Creating Custom Drawing Templates

[Anonymous]

Hi Folks

I need to create a custom drawing template for my students. Can someone direct me on how to make one. Or is there a tutorial.

Thanks

Mark

[Anonymous]

I hear you guys. I'm in the middle of a project where I'm sending drawings out to manufacturers.  There are weld(No Weld Symbols in Fusion360) Some tolerances are hard to enter. Say Tolerances that are +0.02/+o.o1 for example. Adding lines for reference not being available is a bit of an issue too.  

Not having the hole call outs automated has caught me as well. Hole tables would be grand too.  

It does seem like this drawing package is almost an after thought. The CAM package I feel is great so is the modelling for the most part(Can we get the tapped holes integrated with the hole features?) So I'm sticking with Fusion for now.   There are days though when I just dread going in to the drawing workspace.

[Anonymous]

Mak, if you have access to Solidworks, try creating some
weld symbols etc in a Solidworks drawing. Then export the
drawing to .dxf. You can then open the dxf in Fusion, I
think, never tried it, but if not, then use Draftsight to
open the .dxf file. From there maybe you can copy the weld
symbol to your clipboard and then try to drop it into a
Fusion drawing. If it works you won't have any intelligence
in it but at least you'd have the text etc. which might be
editable.



With cad systems there always seems to be a work around
these days.

[Anonymous]

I just put a a not in the area with the weld specs. Not an elegant solution, but the details were conveyed to the fab shop.

[TimeraAutodesk]

Hey @Anonymous - Thanks for the understanding and kind words, we are making progress on this area of Fusion as quickly as possible, I assure you.

You can insert a DWG titleblock from Autocad today, this functionality has been available since September 2016 actually. You can insert the title blocks into an existing drawing and save a template off of that, or you can open a new Drawing Template file and insert it there directly as well. Here's a quick intro video to help get you up and running. Let us know if you have any questions as you walk through this!

Insert Custom DWG Title Block Video

Best,

Timera

[Anonymous]

Ok, thanks Timera. See - since I'm not using Fusion hardly
at all, I haven't been getting up to date on the progress.
So this function does solve a lot of the problems for sure.
One thing that no one has mentioned yet be the allowance of
tables and blocks in Fusion for Revisions. I haven't
checked so that may be there but if not, it is certainly a
needed item.

[josh5GTU6]

I think they moved this option, I found it under "File/Save As" and then changing the "Type" to "Drawing Template (*.f2t)"

[TimeraAutodesk]

Hey @Anonymous, all of the updates can be hard to keep up with, even if you're a regular user 🙂 Rev tables and blocks aren't there yet, but we're in the planning phase right now. I'd love to talk to you in more detail about exactly what you're looking for, if you're willing to give a little of your time? If so, you can drop some time directly on my calendar using this link:

Meet with Timera

Hope to talk to you soon!

Timera

[Anonymous]

The issue is not so much being able to create a drawing
template as it is being able to import an existing template
from AutoCAD, that is already setup with attributes etc.



I was using Fusion yesterday and I could NOT find any way to
import an existing AutoCAD template. When you try to import
a template, the options they give you only relate to
existing templates, there is no option to be able to browse
to your computer to pick up a .dwt file.



Although Fusion says you can use an AutoCad template, they
have bypassed the instructions on how to go about it.



Trying to use the standard Fusion drawing template is like
going back to grade 1 in school from University. The way
they have done this is really bad, awkward and sorely
lacking in options and flexibility. Sorry to say, but
Fusion is a LONG way away from having a proper 'drawings'
feature. One would think this should be automatic after all
their experience with AutoCAD and Inventor.. Why are they
trying to re-invent this - and failing at it.



I ended up going back to Solidworks to complete my project.

[Anonymous]

OK, so I revisited this title block issue.  I watched the videos on how to do it.  I opened up my Autocad template and saved the titleblock to a new file.  I then opened the new titleblock file, after several back an forth sessions with Fusion I was still unable to import the titleblock.  I constantly got an error saying I had "1 or more blocks or xrefs' and to remove these.  So I have exploded all the blocks in my titleblock, which is counterproductive as that blows up your attibutes, and I have used the purge command several times to clean stuff up, and no joy.  Fusion still will NOT allow me to bring in a titleblock file. Oh well, back to Solidworks again.

