Advanced Support for Fusion 360

[mickingaamco]

I have a couple of questions for you who are in the know,

1. Is Fusion 360 intended to replace Autodesk Inventor?

2. Is Fusion 360 meant to be a smaller "enthusiast" program for much less money.

3. Are the Autodesk folks going to complete development of Fusion 360 so that it has a design file manager, version control, etc?

4. Can I use the files I have created in Fusion 360 be opened directly in Inventor? I have loaded a trial copy of Inventor Pro, and I would like to try it on my current model.

The reason I ask is that I have just about reached my limits with Fusion 360. Our project is about to move up to the feasibility stage, and I need something more finished than Fusion. I am looking at Inventor as a possible solution. 

Anyone who has experience with Inventor and Fusion please tell me your thoughts. Those of you who know the development path of Fusion please let me know what you know about the 4 questions above.

Thanks,

Mike

[I_Forge_KC · Accepted solution]

Let me preface this by saying that this is my perception. As much first-hand information as I have, invariably it differs from what others think and know. 

1. This is sticky. At AU a group of us sat with the product team for Inventor (as well as the CEO and VP over products) and never got a real answer for this. The reality is that AutoCAD is over 30 years old and going strong. Inventor will likely continue for a very long time, too. There is no immediate plan to curb development on Inventor, but you can't ignore the marketing hype and C-level leadership declaring cloud platforms as the future. The long and short of it... Inventor won't go away for a long time, if at all. I think the hope and intention is, really, to have the two platforms meet in the middle somewhere - more cloud tools available in Inventor, more heavy engineering tools available in Fusion. Ironically, this would be back where Fusion began in 2008 (as a direct model editing suite alongside Inventor). I do think that what you (and most people) are seeing is the heavy marketing for Fusion which makes it appear like all the love is there - but after talking with developers and product managers, there is heavy work going on inside the Inventor camp - it just isn't as visible. The recent usability study in the Inventor forum is an insight there. So is the announcement that Vault and Inventor dev teams were finally shacking up together.

2. You're seeing Fusion 360 at its infancy. This is a new paradigm. Cloud-based systems are young and there is much growth that will need to happen before we see them hit mainstream usage. Autodesk is working to prepare the workforce of tomorrow for this inevitability by offering tools like Fusion 360 now, at a price that makes early adoption worth it in the long run (even at the cost of initial limitations). I think the other home-run for Fusion is running on Mac and soon in browsers across all platforms (including mobile and Linux).

3. Fusion includes version control now. Branch and merge are on the horizon. Fusion Team and Fusion Lifecycle offer connected desktop solutions for PDM and PLM functionality as well.

4. There is not currently a link between Inventor and Fusion. You would have to save out generic CAD formats and then import them as dumb solids. We've been asking for it for some time and the product team says it's coming... but there is no ETA on it (I asked MANY MANY times at AU and mostly got blank stares or "yes" to the question of a timeframe to Fusion-Inventor interop).

[mickingaamco · Accepted solution]

Thank you for your answers. You answered all of my questions. Unfortunately
for me, Fusion has so many limitations that I just can't continue using it
for my project. I do like the modeling environment, especially the direct
(not history) based modeling. It makes part modification so much better.
My problem is that I want to use linked files inside assemblies. I create
sub assemblies of parts, then assemblies of sub assemblies. Then if I have
to modify a part somewhere down the line, the sub assembly that it is in
may lose its location in the big assembly. I spend so much time rebuilding
the model that it just frustrates me.
It seems that most of the users just model in place (bottom-up) and keep
the whole thing in one file. That works well unless you have a large model
like mine. Imagine you were building a car. The piston guy would have to
load the model of the whole car just to look at the piston ring. Different
groups couldn't work on their part of the car without loading up the whole
car. It just wouldn't work because the car model is probably too big for
anyone to load into their own computer.

Anyway, I hope that Fusion 360 can get it all together soon. I like some of
the concepts.

Mike

[mickingaamco]

Thanks. This answers my questions.

I hope Fusion gets it all together someday.

Mike

[charegb]

Hi Mike,

Can you share some examples of parts/subassemblies that do not update correctly or need a rebuild after updating a part? You can DM me or email bankim.charegaonkar at autodesk.com

Thanks,

Bankim

[PhilProcarioJr · Accepted solution]

@I_Forge_KC

"4. There is not currently a link between Inventor and Fusion. We've been asking for it for some time and the product team says it's coming... but there is no ETA on it (I asked MANY MANY times at AU and mostly got blank stares or "yes" to the question of a timeframe to Fusion-Inventor interop)."

