Fusion 360 for CAD, a failed opportunity

[mcramblet]

Fusion 360 looks like it is going to be adopted as the CAM software at the company I work for. Since that's the case, management posed the logical question; should we look at Fusion 360 to replace SolidWorks for CAD? That's a question I thought I'd never hear. Currently, I'm the only Fusion 360 CAD user and my role is much more on the creative design end of CAD, as opposed to everyone else, who are more on the engineering side of CAD. There was some discussion, but it was tasked to the CAD manager to investigate whether or not it made sense for the whole company to switch over to Fusion 360. It was a resounding NO. Fusion 360 is NOT a replacement for the companies use of SolidWorks. Discussion over, opportunity missed.

Don't get me wrong, I love using Fusion 360. For what I do, creative and conceptual CAD design, it's my tool of choice. I knew, though, once you start moving towards the engineering and production environments, it wasn't going to stand a chance against a fully matured CAD software package like SolidWorks. I also know that no one claims that it is, either from Autodesk or its users here in the forum.

As this process was going on, I wondered how many other companies may have had this same experience. I know Fusion 360 is being adopted by companies for CAM, but I don't see it happening for CAD. I'm aware of other area companies who have switched to Fusion 360 for CAM use, but I'm not aware of any of those same companies moving to it for CAD. In a couple of years, CAM within Fusion 360 went from zero to a major contender in the field, which is great. The CAD side of Fusion 360, while it has made good progress over the years, hasn't seen the explosion of advancement like the CAM side has seen. I just see Fusion 360 for CAM getting a "foot in the door" at companies for Autodesk, and when they then ask the same obvious question as my company did, it falls flat.

All this to say, I really think the CAD side of Fusion 360 needs the love and attention that CAM has gotten for the last few years. Just my 2 cents that I wanted to share, while this whole experience was still fresh.

[robcohee]

Hello @mcramblet 

Thanks for sharing this insight as it is singularly the reason I joined the Fusion 360 Product Management team a year ago after running the Technical Marketing team for our Design Manufacturing portfolio for some time. To give you a bit of background here, I had been using, marketing, and selling Inventor, and before that Mechanical Desktop (showing my age) for over 20 years now. As you and your team have discovered, modeling in Fusion 360 is a different experience from modeling in Inventor or SolidWorks. When we initially built the product, that different experience was by design. The target audience for Fusion was primarily someone new to CAD and for that market we saw and continue to see a great deal of success. 

Over the course of the past 12-18 months we have actively worked toward improving the experience for subscribers transitioning from another CAD solution, while not abandoning the success that we have with users new to CAD. Experienced users have a different expectation for the experience, depth of capabilities in modeling features, minimum set of capabilities to create drawings to standard. To that length I've asked my team to focus on the following:

2D & 3D Sketch

• Sketch Performance & Stability (ongoing)
• Unified 2D & 3D Sketch Experience (coming in February, you're going to love this!)
• Text in Sketch Overhaul (this will include text on a curve / path)
• Parameter Management (direct parameter naming, reference dims in equations, etc)
• Improve Sketch Pattern

Part & Assembly Modeling

• Surface Modeling (improve & enhance loft, introduce ruled surface, un-trim, parting line and draft, rich error reporting, etc)
• Solid Part Modeling (finish workflows for the purposes of speeding the time to complete models, ie thin features, mirror & combine, etc. Introduce features for which there are no workaround ie. Emboss, Lofted Flange, Flex / Deform, etc)
• Assembly Modeling (Configurations. Yes, I said configurations :), improving the component positioning with joints (you'll see this improvement very soon), improve overall performance, replacing components, external component creation option for improved bottom up modeling, etc)

Drawings

• Drawing Views (Broken, Aux, Break Out Views. These are highest priority as we 100% understand how critical these are)
• Dimensions & Annotations (Sketch & Weld Symbols, Hole & Thread Notes, Bend Tables, Parts Lists Customization, etc)
• You will see progress this calendar year against this list. This past year we more than doubled the size of the drawings development team, and this spring you will see a significant release for drawings, and a much greater cadence of improvements from the team ongoing. 

I fully realize the difference between saying what we are working on and delivering on it. In the context of this discussion I am simply trying to articulate what we've determined to be critical "table stakes" for users switching from CAD vs. building a product for someone with little or no CAD experience. We recognize the differences and are executing against a plan that reflects the needs of experienced teams of users.

