Direct Modeling vs Timeline : why do you prefer DM ?

[cekuhnen]

I am a pretty timeline designer and I read here that many prefer direct modeling ideation and such.

What are your reasons to select DM instead of the timeline mode. Just curius.

[TrippyLighting]

I saw this question when you asked it but had not input to offer. I am timeline person 🙂

Based on the lack of responses one may come to the conclusion that there are few people that do both.

I believe however that @Oceanconcepts and @O.Tan both use both methods for specific purposes. Perhaps they can chime in.

[PhilProcarioJr]

I do both, I usually use direct modeling for lack of a better term when I am speed modeling to test basic ideas. I don't go to the timeline or parametrics until I come up with a solid concept. Even still I have found that sometimes the timeline causes a lot of trouble like when you want to completely delete a feature and most of the stuff after it on the timeline is linked to that feature. Anyways that's how I use both.

[Oceanconcepts]

I do use both. Typically I’m starting a design with many electronic components I need to contain, but no finished idea about where exactly they will end up. Component position will both dictate and be dictated by the case form. Components need to interact with the case through buttons or sensor ports.  I’m solving a 3D puzzle, and trying to visualize as far down a particular positioning path as possible. It’s a very iterative process between the Chief Electronics Engineer (to whom I am married) and myself. 

Using the timeline in this sort of context- where I may move these parts into 100’s of different positions working out potential arrangements, and then maybe need to move them again for electronic or other considerations- could end up generating an incredibly cumbersome timeline. I want to move things, but don’t want a snapshot and timeline bloat every time I do so- or to get all the warnings if I don’t. Direct modeling just seem easier, and parametric information for this sort of work of little or no value. 

If I get to a configuration that I think might work, and want to develop a case concept in a parametric environment, I can turn on the timeline. I may well discard that option down the road, turn back to a direct modeling environment to shuffle things around, and start again with a different configuration. The ability to go back and forth is a great benefit in Fusion- though branching is something I look forward to. 

I’ve been at AU this week, and I’ve asked if there were any workflow that would allow me to isolate a set of subcomponents into a kind of direct modeling “bubble”. Nothing really has been suggested that improves on this workflow for what I’m trying to do. 

[LMD001]

Hello Everybody,

For me, TimeLine it is, almost never use DM.

Perhaps just a habit from the years working with Inventor, and as you know, they sometimes die very hard .

Best regards,

Ludo

[cekuhnen]

What about adding a base feature - there you can work in DM.

I am kinda split. And I think for me the main issue is the sketch approach with everything being so stiffed into 2d canvases. Coming from Alias and Blender and now Fusion I started to do this:

I still concept model in Blender to losly explore and idea and once it is more solidified it goes into Alias or Fusion. Sometimes I just bring over Blender parts or i start from scratch.

I worked on one electronics project and while the model was parametric and changes were easy to do then - managing the complexity was a nightmare.

That speaks not against Fusion but how in general I think parametric modelers can work.

[LMD001]

Hello Claas,

Just wondering since I am not really familiar with Blender, do you use Blender in the conceptual stage because it has the right (or better) tools for that?

Best regards,

Ludo

[cekuhnen]

I know Modo and Maya as well I trained on Maya years ago.

However what I prefer about Blender is the fact that it has a modifier stack providing interactive functions like extrude, solidify, revolve, and such.

This means I work in Blender similar to how I work in Fusion. 

For linear objects Blender mesh modeling is like DM. And for organic shapes it beats any system.

Obviously being a poly modeler it has no ability to trim split or fillet. So those tasks cannot be done. But a fillet is a and of the process effect for me.

Exploring ideas is pretty fast and for generative modeling and structures it is perfect.

I love using both together and nicely you can send data from Blender to Fusion and continue working with it so it is not lost.

[TrippyLighting]

Not that this has anything to do with the original question but...

If Claas would not have mentioned the modifier stack and generative modeling in Blender I would have. These tools are not present in Fusion and make Blender and Fusion 360 really a dream team for certain tasks such as T-Spline modeling.

That is if you alreay know Blender 😉

The Blender UI, while it has improved is not without it's own idiosyncacies and as many other powerful tools has a pretty steep learnig curve. In combination with Fusion 360, however it allows you to do stuff that would be very hard to impossible to do in any other tool I know.

This is also IMHO an area where it beats other mainstream solid modeling solution by a wide margin!

[cekuhnen]

LOL Blender's UI is the opposite of Fusions UI.

But the thing is also Blender can do an incredible amount of things and often UI and complexity of 3D is not seeing in a correlation.

I todally agree that for generative and detailing work Blender blows even Alias out of the water in certain speed modeling tasks.

This semester I tried to teach one class only Blender using the modifiers to generate designs with 3D structures. And it was a blast.

Alias would have been much slower.

I think speed is here really the key. In 2015 I think we still work in different apps because each app offers a very specific advantage.