Bottom line - Fusion needs to fix this issue and make it simpler to do this.

[cmiller66]

Hi Peter,

If you can send me the DWG you're trying to import, I'd be curious to see what object(s) in there are causing the problem.  If you can email it to christopher.miller@autodesk.com I will take a look.

Thanks,
Chris

[Anonymous]

Chris, I have emailed the subject files to you.  Thank you so much for reaching out to help us users.  We really do appreciate the support we get from Fusion, and I know I speak for many people.  I hope you can sort this out.

What would be good to be able to do, going forward from this is to be able to save an AutoCad drawing template, as a regular drawing, and import the whole thing including the border and all.  maybe we can, but without this latest issue being solved I didnt even want to bother to try it.  My full drawing template contains blocks and attributes for the REV block and the BOM (manual insertion) so it would be great to have all these features available.

If we can get this to work I would be happy to share this titleblock and border etc with anyone that wants a copy, all they have to do is to change the logo and the disclaimer to their company.  I have both the sheet 1 and sheet 2+ files available.

[Anonymous]

Is there any way to hatch/fill areas? I also think it would be great if we can sketch in the drawing 

[g-andresen]

Hi,

you can vote for in the Idea-Station

günther

[Anonymous]

Hi Scott,

Has there been any development with creating custom drawing templates? 
I have been trying to create a drawing with meter units. It's been frustrating to find this is not possible (why not?). I cannot create a blank drawing with custom units, nor can I import a drawing template (SLDDRT) with units set as I want them. The simplest way would be to set the units for dimensions within the drawing, but this is not possible either. 

Is this functionality in the pipeline, it feels like a basic feature?

Thanks!

[TimeraAutodesk]

Hi @Anonymous , custom templates are a supported feature, however we don't yet support units other than mm / inches. 

Information on creating a template can be found here

• About Drawing Templates
• Modify the Title Block and Border
• Specify Settings for Drawings

The Drawings team is working as quickly as they can to deliver on the wide variety of feature sets that our customers need, and we will make sure to follow up with you when we get to adding additional unit measurements. Thanks so much for your patience.

Best,

Timera

[Anonymous]

You cannot import a Solidworks drawing template. You have
to convert the Solidworks template to an AutoCAD template
then totally strip it of all intelligence, blocks,
attributes etc and then and only then you can likely import
it into Fusion. By the time you do that all you end up with
is a bunch of lines and maybe some text, but NO intelligence
and NO attributes. That was my experience, and that was
only a couple months back, but maybe they've done something
new by now.



It's too bad that the Fusion people didn't initially write
their software to allow users to actually import a fully
functional AutoCAD drawing template, complete with blocks
and attributes.. That would have been the intelligent and
efficient way to do this. Maybe they'll eventually do that
once they get tired of complaints about their lack of
properly designing this very important aspect of cad
drawings. As good as Fusion is - they really dropped the
ball on the drawings package... It sucks.



Maybe the person in charge of doing/not doing this should be
given a new job - in another company.

[Anonymous]

We are now at the end of 2019 and this issue still hasn't been resolved.

I'm curious to whether this program was designed for hobbyists only.

[Anonymous]

Ya, I just can't understand why this drawing template import issue is
taking so long and it still doesn't work properly. These guys are working
with their own original source code, or they at least have access to it.

So it's confusing as to why they cannot create a routine to directly import
and AutoCAD template complete with blocks and attributes, and if necessary
strip out unsuitable data. In theory it should be easy.

I understand that they cannot import a template from Solidworks, but why
couldn't they figure out how to import a dxf copy of the template and then
automatically convert that into a drawing template so that we'd perhaps
only need to add attributes.

[g-andresen]

Hi,

I think there are more important things to do for Fusion than developing import tools for templates. I also say this because creating custom templates with title blocks is 1. not the daily business and 2. is done quickly with Fusion tools including inserting attributes.

günther

[TimeraAutodesk]

We do support the insert of DWG templates, including with attributes (albeit they do not auto-populate in Fusion). Blocks are the big limitation when working with AutoCAD title blocks, but should be easy enough to explode before inserting as a workaround. As @g-andresen mentioned, we have so many other big projects to round out the necessary day-to-day functionality in drawings, and since we do support basic insert as well as authoring of title blocks today, we aren't focusing on adding additional depth of functionality in this area at this time - though we will certainly consider it in the future.