I'd very much appreciate the opportunity to connect directly with you to hear your teams feedback, and if it aligns with our understanding of what must be done in the product in order to better meet your and many other teams expectations. What I've heard from a large number of customers is a general theme of finish what you started. I'm curious if your team feels the same.

Thank you for your note, and for your continued interest in Fusion 360. Please contact me directly at [email protected] 

Rob Cohee

Sr. Product Manager | Fusion 360 Design & Documentation

[mcramblet]

@robcohee -

Thanks for the response. I'd be more than willing to contact you and convey what the big issues were for the CAD manager. I'll follow up on that separately , via email.

What's in the works all sounds really good and I look forward to seeing those things, as they are rolled out. I'm glad to hear that Autodesk has already noticed the issue and is actively working on a plan. I also understand what a large task it is. You're correct, one of the reasons I personally enjoy Fusion 360 is the ease and streamlined interface and workflow. When I need to crack open SolidWorks, that's one of my biggest complaints, the overly complicated and bloated interface. Adding some of the needed functions to satisfy more demanding CAD environments while also maintaining what makes Fusion 360 a pleasure to work with, will be a tall order. Autodesk has been extremely successful in adding power in a simplistic manner in CAM, hopefully that same strategy can work in CAD. I, for one, am rooting for the success of Fusion 360.

Once I have an opportunity to get with the CAD manager to make sure I have all of his findings and issues, I'll report back to you the results.

Thank-you.

[TrippyLighting]

@mcramblet your post has received another like. I really did not like to have to like that post 😉

Can you be more specific as to what is missing and what criteria that decision was based on ?

[mcramblet]

@TrippyLighting -

Yes, when I talk to the manager and am sure I have my "facts" straight, I'll post here what the biggest issues were.

[TrippyLighting]

Thanks. It would be interesting to learn.

I also fully agree with your statement that Fusion 360 is great for conceptual design, which also is may main use for it.

[TrippyLighting]

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@robcohee wrote:

• 
  ... un-trim ...

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That alone will yield opening a bottle of fine wine, however,

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@robcohee wrote:

• ....Configurations. Yes, I said configurations ...

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When that will be released I am going to down a whole case 😉

[mcramblet]

@robcohee  and @TrippyLighting -

There were 2 big deal breakers and a few secondary issues.

The 2 big issues were the lack of configurations and the lack of smart features, both of which we use extensively in both the part creation and in the assembly/tooling creation. The lack of smart features was talked about more, as we have developed a large library of very specific features that carry over their own specifications. The ability to have a library of pre-developed features that everyone uses is a big time saver and eliminates a large number of human error mistakes. 

A lack of features in both the drawing and the sketching were mentioned as secondary concerns, as was the lack of multi-thickness shelling. These were items that the manager thought could probably be worked around, but were things that were pointed out as less than ideal.

Three of these issues sound as though they will see some improvement coming in the future. According to my manager, he talked to someone at Autodesk and was told that he didn't see how anything similar to the SolidWorks smart-features was even possible in Fusion 360. Perhaps that's why it was zeroed in on and focused on a such a deal-breaker to our implementation.

Anyway, these were the issues that were reported up the company chain that put an end to the discussion. If there are any more questions, let me know and I'll do my best to get answers.

Thank-you,

Michael

[Lonnie.Cady]

On the opposite end of the spectrum from a large company with an engineering department however, We went back to Solidworks 2020 for CAD reasons as well.

I had dropped SW maintenance back in 2017 hopeful the CAD side would catch up.  Back in November of 2019 we paid all back maintenance and went back to SW2020.  I had a seat of fusion ultimate for myself and one for my son.  At this point, we are probably going to buy a second seat of SW.

I think there are a couple of other reasons CAM appears to show explosive growth.  Not to say they are not a great team of developers. However, they also bought most of their cam technology to start with.  They had a very strong code base to build on.  HSMWorks, Delcam, FeatureCAM, Powermill, etc........ Again I acknowledge they have still done a lot of work.  But it was not like they were starting from scratch.

With that said fusion is not so young anymore.  I thought its early predecessor was available on OSX back in 2011/2012

[kb9ydn]

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@TrippyLighting wrote:

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@robcohee wrote:

• ....Configurations. Yes, I said configurations ...

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When that will be released I am going to down a whole case 😉

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Configurations,  in-context component editing, and timeline free assemblies.  In that order.

C|