Changes Coming to Fusion 360 for Personal Use - Blog Post & FAQ

[jodom4]

 UPDATE Sept. 25, 2020: STEP Export stays in Fusion 360 for personal use

STEP export will remain available for Fusion 360 for personal use. This removal of STEP export was previously announced as part of the changes to curb misuse of Fusion 360 for personal use by commercial users. This change had unintended consequences for the hobbyist community. For this reason, we have made the decision to continue to allow STEP export for personal, non-commercial users. It remains in product unchanged and will not be removed as other announced changes roll out this October and January.

We want you to know, while the changes to the personal use entitlement were necessary, we remain committed to our community. You will continue to see development and investment in Fusion 360 for personal use.

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UPDATE: There have been lots of discussions on social media and on our forums. We understand the emotions you’re all going through, so in the spirit of clarity, I want to break it down for you with the most accurate information about what is changing, directly from our team. 

Here are 8 quick answers to the most common questions we’ve seen in the community.

1 – Is Fusion 360 for Personal Use still free?

Yes. Fusion 360 for Personal Use remains free. It’s not going away.

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2 – What does the 10 active documents change really mean?

You still keep your data and can have unlimited number of documents (3D design, drawing, PCB) as well as projects (top level folders in your data panel) in your account. 

• Today all your designs and documents are active by default. You can open any design no matter how old or new and they will open. 
• What this change means: 
  • 10 active documents means that you have 10 spots for any document to open and be editable at any given time. All your other documents will be stored in your projects in a new inactive state. They will remain yours, saved in your projects. 
  • When you reach your 10 document capacity, and you want to revisit an older design and open it up, you can do so by deactivating an active document and activating the inactive one to swap places with. Again, you continue to keep all your designs and projects with no limits on how many you can have in inactive state.  
  • PDFs, images, presentations, spreadsheets, etc do not count towards the 10 active document allowance.
  • If you have an assembly with referenced designs in it, the assembly and each reference (if opened) will count as 1 document each. Assemblies can reference active and inactive documents. You will still be able to edit the referenced designs as long as they are also active. If your referenced designs in the assembly are inactive, you can still open your assemblies, but the references will be read only.
  • Electronics Design Library, schematic, 2D PCB count as 1 document.

• How would this work?
  • The interactions of how you do this is still being worked on, and any existing experience around archiving projects from Fusion Team is not indicative of what this new interaction may be, that’s why it’s slated for January 2021. We hope that you understand that we are trying to put limits in place to stop commercial mis-use, while still enabling the vast majority of hobbyists to continue to design and make with little to no impact.

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3 – Can I still machine parts?

Yes. 2, 2.5 and 3 axis milling will still be available in the new Personal Use offering. 

• More advanced manufacturing functionality such as 3+2 axis, 4 axis, and 5 axis milling will only be available in the paid subscription. 
• Toolpath simulation in the Manufacture workspace is not going anywhere and will still be available. 
• Automatic tool change capability will not be available, and rapid feedrate are limited to cutting feedrate.

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4 – Can I still 3D Print?

Yes, STL Export will still be available in Fusion 360 for Personal Use.

• You can still use Fusion 360 for 3D printing with File > 3D print > send to print utility of your choice, File Export > STL or Save As STL

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5 – Can I still laser-cut or do 2D routing?

Save As DXF is still available from sketch. 

• DXF will not be a supported file format from File > Export, but you will still be able to right click on a sketch in the browser and select Save As DXF for your laser cutting and routing needs.

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6 – Can I still export my designs as STEP?

Yes, STEP export will still be available from the in-product File > Export dialog as well as Fusion Team.

Export of STEP will be not be available from the in-product File > Export dialog on Oct. 1, 2020. After Oct. 1,  You can still export your designs as STEP file formats via Fusion Team in your browser. This workflow will remain until Jan 19, 2021. To get to your Fusion Team page, open the data panel, go into one of your projects, and click on the “Open on the Web” icon.

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7 – Does Extension Access mean Scripts and Add-ins?

No, you still have access to scripts and add-ins downloaded from the Autodesk App Store, there is no change here. 

• You will still be able to leverage our API as well as the add-ins available on our App Store.
• Extensions in this context refer to the Manufacturing Extensions available to purchase. These are the capabilities like Probing, 4 axis Rotary, 5 axis Steep & Shallow Strategies that extend your manufacturing capabilities with more convenience, faster machine times, and higher quality finishing.  

