Combine extruded Text bodies into one body not working

[Anonymous]

I have a cylinder with text on the surface of the cylinder that is extruded so the letters all reach the cylinder surface.  This creates a body for each letter.  Then I try and combine (join) all the bodies into one body.  However, it doesn't work.

[NicolasXu]

Hi mikebJL63Z,

When we create an extrusion with Join operation, the calculation of participating bodies will be based on their visibility, i.e. only visible bodies will be taken into account.

In this case, I would create a thin-wall cylinder to hold the text bodies and to do the pattern, then combine with the original cylinder body at last. Please refer to the screencast below for details.

For the sanpping issue you mentioned, there are different types of snapping. We can always hold Ctrl key to disable the snapping temporarily.

- Snapping to grid: it's controlled by the Sanp option on the Sketch Palette

- Snapping to objects (midpoints, etc.): No options

- Sanpping to other objects out of the current sketch and auto-projecting it: It's controlled by the option "Auto project geometry not in the active sketch plane" from the Preferences dialog -> General -> Design.

Best Regards,

[PhilProcarioJr]

@NicolasXu

"For the sanpping issue you mentioned, there are different types of snapping. We can always hold Ctrl key to disable the snapping temporarily."

Is this located somewhere in the documentation? I can't seem to find it.

[Anonymous]

A lot of the snapping options were greyed out and disabled when I looked for them...so some of them I could not turn off.

[NicolasXu]

@PhilProcarioJr There is a screencast made by Nathan talked about it. I will check and see if the information is in other places.

http://fusion360.autodesk.com/learning/learning.html?guid=6affaeb4-269c-4afd-bcf6-1b2f6ef10c75

[NicolasXu]

@Anonymous Could you post a screenshot or screencast for the issue you encountered? Do you mean the different constraints in Sketch Palette?

[PhilProcarioJr]

@NicolasXu

Doesn't the Fusion team feel that things like how to snap (Explanations and how to....) is important enough to be included in the documentation?

That not everyone wants to spend 40 hours watching videos hoping they catch a glimpse of what they need, for things they can take 5 seconds looking up in the online docs?

[NicolasXu]

Thanks for the your feedback. We are aware of such issues and has been working on improving the experience. One of the recent changes we made is enhancing the command prompt for multiple commands like Fillet, Extrude, etc., that holding Ctrl key can add/remove selections.

I have also passed your feedback to the team to make sure this case will be covered.

Best Regards,
Nicolas

[PhilProcarioJr]

@NicolasXu

I want to be clear of my intentions of pointing things like this out. It's not to bash or upset anyone. I really like using Fusion and more then anything I want to cut SolidWorks completely out of my work environment.

I'm trying to help the Fusion team understand what causes so much frustration around here. And to be honest at least 50% of this frustration could be resolved by complete, comprehensive online docs. Videos become outdated very fast with evolving software like this. I'm not saying stop making videos I'm saying finish the online docs first and foremost. At least to the point we can use them as a fast SEARCHABLE reference. Something else that would be a tremendous help...if there is a known issue with a tool add that issue to the docs. This would let us know that the dev team is aware of such an issue and it would keep new users from beating their head against the wall trying to figure out why something doesn't work only to find out later it was a bug or a feature that is not implemented yet. Think of it this way...you do preventive maintenance on machines in a factory to reduce down time, by a software team doing preventive maintenance on its user base you save us time and money which = a much happier user. Cost us time and money.....well you have seen where that leads you.

Anyways thank you for listening and passing my feedback to the team to make sure this case will be covered.

Cheers

Phil

[Anonymous]

No I have moved on past this issue already.  Sorry.  At the time, everything in the pallette was greyed out except snap to grid.  I unchecked that but it was snapping to objects and other lines and that was greyed out with no ability to turn it off.  I'm sure I wasn't doing something right.  The software is very comprehensive and I've never used any CAD-3d software in my life.  I'm very smart and a very quick learner, however, the fact that I completely learned and designed something in 2 weeks with your software IMHO is still astounding.