Feature Requests

[crounsl]

Thanks for trying out the Fusion 360 Drawings Preview.  As this is a preview, we are just scratching the surface in terms of features and functionality.  

If you were to request 5 features to be added to what we have now, what would they be?  What workflows do you need to accomplish that we do not currently support?  

For those of you that used the Documentation beta released last December, you'll notice that the feature set in this release is similar. That said, we've made a number of changes to the interactions of many of the features and most importantly, as a result of your feedback, have focused on delivering much improved performance in the application overall.  If there were things that we had in the December release that you miss, let us know.

[Anonymous]

My top 5 for starters:

1. Output to Autodesk's own DWF format (Autodesk keep assuring their clients that they have committed support for this. Worrying, that it now often appears neglected).

2. Mask views (I am testing / evaluating with large scale assemblies, i.e. bridge infrastructure. Need to convey partial detail to fit sheet size. In future, Fusion 360 may need to deal with similar size design. For instance, mining equipment, cranes, trains, escalators, etc.).

3. Custom scales option.

4. Rotate view option.

5. Overlay view option (e.g. to convey 'open' and 'closed' states of motion).

Hope this helpful.

[TimeraAutodesk]

Great feedback, this is super helpful! I have a couple clarifying questions below in blue.

1. Output to Autodesk's own DWF format (Autodesk keep assuring their clients that they have committed support for this. Worrying, that it now often appears neglected). How are you using DWF downstream? Are you looking for basic viewing/sharing capabilities or something else?

2. Mask views (I am testing / evaluating with large scale assemblies, i.e. bridge infrastructure. Need to convey partial detail to fit sheet size. In future, Fusion 360 may need to deal with similar size design. For instance, mining equipment, cranes, trains, escalators, etc.). Great feedback. Would it work to be able to pick a subassembly or specific components to document, instead of the entire assembly?

3. Custom scales option. Great feedback

4. Rotate view option. Great feedback

5. Overlay view option (e.g. to convey 'open' and 'closed' states of motion). This is really interesting... is this related to joints and/or motion studies for you?

Thanks again for sharing!
Timera

[Anonymous]

1. I could get into a rant here about Autodesk's DWF and Autodesk Design Review .... but to awnser the specific question:

I have a 10 year legacy of various projects archived and paper trailed in DWF format. For continuity, I may need to continue to publish to DWF format.  DWF is mentioned within BS 1192:2007 [PAS 1192-2, PAS 1192-3] BIM Standards & protocols. It may be a Project stipulation that design progress is recorded using DWF format.

2. I have used subassembly in the past (using Inventor >> AutoCAD), as a work around, or if it is typical of overall span of bridge. However, this might not be possible depending on form of bridge - Fusion 360, I imagine, could be used for organic, freeform, atypical structures. How about the section analysis tool within Fusion 360 expanded upon and carried through to the 2D documentation?

5. Yes, joints and motion studies, typically for moving bridges. Though, I might dream of being like Thomas Heatherwick, creating amazing moving sculptures.... Previously, with Autodesk Inventor (published to DWF):

Previously, publishing from Inventor to 3D DWF, within Autodesk Design Review:

 

[vkangas]

Hi,

I'm pretty new with this so may not be that I do not find certain features. Anyways, here's my wishes based on just one simple lathe part drawing.

1) "Free drawing" mode with basic line types and shapes like rectangle. To make own drawing items when dedicated feature is not available such as box around text etc. This would also offer a workaround for case 2 or almost any other drawing problem.

2) Showing/inserting centerlines functionality

3) Cross section view needed

p.s. You are doing great work with F360!

[TimeraAutodesk]

Fantastic detail - thanks so much for clarifying! We will take this info back to the team - and support for section views is definitely on our list for future feature implementation.

[TimeraAutodesk]

Thanks for the feedback @ vkangas. A few notes below in blue from the Fusion 360 team. 

1) "Free drawing" mode with basic line types and shapes like rectangle. To make own drawing items when dedicated feature is not available such as box around text etc. This would also offer a workaround for case 2 or almost any other drawing problem. If we support centerlines in the future, would the ability to create a Table with text satisfy this workflow? Or are you looking for more of a mark-up/red-line capabilities?

2) Showing/inserting centerlines functionality This is a feature we will be investigating in the near future.

3) Cross section view needed Good news - this is a feature we are investigating right now!

p.s. You are doing great work with F360! Thank you!!

Best,

Timera

[Anonymous]

Is it possible to do a multipage 2d drawing? and make them letter size?

this would be helpful for patent drawings as page one would be one view w leader lines. page two would be another, page three etc...