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8 – Are there changes to Education, Startup, Trial & Paid Subscriptions?

There are no changes to these offerings.

• Just to clarify, this change does not impact the trial, Education offering, Startup offering, or the Paid subscription. Product updates will continue to be delivered to all of our offerings, additional advanced functionality may be excluded from the Personal offering moving forwards.
• We will continue to support the Personal Use offering with product updates, improvements, fixes, as well as new features moving forward.

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Hey everyone,

As announced on the blog, soon we'll be making some changes to the Fusion 360 for Personal Use offering. We’re making these changes so that we can continue to offer Fusion 360 for Personal Use free of charge, clearly differentiating between what’s available in each offering, which we hope will reduce confusion, misuse, and abuse, whether it was intentional or unintentional. 

If this is your first time hearing about this announcement, we encourage you to check out our blog post for the full announcement as well as our FAQ, where we answer more specific questions in detail. 

> See the blog post announcement

> See the FAQ

[jodom4]

kevinPTMMY, @lichtzeichenanlage, 

I'm not sure I did the best job explaining the 10 active document issue. Here's how Keqing put it, I think it's more clear:

Today all your designs and documents are active by default. You can open any design no matter how old or new and they will open. You can have as many document tabs as possible.

10 active documents means that you have 10 spots for any document to open and be editable at any give time. All your other documents will be stored in your projects in a new archived state. They will remain yours, saved in your projects.

You can have unlimited number of archived documents (designs) as well as projects (top level folders in your data panel) in your account. If you are at your 10 document capacity, and at any point you want to revisit an older design and open it up, you can do so by archiving an existing active document and activating the archived one to swap places.

[lichtzeichenanlage]

Nope - I can't agree to this. 

[untrustedone]

i am okay with this also.

for a makerspace, where this product has been extensively promoted, it is a kick in the teeth to only have 10 active documents. Why 10? not 16 or 32 or some order of 2?  Autodesk already took away workgroups for personal use, so makerspaces are reduced to sneaker-net protocols. 

[sundansx]

I would suggest a FIFO approach.  When the user opens a new document that is archive or created, it presents a dialog to archive the last opened document and then automatically does a close/open.  That way we don't have to do extra steps to manage this unless we want to.  A counter on the interface to show open documents would be useful too.

[lichtzeichenanlage]

Can we gain forum points for more documents or getting back step exports?

[Anonymous]

I don't understand why you're targeting the personal edition. You have a huge community using this for their own projects or open source work which you're slowly pulling the rug out on in hopes you'll get more people subscribing. Instead people are going to walk away because they were using it for personal use and will cannot justify the cost. It's still free yes but it's looking less appealing by the second. For instance, I have basic woodworking projects with over a dozen drawings alone. Some of my projects reference 20 or 30 other files. Does this mean I cannot work on them without subscribing? 

[mroek]

This sucks. I really disapprove of this approach. You seem to not comprehend that the jump from $0 to $400 (or even more in heavlily taxed countries like mine) is simply too high. I understand that you need to make money, and I gather the current number of paid seats are too low for your liking. I'm not sure this strategy will gain you in the long term. You are alienating the current personal users to the point they will look much harder at the alternatives.

Why do you insist on having just the one paid tier? The proper solution to this is to add at least a middle tier which provides a bit more than current personal license does (perhaps what it used to before the last restriction), but less than the full license.

Please, pretty please consider adding a tier at say $100, which is less restricted than this new insult of a personal license.

[janus2]

Without step export Fusion 360 is useless for me.

It deprives me of the possibility to save or pass on my data in a neutral format.
I can't even switch to another CAD program after Fusion 360 has become useless to me.

Private users have done a lot for Fusion 360 here in the forum and elsewhere. It's a shame how Autodesk is thanking you now.

A very frustrated user

Jan

[jrychter]

I do understand the need to make changes and force businesses towards a subscription. However, I was hoping that Autodesk would keep the free offering suitable for hobbyists. I read the limitations carefully several times and they are reasonable, except for one: the lack of STEP export.

STEP export is fundamental in a number of workflows, which hobbyists also use. It's an interchange format supported by a number of free tools, it can also be used to share models with others. Removing STEP export seriously cripples the product.

Please reconsider the removal of STEP export from the hobbyist offering.

