Fusion 360 and parameters in excel?

[Ezekiel12]

Hi,

I'm just starting with Fusion 360. In Inventor I used a lot of excel tables for parametric modeling. (Link tables that could change). 

Is there some option to do that in Fusion? I see that I have like table of model and user parameters, but can I at least export or import that table? I couldn't find such a feature in Fusion.

Thank you

[James.Youmatz]

HI @Ezekiel12,

I think I found an add-in for Fusion that does exactly what you are looking for! Check out this app, here. You'll have to read through the help document to get a better idea of how to complete the workflow, but from the sounds of it, you will create the table of parameters in excel (according to the format the app needs), and then export it as a CSV file and use that in function with the app to import parameters into Fusion 360.

Thanks,

[Anonymous]

I just got the app and I tried a test and it seems like it can't create parameters that reference another parameter. Am I doing something wrong or does it not have that capability? Thank you for your time.

[adam.nagy]

Hi,

You can modify things the same way as in the Parameters dialog:

But! since the program iterates through the parameters in the csv file from top to bottom - modifies them and creates them in that order as well -, the new parameters which are referencing other ones (or modified parameters which are now referencing other ones) should come AFTER the parameter they are referencing. That's the only issue I can think of at the moment.

So e.g. if you wanted to change "MyParam" so that now it will be referencing "MyNewParam" (a new param which I'm only adding now!), i.e. when I'm modifying "MyParam" then "MyNewParam" does not even exist yet, then that would cause an error. In this case you should move the "MyNewParam" part to the top of the csv file.

Cheers,

[Anonymous]

Thank you for that, it makes sense. But does that work if the model using the parameters is already created? Basically I have files that I am working on that already have user parameters driving them (Around 200 user parameters). I manually created an excel spreadsheet of the user parameters to plan out the order of them for organization purposes because I can't move them around in Fusion once they are created. I once tried "moving" the parameters around by switching around the names of the parameters, and this ended up not working. So would moving the parameters around in the excel spreadsheet have the same effect or would this work? 

[adam.nagy]

"But does that work if the model using the parameters is already created?"

The sample the parameters of which I showed is driving a box already, and when I update parameters in the csv file and import them, those params and the model get udated just fine.

If in the csv file all the referenced new parameters come before the parameters which are referencing them then things should work. 

The content in the csv file will have the same order as in the excel sheet, so if you move them around accordingly then it should make things work.

If you are still running into issues then the best would be if you could narrow down the issue using a very simple model. 

[Anonymous]

Switching to a simplified idea. I just tried importing a csv file that contained Length, Width, and Height parameters in that order and worked great. I then went back to the excel file and switched the order to Height, Length, Width. I then uploaded the new csv file and it said that everything was updated but the order of the parameters did not change. 

[adam.nagy]

As I think you said it as well, Fusion itself does not allow the reordering of parameters either.

Would you mind logging this on the IdeaStation (if not there already)? Maybe this is something many people would need too.

The only way at the moment you could do that is if you deleted all the parameters and then added them back in the order you want.

But then you might run into the referencing issue, so to avoid that you would need to create the parameters with a temporary value then once you imported all of them change their values to the real one which is referencing other params.  

Note: The main purpose of these little addin's was to show people what they can do with the API. The source code is open and free, and users are welcome to modify it as they wish 🙂

Not sure when I'll have time to modify it (maybe during the summer holidays) but I'll keep it in mind.

Actually, a question. What should happen to the order of parameters which are already in the Fusion document but not in the excel file? Should they be before the ones that are being imported or after them?

Hmm... also you cannot delete User params which are being referenced by Model params:

So the final workflow should probably be:

1) Remove references from all parameters (set their value temporarily to e.g. "1") and store original value somewhere

2) Delete all User Params

3) Import User params from csv file and set their values to "1"

4) Add previously deleted User Params if they were not part of the csv file with a temporary value

5) Change the value of each User and Model param to the actual value (which might be referencing other params)

[Anonymous]

I already created a post in the idea station about reordering user parameters. To answer your question the existing user parameters should come before the new ones being imported from excel. Reason being that you have already invested time to think about which parameters you need for the existing ones, and if you are using an excel sheet you are updating your full list which may require some parameters to be driven by the existing ones. For the parameters to work that are referencing other parameters when they are imported, the referenced parameter must come before the new parameter or else you get an error message. Another Idea is that all parameters that are referencing other parameters should get automatically moved to the bottom of the list so the chance of reordering parameters and having an error message pop up would be lessened. Your workflow works but what happens when you are dealing with 200 user parameters? The amount of time it would take to do that process would be ridiculous, because you would have to manually go back through each sketch and feature and redefine each user parameter, because your method breaks the link since you can not delete parameters that are being used. If Fusion could do something that excel does which is find an exact match then it could reference the old name and find an exact match with the new name which would be associated with a different value and it would be replaced in the user parameters dialog box even if the parameters are not in the same location. This would mean that it would not have to break the connection to all of the dimensions and would automatically update itself without the need for your workflow. Now that is if the parameters system referenced the name of the parameter itself and not the location in the dialog box.