[cmiller66]

Hi ebobryan1971,

Thank you for looking at the Fusion 360 Drawings Preview.  Currently drawings are single page only but you can create multiple drawings from a single design.  All of the drawings associated with a design will appear in the Open used-by documents list in Fusion 360.  This also allows you to create individual detail drawings for each component in the design by right-clicking the component (or multiple selected w/ ctrl+select) in the browser > Create New Drawing.  These can be named per component or just numbered with a suffix _1, _2, etc.

For the letter size question, in the main (3-bar icon) menu, select Preferences and then see Drawing.  These settings will be applied for all new drawings.  If you have an existing drawing and you'd like to change the size, open it (leave it active) then see Document Settings on the main menu.

Thanks,
Chris

[Anonymous]

Oh ok. I see. A Portrait, and A landscape are letter size. Maybe if they said letter-portrait, letter-landscape. lol

Another question. Are there keyboard shortcuts for the functions in the Drawing prog?

For instance shortcut keys for :

move

leader line

text

linear dimension

aligned dimension etc etc...

Also, sometimes the snap to feature for the leader lines is snapping to parts of the body that I don't want it to. It would be great if I could turn Snap off.

Thanks, you guys rock!

[jburns]

1. Implement all the normal dimensioning tools, for example: Baseline, continue, ordinate...

2. Each dimension needs to be individually editable. One example of my normal practice is to use the number of decimal points to define the tolerance.. I cant do that here because all the dims are the same.

3. All the normal tolerancing tools are needed. Standard ASME/ISO symbols for geometric tolerancing should be implemented

4. Standardized hole callouts for threading and counterbore/sink

5. Cross sections and bubble views

Do I really have to stop at 5?

Page templates, image file import (company logo), arrow/line formating, reference lines & center points, point tables, multiple pages, surface finish symbols...

The modeling tools are great, and I have high hopes for Fusion 360, but at this point I cant really give a proper drawing to a machininst.

[Ruister]

Hi,

Some of these may sound obvious but here it goes anyway.

 - Sections for both parts and assemblies

 - Draw lines, basic shapes, curves, and control over line types

 - Mulitple frames on a single page:  often dividing a page into sections is useful in order to have named views that can be referenced from other drawings
 - Opaque, semi-transparent, wireframe, shaded, unshaded.... A variety of object view styles

 - Material color and hatch fills

 - Multiple scales within a single page

 - Ability to export drawings so that they can be easily edited by other programs - At least AutoDesks own products, such as AutoSketch

Hope I didn't forget anything,

-Rui

[crounsl]

Even the obvious bears repeating as it helps us know what is and what is not important to our users.  

For "Multiple scales within a single page" you can currently adjust the scale of your view while creating it, or even after you have created it.  The control is located in the "View Properties" command dialog.  Is that sufficient or were you looking for something else?

Currently we export to DWG.  I see you mention AutoSketch, which would mean SKF, but are there others?

[Ruister]

Thanks for the info.

As far as file formats are concerned, dwg is typically ok with a variety of programs, dxf is even more widely accepted.  The problem I am running into is that Autosketch can supposedly import dwg files, but it cannot import files exported from Fusion 360.  I've also tried importing (dwg) drawings using AutoCAD 360 and the geometry was messed up:

  I created a simple drawing using the hair dryer tutorial (see attached) and when I opened it in AutoCAD 360 the projections of the part were a mess.  The title block and the basic page elements imported ok.

BTW - are there any workarounds for creating sections?  Any such tips so that I could get some drawing using either AutoSketch or AutoCAD 360 would be very helpful.

-Rui

[crounsl]

Thanks for the reply Rui.  I'd be interested in hearing what others think about file formats for export.  This is something that our team has discussed a bit, and we would appreciate some datapoints from users.  Is a Drawing in DXF useful to you?

In regards to the experience that you've had with DWGs, you are hitting some of our known limitations.  You see, the views in your drawings are not "normal" geometry, they are in fact special objects.  The upside of this is that they are fully associative with your Fusion model and your views update when you update your model.  The downside is that while they look like "normal geometry" when you remove them from the Fusion ecosystem, and thusly break that connection, you may encounter issues depending on where you try to open that DWG.  For example, if you open them in desktop AutoCAD, they will behave in a fashion similar to blocks.  Due to its age, AutoSketch does not support those special objects nor does AutoCAD 360 at this time.  All that said, our goal with the Drawings functionality is to eventually support the vast majority of what you are likely trying to do with this DWG right now, and part of that is Section views which we know are a super high priority.

