Swift Calcs Fusion Add-In Problem

[andre.nel]

I stumbled across a video for Swift Calcs (Swift Calcs Video ).

I was impressed and wanted to try it out.  Downloaded the add-in from the Fusion 360 app  store and installed it.

Doesn't work, the app was last updated December 2016 and it no longer works with Fusion 360. 

I went to the Swift Calcs Web site and logged in to my account, posted to the forum, initiated a technical support ticket and sent a couple of emails. As yet, I have not received any response. 

The browser side of  Swift Calcs also has problems. Furthermore, the Web site forum postings are sparse and only one is from this year.

In Spite all of this, Swift Calcs is still being offered for sale on its Web site.  So on one hand the product seems to be abandoned (no support, no response and no current updates) but on the other hand it is being sold.

Anyone know what is going on? Anyone have any experience using Swift Calcs -- especially using its calculations to generate parameters for Fusion 360 models? Finally, does anyone have relevant contact information?

Thanks,

Andre'

[hpekristiansen]

Your link is broken - a forum bug has included "(" and ":" is missing 

They start by showing that a spreadsheet has not changed much in many years (there is not much to improve) -and then they show a completely dissimilar product, that is not meant to replace a spreadsheet. 

I can not find your post in the user forum here:

https://www.swiftcalcs.com/help-and-tutorials

Considering everything, I think that unfortunately this one is dead - I would not trust them.

Edit:

They got a facebook - only post from themselves tho hype the product - and last one was may 2017

https://www.facebook.com/swiftcalcs/

[andre.nel]

 I finally heard back from SwiftCalcs. They have very limited resources and quit supporting the Fusion 360 Add-In.

The reason was that most of their customers were Onshape users and very few were Fusion 360. Being a very small company they were forced to make a choice.

I have spent some time learning SwiftCalc and I think the product itself is very good. I could see it fitting into a lot of AutoDesk products.

It would be great to be able to drive design parameters from calculations and link those calculations to Fusion 360 projects.  As someone that has done a lot of spreadsheet work, I think being able to read a math equation rather than decoding a bunch of cell numbers and relationships has great appeal. In addition, having the math tied to the project and the design is a big plus.  I do not know how many hours I have spent going back and manually changing parameters in designs based on new calculations that are often only small tweaks. Moreover, it is much easier to collaborate when people can actually read and understand the underlying mathematics, see text notes, images, etc...

For those that are interested, here is the link: www.swiftcalcs.com.

[andre.nel]

Contacted SwiftCalc a while ago about their Fusion 360 Add-In problem, in their reply they said they were concentrating on OnShape since most of their customers used that CAD package.

I sent them the 2018 CNCCookBook Survey for the Top 15 CAD Packages Market Share that reported Fusion 360 led in market share as the prefered CAD package for production. 

The happy news is that the fixed the problems with the SwiftCalc Fusion Add-in and it is up and running.

As far as the comment that spreadsheets don't have much to improve, that BS gets old. People resist change --- good enough for my grandfather so good enough for me, that is the way we've always done it, we don't need no sci-fi crap,  I don't want to learn anything new, I don't trust them new fangled contraptions,  etc... The old quote comes to mind: "science progresses one funeral at a time."  If people were immortal nothing would change. We have a huge inertial mass effectively halting all progress. We would still be chipping away at stones.

Classic examples of missing the boat:

Kodak camera pioneered digital photography but decided to double down on film --> Kodak gone.

Blockbuster could have bought Netflix for $10MM, passed to focus on in store video rentals --> Blockbuster gone

Swiss companies pioneered digital watches but sold the patents and concentrated on mechanical watches --> mechanical watches have largely been replaced by electronic watches... 

Spreadsheets are okay for simple calculations but if you get to complex calculations involving calculus and solving simultaneous equations it is easy to get lost.

[hpekristiansen]

I find your comments disrespectful and preconceived. I will not write further in this thread.

[Anonymous]

Hi Andrei and Everyone,

Can you tell me if Swift Calcs still works ok for you with Fusion 360?

I just installed it, tried to Load Swift Calcs and got the following error immediately

Failed to launch web-browser:

I've included the top end of the message which is quite long but also being a Python programmer I see some that there is a ref to the SwiftCalcs.py file and a ref to line 182, one of many bugs it seems.

I'm running Mac OS and using Google Chrome not that that should be any problem.

I have also written to Swift Calcs but at this present time and reading you past experience with them I am not certain I will receive a reply.

Appreciate hear any news thanks.

[andre.nel]

The Fusion 360 add-in now works. The Web portal always worked.

Andre'