[jeff_strater]

@cekuhnen is right:  Adding a Base Feature is the way to get an "island of Direct Modeling in a Parametric design".  In fact, that was actually the idea behind this feature.  Say, for example, that you wanted to create a few components as direct modeling components.  Create a Base Feature, create those components, return back to parametric modeling for everything else.

There is even one more feature:  Convert to DM Feature.  This allows you to select a parametric feature, and then convert everything upstream of it to be a Base Feature.  I do use this fairly often (I may be the only one on the entire planet that uses this).  But this is actually pretty useful - you can just create things without the hassle of creating a Base Feature, then later, when you are convinced that you are done with parametrics, conver to DM.  This is pretty flexible, even.  Say you still want to control the fillet radius, but the rest of the component you don't care to modify.  Just select the feature before the fillet, and choose Conver to DM Feature.

Here's a screencast of doing this with a very simple model:

Jeff

[cekuhnen]

@jeff_strater I actually used this as well to clean up the timeline.

I like this workflow a lot in Fusion that it can be a perfect middle man between different data inputs and formats from parametric, mesh stuff, or DM just in one work environment.

I also see students now use Fusion a lot. Since the timeline the usage increased significantly.

[cekuhnen]

@Oceanconcepts I am curious if you would be interested in a student project - meaning you give us a design problem and then I let the students work on it.

I think for the students this could be an interesting challenge to do something for a professional in the field and thus see it less as homework.

[TrippyLighting]

@jeff_strater

Of course you are the only person on the planet doing that 😉

Who else knows ?

These workflow gems are often only discovered coincidentally by trial and error.

 It is likely that this gets lost in this thread. Would it be too much to ask you to post this in

Post your Tips and Tutorials ?

Edit: OK. Add Claas, That makes 2 per planet.

[cekuhnen]

@TrippyLighting I think if you are informed by a previous app lets say Inventor or so in Fusion you will work the same.

This might be the issue - and maybe some also dont have a use for it.

The tips and tricks section could maybe have a section about workflow tips that are more unusal and provide extra help

compared to how you normaly only work in SW or such.

[TrippyLighting]

---

@cekuhnen wrote:

@TrippyLighting I think if you are informed by a previous app lets say Inventor or so in Fusion you will work the same.

---

Correct!

That is the reason why I posted something on this thread, hoping to get  more feedback on the use of how others use direct Modeling.

The ability to invite other users directly is a real killer feature of this Forum!

[jeff_strater]

Good point @TrippyLighting.  I will try to post that to the tips and tricks section.  I keep meaning to do this for other things that are equally obscure but useful, but I never seem to find the time for it.  I will try to get better about that.  Early New Year's resolution?

Jeff

[LMD001]

Hello,

Very interesting thread!

Indeed much depends on former experience, once you acquire a certain way of modeling, you often tend to stay on that road, and so maybe miss out on other and/or better workflows.

Design and engineering also go more and more together, which is a very good thing. Before there appeared to be a conflict of interest between the two.

Will certainly give the Direct Modeling a closer look.

Thanks guys!

Best regards,

Ludo

[O.Tan]

Sorry for the late reply, been busy with an ongoing project.

I use both, but most of the time I use DM and since Fusion hasn't allow me to mix both environment yet, all my work in Fusion is done in DM.

As for the pros and cons, if I had the time, I would show you some example on why which is better but as time is short on my side, I'll just write it out, maybe later I'll post with better examples (probably sometime next week when I should have some free time)

Personally, I find DM works great for 95% of my usage except when it comes to situations where it involves pattern.

Why is that? Cause with DM, I'm able to use move sketch between components or pretty much reposition the sketch and etc. Like I got 2 components with 2 matching holes (one is a counterbore and another is a thread), so what I can do is to create 1 sketch and use it for both holes; 1 time for counterbore and another for threaded holes. DM also allows me to do heavy modifications of my part without having to bother my model stability (something that traditional history based modelling must take care of when doing their model).

So when would I use History Based? It'll usually be when pattern is involved as DM doesn't do well with open ended pattern. To prevent my "pattern feature" to break, what I'll instead is first draw the solid model giving the pattern a 100% success rate, then I'll cut it out to make it open ended. So in the future if I were to edit the qty or pitch of the pattern, it'll not break my model, as long as the base is longer and that's easy to be solve. Here's a series of photo to show what I just talked about:

In DM, by making it open ended, it'll break the feature as DM doesn't keep track of changes you've made. So doing things like this could break the DM feature

So with history based, I'm able to edit the pattern and probably have to "touch up" my model to have it display correctly again. (the last 2 features is sketch to make the pattern open ended and extrude-cut).

There's other examples but this is the ones I can think of now. 

Hope this help you!

[LMD001]

Hello Omar,

Nice post!

Good video on the subject, for me, explains very well:

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/fusion-360/getting-started/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/ENU/Fusio...

Now the question the other way around, since Direct Modeling is more flexible and less prone to unstable models: when is history based modeling absolutely necessary?

You wrote that Fusion 360 does not allow you to mix DM and TL, as I understood it, this should be possible by converting some TL features to Base Model, or am I completely wrong?

Best regards,

Ludo