3D Sketching - usability

[dmitriy]

Usability of 3D sketching is still very low.

Creating lines, splines tied to center of a bore or the like is extremely hard as the cursor highlights everything under it, often missing the center of circle or other vertexes. Ive resorted to creating geometry, which then auto-projects into 3D space then delete the change things around as needed based on that.

Poor to no control over creating items normal to body surfaces or the like, if you get lucky - there is an axis that pops up but not very practical. cannot create relationships.

Perhaps in aiding with geometry one could project contours within 3D sketch -Cannot project in 3D space - it projects to the original sketch plane.

There was talk of big updates to 3D sketching. Is this still on road map?

[davebYYPCU]

Your comment means nothing

without a screencast showing us the problem.

3d sketching is not the normal way, but can be done,

Projecting intersect curves and Include 3d geometry may work better.

[dmitriy]

Attaching screencast highlighting the projection questions and magnetic attachment bit.

3D Line sketching needs to be optimized as well. SW does a great job of this and really contributes to productivity for routing tubing and such. (that is then configurable and aligned to geometry, can be edited with relationships)

Currently, there is no relationship building and when applying filleting to line sketches in 3D sketches, they break when moving the lines. Have to deconstruct everything to then build back up.

Creating multiple planes hanging in space to create a multi-bend tube is not a viable workflow.

Im getting an HTML code error when trying to attach the screencast. here is the link

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/community/screencast/531c1da1-9a77-4e7b-b9a5-07e7e2432112

 

[davebYYPCU]

After the sketching, which tool will be making the tube. (Pipe, Sweep or Loft?)

That is not a good example to show why 3d sketching needs improvement.

Project Tool Box has 5 settings, first 2 are for planar sketches.

The Project to Plane Tool, worked as expected, and is the wrong tool.

Project > Include 3d Geometry will work so much better.  Select opening faces, centre point becomes available, snap to them.

I could not tell if a planar sketch will work there, holes offset?  Can’t tell.

Might help....

[helfenj]

Hi @dmitriy,

Glad to see you are working with the new 3D sketching capabilities and sorry to hear it's not meeting all your expectations.

This release of 3D sketch was the foundational release from which we will continue to build. We know there are additional workflows to be addressed in the future.

We are aware of some issues around selecting hole centers and existing geometry and are working to address those soon. 

As for if this was the "big" release, it certainly was a big release for some of us. Now that the foundational work has been laid we will be working to add additional constraint types (similar to those you mention) that will continue to improve workflows in 3D. 

Look forward to hearing more about your experiences.

Thanks,

John

[laughingcreek]

@helfenj -any chance you guys will be improving (as in making them work/not break) the curvature constraint when applied to splines? 

[helfenj]

Hi @laughingcreek,

Specific to 3D sketching? Where is it breaking for you?

Thanks,

John

[laughingcreek]

Your kidding right?  It breaks constantly.  or the tangent handles go hay wire. or the points become difficult to select.  You guys really aren't seeing all that?  It's been that way for a long time, and has been complained about here on the forums a good bit also.  I'll try to make some screen casts the next time I come across it.

[dmitriy]

Spline control is barley usable. Really hard to manipulate the points, to
flex the spline in ways needed.

If there is a good explanation on manipulating the spline controls in 3D
sketches - that would be great.

Thank you!

[helfenj]

Hi @laughingcreek,

Nope, not kidding and not implying there isn't an issue.

Just making sure I understand your specific request and use case, so when we are under the hood we can look to address the right things.

Thanks,

John

[TrippyLighting]

@helfenj the problem @laughingcreek is highlighting IMHO is so severe that it renders Fusion 360 almost unusable for any halfway serious attempts at industrial design. I've posted several bugs in that respect, one of them where this happened even in a 2D sketch where I found 3 bugs related to splines in a single pretty simple sketch.

[helfenj]

@TrippyLighting Thanks for the follow-up. I have added this to our list to look at as we continue with 3D sketch improvements.

We will circle back and look for existing reports of this, but if you have new areas specific to 3D please continue to post.

Thanks,

John

[TrippyLighting]

This isn't a new model and it actually comes out of a thread where a new user reported this behavior.

When initially created the spline and G2 constraints seem fine. However, when editing one of the constraints turns red and cannot be edited.

I've had cases where even after deleting and reapplying the constraint, the constraint simply did not re-apply. I had to delete the spline and try again, with the same result. I've had numerous cases when adjusting the tangent handle on one end, the tangent handle on the other end suddenly jumped to multiple times its previous length.

In some cases, I was able to work around the issues using a control point spline, but this also does not always work reliably and often only with odd quirks.

The problem is that there really is no workaround for a properly functioning and reliable blend curve.

This area needs some solid work. In cases where Fusion 360 and splines work it works really well and is a joy to work with. It would really be great if this nut could be cracked!

[helfenj]

Perfect, thx. This is in line with some of the possible constraint work. 

I appreciate you bringing it forward.

Thanks,

John

[TrippyLighting]

@helfenj here is a screencast demonstrating the coarse behavior when creating blend curves for a loft.

1. I have to zoom out quite to actually see the green accept symbol/button when initially creating the spline.

2. When first applying the G2 constraint on one side of the spline it can already be seen that scaling of the tangent handle is off. When applying the 2nd constraint to the other side, this creates a pretty bad blend curve which requires the user to adjust the tangent handles.

3. When I then scale the 1st tangent handle the 2nd one jumps in scale by factor 5-10.

4. When scaling the tangent handle I first select the spline to activate the handle. Then I select an endpoint of the tangent handle and press the "M" key to invoke the move tool. However in order for the 3D manipulator to actually show up, I have to zoom, or pan.

[rohit.bapat]

Hello @TrippyLighting 

Thank you the screencast. 

Regarding #1 about the checkmark way off the triad, we recently worked on a ticket which should be available in the next release. It should address this issue. Regarding #2, #3, #4 those are definitely bugs we should take a look at.

Can you please attach the f3d file? So that we can log the tickets and the team start taking a look at the issues?

Thank you,

Best Regards

Rohit Bapat

[TrippyLighting]

@rohit.bapat here is a password protected Link to the model. I'll send the password per PM