[Anonymous]

We all knew this day was coming.  Fusion 360 is heavily promoted with so much online support to enable people to invest time and energy in learning to use the product.  Autodesk finally decided it was time to crank up the heat to move people away from personal to paid use.  I’m pretty sure Autodesk will continue to add restrictions in the coming months and years.

Quite honestly the software is great.  However the latest along with potential future restrictions make me look for alternatives.

[Anonymous]

I really struggle to understand the "10 Documents" Part.

When I open, the Top Level is "Projects"
Inside are numerous "Files" and each File contains numerous Components, Bodies, Sketches, etc.
Which of them is considered to be a Document under the new Rule? The "Files"?

Second struggle: I will still be able to right-click a sketch and save it as dxf from what i´ve read.
Can i use the same right-click menu to save a single body as step?

[lichtzeichenanlage]

My understanding is that a document more or less equals what you're calling
a file.

[TrippyLighting]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Second struggle: I will still be able to right-click a sketch and save it as dxf from what i´ve read.

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Yes.

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@Anonymous wrote:

Can i use the same right-click menu to save a single body as step?

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Nope, unfortunately not.

[TPD_Andy]

The competition offer less limited alternatives. No STP, no DXF support and only one page per drawing are severe.
I actually wanted to transfer my Inventor and Solid Edge data to Fusion 360, that was then superfluous.

[chrisplyler]

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@Anonymous wrote:

It's a shame people are still doing this same scam CON. 

Give it away free to the user then when there is enough free user we silently restrict it and sell it to them.

Shame on AutoDesk. Shame on you to hell.

Nothing in this existence last forever and the desk will be broken soon from its greed.

Today your up, tomorrow you shall fall flat on your bottom.

GREEDY 

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This really disappoints me. Too many people are spoiled and entitled.

If someone gives you FREE stuff for a while, essentially doing you a favor, then it's extremely bad form to crap on them once the free stuff stops. It isn't a scam or a con if I buy you dinner every day for a year and then stop. I friggin bought you dinner for a year, you ingrate.

Now, I'm one of the free users. And I'll be sad about the new restrictions. But I hope I never catch myself acting like you've acted here. I would be ashamed of myself. You want free crap forever, yet you call those who gave you free crap (and still will, just a little bit less) the greedy ones. Pathetic.

[Anonymous]

The frustration I have is that by making it "the free option" was how it became the defacto standard in the maker community and gained the enormous amount of penetration it has.  An enormous number of hobbyists, home shops, makers, and community groups have built their shops, toolchains and capability AROUND having Fusion as "the choice" for solid modeling precisely because it WAS free, not because of any particular other reason, and in doing so have built up enormous histories and data stores for projects and builds within the closed ecosystem.  And now, that is basically being used as wide-scale data extortion, in that you can either pay for a commercial license... or lose the ability to *use* your data.  Yes, it's still there... but removing all the options to export it in a format that other programs will read, or continue to use it within the infrastructure of Fusion (primary thing here is the limit on files) they have more or less made it useless to the maker.  

I think this is a large part of why we're seeing so much cry in here for a middle-of-the-road option, for folks that need more than what they're proposing for free, but cannot or will not increase their budget for solid modeling from $0 to $500 for no purpose aside from maintaining... what they've had as the free version forever.  

I don't think anyone denies they need to make money to keep the system running, or that there might be missuse of the free licenses for commercial purpose.  But the WAY they are going about it seems to border on literal extortion of pretty much every maker and small shop that has entrusted Autodesk with their designs and data for the last half-decade.  

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@chrisplyler wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

It's a shame people are still doing this same scam CON. 

Give it away free to the user then when there is enough free user we silently restrict it and sell it to them.

Shame on AutoDesk. Shame on you to hell.

Nothing in this existence last forever and the desk will be broken soon from its greed.

Today your up, tomorrow you shall fall flat on your bottom.

GREEDY 

---

This really disappoints me. Too many people are spoiled and entitled.

If someone gives you FREE stuff for a while, essentially doing you a favor, then it's extremely bad form to crap on them once the free stuff stops. It isn't a scam or a con if I buy you dinner every day for a year and then stop. I friggin bought you dinner for a year, you ingrate.

Now, I'm one of the free users. And I'll be sad about the new restrictions. But I hope I never catch myself acting like you've acted here. I would be ashamed of myself. You want free crap forever, yet you call those who gave you free crap (and still will, just a little bit less) the greedy ones. Pathetic.