From what I was told they tried to do this and just couldn't make it work properly. So I wouldn't count on seeing this anytime soon if ever.

@jeff_strater care to chime in on this one?

[mickingaamco]

Bankim:
I have invited several members of the Fusion development team to
investigate. They have not really had any impact. I can't just share with
the world because the design in still confidential, and there are some
patent issues pending.

Mike

[keqingsong · Accepted solution]

Digging the discussion here. I'd like to provide some clarity to the questions asked by the OP. 

1. From a development perspective, no, Fusion 360 is not replacing Inventor. Inventor will continue to see enhancements and development moving forward. From a useage perspective, some may realize that moving to Fusion 360 is the right path, and that Inventor is over serving them. It really depends on what you need your CAD system to do for you. As mentioned at AU 2016, Fusion 360 is one of 3 forward-looking products (alongside BIM 360 and Shotgun) that Autodesk is focusing on developing. 

2. No, Fusion 360 is not meant to be smaller "enthusiast" program. It's a professional product design platform. Our whole philosophy is to level the playing field and provide a connected solution that brings all your product development tools under one roof (CAD, CAM, DM, collaboration, rendering, 2D drawings, animation, mobile app) at a very competitive price. This makes it very enthusiast and hobbyist-friendly, and much more attainable for small to medium-sized businesses as well. With that said, we have enterprise customers too using Fusion 360 to change the way their design. This keynote will give you a good idea of how Fusion 360 is positioned: http://au.autodesk.com/au-online/classes-on-demand/class-catalog/2016/class-detail/22761#chapter=1

3. Fusion 360 is always evolving. We release updates every 2 weeks, and sometimes more frequently when we have goodies ready for you. We have many projects in the hopper, including a multitude of data management projects. Check out our roadmap learn about them. We and a class showing branch & merge at AU 2016, and will be releasing it soon. 

4. Today, you'll have you export your Fusion design as a Inventor 2016 file formate or STEP file and then import it into Inventor. I don't know what the plan is for interoperability natively, this is something we need to look into .

On your comment around bottom-up design in Fusion 360 - that is just one of the many ways you can design. You can also design top-down, or save out sub assemblies of a much larger assembly and then insert each sub assembly into the main one. Inserted designs are cross-referenced (X-ref) designs, so if you make changes to that design, the X-ref design can be updated in the main assembly. We have plans to allow in-place edit so you don't have to open the original design to make edits; in-place edit will allow you to make edits to the x-ref design directly in the main assembly. Timing of this is still TBD. I encourage you to check out our learning site for more info around the different ways of designing in Fusion 360. We also have a plethora of YouTube videos that dives deeper into assembly design, bodies vs components, joints, etc. 

Hope this helps! 

[mickingaamco]

Thank you. This does explain what the company has in the future for Fusion 360. For me, the goals for 360 are just what I would like to run our cad program, but for  now, it is just not working. I have problems every day with the model loosing position. I have built it top-down with each individual part a linked file into assemblies, then assemblies linked into super assemblies, etc. If I then edit some part, I then have to update the assembly it is in, and then update the assembly that that assembly is in, etc. until I get to the top assembly. Often one of those assemblies is now in a new incorrect position, and I have to re position it in the top assembly. It is frustrating. From what you say the intent for the product is, it should not happen that way.

I have invited Ashan Ali and James Youmatz to my project to check it out, but I haven't had any answer why this is happening or what I can do to stop it. I wish there were a way to make the program work for me. I like the way it should work, it just doesn't work.

If you have some way to make  it work, I'd love to hear it.

Mike

[I_Forge_KC]

Mike,

In addition to the Autodesk team, would you be open to some 3rd party consultants like myself to take a look at your process and help with the pain points?

[jeff_strater]

@PhilProcarioJr, @I_Forge_KC,

Regarding Fusion->Inventor.  As @keqingsong says, currently the only path is via STEP, IGES, etc.

It would be possible to go from Fusion->Inventor with a direct, "dumb" translator (like we have for Inventor-> Fusion), where you just get components, bodies, etc.

What is not going to be possible is a "feature-level translator", where an Extrude in Inventor becomes an Extrude in Fusion, or vice versa.  That's the one that is just too complex to do.

Jeff