First impression: Fusion 360 in the browser on Linux

[fred-3d]

Hi,

Today, I took my first test drive with "Fusion 360 for the browser", on my Linux laptop.  I thought some feedback might be helpful:  In short, it looks very nice and appears to be working well on Linux!  I'm using the open-source Chromium browser, packaged by Opensuse.org, and performance seems quite snappy even with several other tabs opened concurrently.  Here's a summary of my test environment:

    Chromium open-source browser: Version 57.0.2987.133 (64-bit)

    Processor : 4x AMD A8-4500M APU with Radeon(tm) HD Graphics
    Memory : 12GB
    Operating System : openSUSE 42.1 (x86_64)

I'm just learning Fusion 360, coming from limited experience with 123D Design. Given that, I've been exploring all the menus trying to figure out what everything does and, while doing that, the UI has been quite stable.  No crashes or unexpected behaviors. Nice.  

A few minor issues did come up:

1. The sense of the mouse scroller wheel is reversed from 123D Design.exe (running on Linux+Wine on the same laptop):

      Fusion 360 browser: roll wheel forward == Zoom Out

      123D Design.exe:     roll wheel forward == Zoom In

What is the expected Fusion 360 behavior of rolling the mouse scroller wheel forward (back to front)?  

2.  While modeling a gear, I couldn't find a way to temporarily slice the object in half to see if my Extrude/Cut operations worked as I had expected them to. Is there some way to split an object in half?  I tried to use a construction plane and a sketch, but I didn't see a "split" option on the sketch popup dialog box.  Did I miss something obvious? 

3. I created a new browser tab to type in this message, leaving Fusion 360 running in a tab in the background. But, when I returned to the Fusion 360 tab after some delay, I was presented with the question "Are you still there?".  I repeatedly clicked the YES box, but nothing happened--I was unable to continuing editing my object. As a last resort, I refreshed the browser page and was presented with a new Untitled model. I suppose I would have lost my previous work, had I not saved it before leaving the tab.  The issue appears intermittent as I tried to reproduce it, but the second time clicking the YES box worked and allowed me to continue editing my object.  I'll continue to try to reproduce, but thought I'd mention it.

[JasonBrynfordJones]

Hi Fred,

Thanks for the post, and that things are working for you on Linux - good to hear it!

For the mouse scroll we work like Fusion 360. I believe we ask the OS for the mouse wheel direction, and use that for our zoom.  So the configuration might change if you are running on Mac, Windows or Linux.  Do you know if you can change the scroll direction on your OS - and see if it affects the browser?

We have had a few requests recently to better manage different mouse setups, and while it is on our near term roadmap we don't have a concrete date yet.

For slicing your part (section analysis), we unfortunately don't support that at the moment.  Another one on our roadmap for sure.

For the "Are you still there?" issue.  This should work when clicking yes, so we will look into it.  During the "delay" did you by any chance have your system go to sleep, or lose the network connection for any reason?

Thanks again for your feedback - it is most appreciated

[fred-3d]

Thanks Jason.

Re: mouse wheel direction :  this isn't a big deal for me, but I'll try to investigate this a bit more on the hardware/OS/X-windows side of things. Anything useful I uncover, I will post here.  Also worth note, I have multiple "mouse" input devices on the system: wireless Logitech mouse (primary device), Wacom USB pen+tablet (connected occasionally), Synaptics TouchPad (rarely used).  Multiple devices could impact what the OS/X-Windows reports back to Fusion when it asks about "the" mouse wheel.  I'll experiment a little and see what I can find out... 

Re: no slicing support yet : at this time, this is not an issue for me. There is still functionality available that I haven't even tried yet!  😉

Re: "Are you there?" experiences:  no, my system didn't go to sleep, but it may have lost its network connection for a time. I haven't been able to reproduce the behavior yet, but if I can in the future, I'll post it here.

Regards,

Fred

[JasonBrynfordJones]

Hiya, 

Oops I missed your reply, sorry about that.

Thanks for the breakdown it is always useful for us, when debugging/reproing issues.

Cheers

Jason 

[Anonymous]

I can not find where to access fusion360 CAD in browser.

Can someone please provide a proper link.

If I go to myhub.autodesk360.com i can only manage and view my files... no real CAD functions, did I miss something?

[HughesTooling]

@Anonymous Did you sign up for the preview?

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/preview-functionality/how-to-sign-up-for-current-previews/td-p/693255...

Mark

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the info!

Just filled out the registration form. 

Looking forward to finally use Fusion360 on my Linux workstation.....

[HughesTooling]

---

@JasonBrynfordJones wrote:

Hi Fred,

For the mouse scroll we work like Fusion 360. I believe we ask the OS for the mouse wheel direction, and use that for our zoom.  So the configuration might change if you are running on Mac, Windows or Linux.  Do you know if you can change the scroll direction on your OS - and see if it affects the browser?

We have had a few requests recently to better manage different mouse setups, and while it is on our near term roadmap we don't have a concrete date yet.

---

@JasonBrynfordJones

I just tested a few programs and the Zoom in Fusion is backward to all of them, with the desktop version there's an option to reverse the zom direction so that's not a problem. Odd that the desktop and browser versions default to the opposite of most programs I use. Although it seems like a small thing it does stop me from wanting to use the in browser version for any length of time.

Mark

[JasonBrynfordJones]

Hi Mark,

Yeah, we are looking into this as it can be a bit jarring.  We currently get the mouse direction from the browser, which gets it from the OS.  While it won't appear as an option soon, it is high on our list to at least match the setting in Fusion

Cheers

[ecam6P6WJ]

How can I use fusion in linux on my browser. I do not figure it out.

many thanks

[ecam6P6WJ]

Okay no I have requested Fusion for the Browser - I hope I will get selected to test is. I would be so great because normally I am a Linux User and that is the last thing I was missing in Linux.

cheers

mathias

[HughesTooling]

Not sure if the preview is open to everyone yet but if it is, go to the online Dashboard, navigate into a project. In the project there should be an icon +New, this gives you the option Fusion Design that should open the browser version of Fusion.

Mark

[Anonymous]

Fusion in the browser is a nice project, especially for us Linux guys.

Unfortunately it can not replace Fusion360 app yet!

But hopefully in a few months it will be usable for designing parts.

Its a bit hard to find the proper link to edit the parts in browser, I'm always confused for finding it.

[jeromenowe]

I dont want to test a browser version. That's fake engineering stuff. Such browser project isnt a project at all.
I hope that I could test a true Linux application as it exists on MacO$.

[Anonymous]

It is now possible to run it with Wine on Linux!

I am not allowed to provide an installer, but if you use google, you will find how to install it.

Tested it for one day now,  the CAM output works as well....

BTW.

It would't be that hard to compile a working Linux version.... however its the monopoly game...

[ecam6P6WJ]

Hi, I google ist but I am not sure which site you mean. Do you use WinHQ for that?

many thanks

cheers

mathias