[Ruister]

Having links between the model and the drawing are very helpful and reduce the amount of labor required to update drawings, however static (unconnected) drawings are often needed for a variety of purposes. As such Layered DXF would be a great feature to have. I can almost get what I need with the pdf output, but it's far from an ideal format.

[Anonymous]

What would make the drawings more useful for me is the ability to modify the appearance of text, fonts, sizes, etc.  Perhaps I'm not digging deeply enough, but for now Fusion 360 seems to provide a one-size-fits-all font selection, which results in a drawing without heirarchy of information and content.  Given that the purpose of a drawing is to communicate information and data, this is counter productive.  Also, the designer in me wants to compose a drawing that looks good and professional, the limited font options in the drawing module at present doesn't quite cut it.

I've tried a couple of different work flows to get around this:

1.  exporting a dwg, opening it in Autodesk DWG TrueView and converting to AutoCad 2010, opening that in DraftSight for annotation work.  Main problem with this is the loss of meta-data somewhere between TrueView and DraftSight such that scaled drawing views come through to DraftSight at the wrong scale factor.  Any new dimensions added come through with matching fonts and arrows (brilliant!), but have the wrong values, by whatever the scale factor was for the original view.  When I inspect the measurements in TrueView they're correct, so it's lost in the conversion process somewhere.  You can of course re-scale the drawing view back to 1:1 in DraftSight to correct the dimensions, but that messes with the intent of the drawing views in choosing those scale factors in the first place.

2.  exporting a pdf, and opening it in InkScape.  Allows you have complete control over line weights and fonts, allows you to fix any tangency edge glitches, but loses all parametric smarts and is time consuming and fiddly.  Nice looking drawings, but not very time efficient.

I do have one other feature suggestion; when creating a drawing and you select a component with multiple bodies, it would be nice to have an option to have any hidden bodies in the part either omitted or hidden in the drawing views.

[cmiller66]

Hi Shaun,

You are correct, Fusion 360 Drawings Preview currently supports one font/text height per drawing. We are aware of user’s needs to individually format text though, and have this on our list of future enhancements.  What settings would you find most useful?

Our intent is to ultimately provide the annotation tools you need to create drawings within Fusion 360 Drawings without the need to export or edit in other applications.  We cannot guarantee the results for exported files edited in non-Autodesk applications.

For the feature suggestion, currently drawing views contain all of the geometry regardless of show/hide settings in the design.  Can you provide some detail on the scenario where (and why) you would like this behavior to be different?  It will help us understand and prioritize the request.

Thanks,

Chris

[Anonymous]

Hi Chris,

For the fonts I would like to be able to change sizes so there is a difference between headings in title blocks, notes, dimensions etc.  Would be good to be able to change colours (shades of grey would be OK) and line weights to create a heirarchy between outlines, tanget edges, dimension lines, etc.  Ability to modify arrow sizes and shapes would be good, and perhaps most importantly the ability to modify the number of decimal places on any particular dimension.  Controlling the decimal places, including the number of trailing zeroes, is a useful way to define tolerances on a component.  Being able to add text to a dimension (eg; "ref") can also be useful.

With regards to the hidden bodies, I often find it handy to create or add bodies to use as reference geometry to help create the component I'm actually working on, but you don't wish to see that reference geometry in the drawing.  The reference geometry may represent other components or assemblies, critical clearances, projected cures, offset surfaces, fasteners, etc.  I know the same thing could probably be achieved in an assembly, but most times it's quicker and easier not to go to the trouble of creating an assembly, especially given the components in an assembly don't seem to currently update with subsequent changes.

Shaun

[cmiller66]

Hi Shaun,

Thanks for the details.  First off, you can currently add text like "Ref." to a dimension, just double-click the dimension text to edit, then when you're done click elsewhere in the drawing to commit.

Right now all the settings like dim precision are on a per-drawing basis, these can be specified in Preferences > Drawing (for new drawings) or File > Drawing Settings for the current drawing, but since you mention "on a component" you're probably looking for per-dimension overrides for these settings.  Request noted.

Interesting details on the hidden body/component item.  Creating new components for these items and not including them in the drawing would be a workaround (I assume you have found the Create New Drawing item on the right-click menu when components in the design are selected in the browser), but this doesn't handle your case of multiple bodies with mixed hidden settings in the same component.  I will forward this to design.

Thanks again for looking at Drawings and feel free to add more requests in the future.

Thanks,
Chris