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[Anonymous]

First of all: I am totally fine with this changes. A question I do have which was not answered by FAQ.

I have several documents linking other documents. Kind of subassemblies. I created documents for switches, potentiometers, displays, arduino stuff, motors, servos and so on.

My "active" document links all the needed parts, and I create my 3D stuff around them. Now, if I open such a file containing links to 20 other documents: are those 20 other documents considered to be active and I am not able to open my main document? If this is to be answered with yes I am asking you to question this decision. I should be able to link these 20 documents. I do not edit the content from these 20 documents, but I need the shapes, dimensions, references from them.

Would love to receive an answer on this topic, which was not addressed in the blog, faq or this forum thread so far.

And yes, please consider to add stp export. Would be helpful. I would be OK with a "hobbyists gold" plan as well. Ask me for 60 or 80 bucks a year, and allow me "unlimited linked documents", stp export, and maybe include a few coins for the cloud stuff

Cheers, and thanks for a great product for hobbyists

Peter

[fulcrumusa]

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@chrisplyler wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

It's a shame people are still doing this same scam CON. 

Give it away free to the user then when there is enough free user we silently restrict it and sell it to them.

Shame on AutoDesk. Shame on you to hell.

Nothing in this existence last forever and the desk will be broken soon from its greed.

Today your up, tomorrow you shall fall flat on your bottom.

GREEDY 

---

This really disappoints me. Too many people are spoiled and entitled.

If someone gives you FREE stuff for a while, essentially doing you a favor, then it's extremely bad form to crap on them once the free stuff stops. It isn't a scam or a con if I buy you dinner every day for a year and then stop. I friggin bought you dinner for a year, you ingrate.

Now, I'm one of the free users. And I'll be sad about the new restrictions. But I hope I never catch myself acting like you've acted here. I would be ashamed of myself. You want free crap forever, yet you call those who gave you free crap (and still will, just a little bit less) the greedy ones. Pathetic.

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To be honest, the way it was worded is not best and it does come across as a bit entitled.

However, your response to it completely ignores the motivation behind the outcry. Calling users "pathetic" because, in your opinion, they shouldn't complain when something that the got for free is no longer free is not helpful.

The point is that Fusion360 was initially promoted as the free, full-featured, parametric, CAM package targeted at hobbyists. As others have said, this was the primary reason why it gained such a wide-spread adoption. You can't go anywhere dealing with CAD without hearing about Fusion360.

Now that virtually the entire hobby CAD/3D design/3D printing community has gone to Fusion360, they are slowly cutting off features and pushing everyone into a paid license. This is in contrast to what Autodesk was initially saying about the Personal license of Fusion360.

Furthermore, the main reason for this switch stated by Autodesk is the "bad apples" that abuse the Personal license. They are punishing the entire hobby community because of them. Yet, they fail to state why those "bad apples" could not be made to switch and leave every one else who uses the product as it is licensed and in good faith. Presumably, Autodesk knows who the "bad apples"/abuser are and can revoke their license.

In another thread, they state that they did extensive research and according to it the majority of hobby users won't be affected by the changes. That still does not address why they are punishing those same hobby users. Again, if Autodesk knows about the abusers, they can target only the abusers.

This leaves us to conclude that they are just after money, pure and simple. This is why people are upset. After getting invested into the software, Autodesk is pulling a bait-and-switch.

Let me use your own example as an illustration: I told you that I'll start buying you dinner for free. Furthermore, I'll keep buying you dinner forever. After I bought you dinner for a year, now I'll stop. In fact, now that you've come to depend on my free dinners, if you want to keep eating, you'll have to start paying me. How would you respond to that?

[jodom4]

Hey pstimpelautodesk,

Keqing Song has clarified this for me (this info will soon be in a follow-up blog post that I'll link to in my original message when it's up):

If you have an assembly with referenced designs in it, the assembly will count as 1 document. You will still be able to edit the referenced designs as long as they are also active. If your referenced designs in the assembly are inactive, they will be read only.

[kevinPTMMY]

Thanks this was one of my 2 big concerns.  Now if you guys would just give us back a neutral interchange format (STEP files) at least hobbyists with modest design needs will still be able to use this.  Without STEP files you basically destroy the notion of a hobby community and will drive even folks with modest design needs away.