validate what's already there.

Patrick Miller

Autodesk Learning Experience

[Anonymous]

Hi Patrick, thanks for the response. Those videos explain what T Points, Star Points and lightly mentioning about control points and surface points in PULL. What I suggested is to have some documentation or videos on the meaning of Control Points, surface points, vertices, Bezier curve control points, etc... Your Pull command mentions briefly the positioning differences of using control points and surface points but try finding the meaning of control points and surface points in your help... There is nothing there I believe.  Just coming back to PULL, Star points and T points.

Older generation designers might not had been exposed to computer 3D graphic designs at their young age. If they had attended design schools some 60 years ago that is just the beginning of Mr. Bezier trying to define his control points on the Bezier curve. So a little tutorial on those will be appreciated. We cannot deviate ourselves away from MESH editing right? STL, OBJ and all these are getting more popular. An understanding on the POINTS will be important.

By the way, in terms of fashion designs, jewelry designs etc.. A lot of designers for young generations are actually older folks but they know what the young folks wanted. I really believe they would be interested to use 3D designing software like Fusion 360 and they will learn that very easily. I believe your Fusion 360 will be the one they really like because it actually matches up their logic.

I am designing things for young folks now, I got my professional degree in Chem. long long time ago and now I decided to stop making medicine in our 185 year old family business (we sold that) and started making colorful things to light up my life and others but I had not been exposed to "Control Points" and I really wanted to know. Yet I had switched to using 3D programs to design colorful fast consumer moving products successfully (I had been doing fast moving products for 30 years). I never attended one single day in a design school!

I like Fusion360 that is why I made this "unintelligent suggestion" !

Thanks for reading this.

Kingson

[patrick.miller]

Hi Kingson,

I hope I did not give the impression that your suggestions are "unintelligent". Quite the opposite is true. You feedback is spot-on and very valuable. I wanted to make sure you had seen the existing content before adding on.

I had many of the same challenges when we acquired the T-Splines functionality. I'm a mechanical engineer and long time Inventor user so I had to start thinking very differently with Fusion 360. I agree that the documentation you mention is not available and since you have brought it up, it is something that users are looking for. 

Thanks again for your feedback.

Patrick

[Anonymous]

Hi Patrick, thanks for your reply. Please do not get me wrong. It is because for me it is really an "Unintelligent suggestion" because I had been using 3D design programs for about one year now and I know how long I had been looking for the definition of "Control Points" and if you tried to search for it in the web, they always referred back to Bezier curve and calculation. I have yet to find the actual explanation of "Control Points" on an object. I remember I saw some writeups about that before but I forgot where. Maybe it is one of the tutorial of "Inventor Fusion" technology. I had only seen that once. I do wish to know what it is. If you can supply me a link to some explanation now, I really appreciate that because that way I do not have to wait. Just to tell you how "unintelligent" I really felt, I had been using PULL, Object Snap, to make models successfully but I know the effect differences between choosing Control Points or Surface Points but "where are they?"   Now that is "really unintelligent question" right?

[patrick.miller]

Hey Kingson,

The quick answer is that there is a control frame that controls the T-Spline body. Use Box display mode or Control Frame display mode to see it. Control points are the vertices on this control frame.

Surface points are the vertices displayed on the T-Spline surface.

I've added a topic in the help describing this. I think it could be expanded on but it has the basics for now.

Patrick

[Anonymous]

Thanks Patrick, appreciate the help!