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Fusion R.U.L.E #1 and #2

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Message 1 of 103
TrippyLighting
75771 Views, 102 Replies

Fusion R.U.L.E #1 and #2

[Post modified to remove "360"]

Fusion R.U.L.E #1

When in doubt, before doing anything, create a component and make sure it's activated.

 

All objects created after activating the component such as sketches, bodies, construction geometry, joint origins, etc.  are created in that component.

 

This has several advantages:

  1. On activation the timeline is filtered to show only those items in the timeline that pertain to that component. That will make the quickly growing timeline much easier to work with.
  2. If a component is exported to the data panel with "save as" this will also export the complete parametric design history.
  3. The joints in the "Assemble menu only work with components.
    Drawings can only be created from components
  4. Only components show on the BOM.
  5. Only components can be added to selection sets.
  6. Only components can be isolated.

When another component needs to be edited for example to add geometry, it should be activated before doing so.

the above points apply to assemblies as well.

 

Exceptions to R.U.L.E #1

There are a number of other workflows that are  perfectly valid but the first step would not be creating a component. For the most part these are top-down design workflows:

  1. When you create a skeleton sketch that carries features of several parts of the design and is used to extrude or otherwise create several bodies that then are turned into components. That conversion into a component, however, should happen as soon as possible because features added to a body contained in a component are all added to that components design history.
  2. When the design starts with a T-Spline for example the exterior shell of a product that is then split int one or more bodies. Here also conversion into a component should happen as soon as the bodies are created.
  3. A design for a single part to be used as an external, linked component (X-REF) in other designs. No component creation is necessary in this case as that design when inserted into another design is inserted as as a component.

 This is also well explained in this 6 minute video tutorial.

 

Fusion R.U.L.E #2
Name Your Stuff!

 

No explanation necessary...hopefully :winking_face:


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102 REPLIES 102
Message 61 of 103

@kgrunawalt : My understanding of the rule is: Instead of having multiple bodies in the root (or a manual created component) you should use (more) components. I'm pretty sure you'll find many post here that strictly vote against creating a component by default.

Message 62 of 103

It boils down to this: What is an assembly? If you can answer that confidently and understand the answer, then you would already know what the real problem is: that these rules have been accepted as doctrine by new users, and unlearning something can be traumatic.

I think you should unstick this thread, Autodesk.

Message 63 of 103

Right I confess that I have not read all of the posts. I should do that.

 

I'm curious if there are things that could change about Fusion that would reduce the love of this rule. We have some limits on restructuring for example. IMO, restructuring does not have to be a feature in the timeline -- but not doing that means reworking the timeline automatically and that needs to be done carefully.

 

We do have some attention being paid to assemblies that will hopefully improve parametric assembly workflows when released.

Message 64 of 103
etfrench
in reply to: kgrunawalt


@kgrunawalt wrote:

As a adsk dev whose worked on assemblies, this rule really bothers me. Every design has a component from the start and if you are modeling something to insert into an assembly, creating a component under the root component just adds DOF and assembly where you don't want it.

 

I see the exception for designing something to insert. But it seems like you should almost always design something for inserting.


This ignores the design in place workflow. Also, don't forget personal license users can only have 10 active files.

ETFrench

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Message 65 of 103
randy
in reply to: lichtzeichenanlage

Yet this is exactly what the current system requires, since RULE 1 says to do that as the very first step. I have yet to find a situation where I would NOT want a default to be a component. There is no additional advantage to having a root of a design file NOT be a component. I believe the design for this was done before multiple components in one file became popular so that one can simply "include" a file into another design. That time has passed.
Message 66 of 103

AFAIK 10 active documents don't effect the number of references you're using. It only effects the number of documents "in Edit mode". 

Message 67 of 103


@Fully_Defined wrote:
It boils down to this: What is an assembly? If you can answer that confidently and understand the answer, then you would already what the real problem is: that these rules have been accepted as doctrine by new users, and unlearning something can be traumatic.

I think you should unstick this thread, Autodesk.

We can make that happen if you provide a better guideline :winking_face:

 


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Message 68 of 103
TrippyLighting
in reply to: kgrunawalt

 


@kgrunawalt wrote:

We have some limits on restructuring for example. IMO, restructuring does not have to be a feature in the timeline -- but not doing that means reworking the timeline automatically and that needs to be done carefully.

.



I am all ears!

 

just as a reminder , the initial post is from 2016 and as such is ancient. That does not mean, however, it is invalid. It was conceived to help new users over the first hurdles and that worked brilliantly! 
That it has some undesirable side effects isn’t a fault of the rule.


The real problem with the rule is that folks don’t manage to read past the first sentence/paragraph. Unfortunately it is almost always only that first paragraph that is quoted.

 


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Message 69 of 103

@TrippyLighting IDK what a guideline is for unsticking a thread.

Message 70 of 103
etfrench
in reply to: Fully_Defined

It should be rather obvious that creating a new guideline for a workflow is required if you don't like Rule #1 and #2. 

 

ETFrench

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Message 71 of 103
randy
in reply to: etfrench

The point in my original post is that the fact that Rule 1 (create a component) exists points to a deficiency in the tool. Rule 2 (naming) is just good engineering practice.
I'm frankly very surprised that the designers did not incorporate object-like handling more extensively. That's effectively what components are.
If I fail to remember Rule 1 it's a mess trying to turn the design into a component, which is the normal work case. If I try I can transfer bodies, but rarely sketches or pictures, or analyses.
Message 72 of 103
randy
in reply to: lichtzeichenanlage

Yes, there are those opinions, but why?  If we follow Rule 1 then it's the same as having a default component.  And we've all failed to follow Rule 1 at some point and paid the price in awkward handling of the design.  Failure to do so give you a lot of stuff in the root with no comprehensive way to transfer it all to a component.  The only way I've found is to open another file and "include" the original in it as a component.

 

This is weirdly abstract given the relative orthogonality of the rest of the tool design.

Message 73 of 103
randy
in reply to: Fully_Defined

I think the more relevant question is "what is the basic element in an assembly?".  If it's a body then the current design method is fine, although clunky, as most higher level operations require components.  If you choose components as the basic element then these problems vanish.

Message 74 of 103
Fully_Defined
in reply to: etfrench

@etfrench I disagree, but...

 

NEW RULES:

 

Rule #1: Not everything is an assembly.

 

Rule #2: There is little practical use for renaming sketches, bodies, extrudes, etc. That's what parameters are for!

 

Rule #3 there are exceptions to Rule #1 and Rule #2.

Message 75 of 103
Fully_Defined
in reply to: randy

@randyYour question presupposes that EVERYTHING is an assembly.

Message 76 of 103
TrippyLighting
in reply to: randy


@randy wrote:

RULE #1 is an artifact of Fusion not coming up in a mode where it can be immediately useful....

 

... That this is required is simply unexplainable.


It can and already has been explained a number of times in this thread.

 

Working exclusively with external / linked components might be a better workflow for you as it also does not require component activation, which is also just as easy to forget as creating a component.

In my experience, however, that is also a slower workflow than creating an assembly design in a single Fusion 360 design/file. Pick your poison :winking_face:

  


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Message 77 of 103
TrippyLighting
in reply to: kgrunawalt


@kgrunawalt wrote:

As a adsk dev whose worked on assemblies, this rule really bothers me.


@kgrunawalt I can understand that

I've had a conversation with @Fully_Defined  about this before and also see his point.

 

The forum software now allows to edit even ancient posts (or so it seems). Please continue to provide feedback so we can create a better guideline. 

A thought I had is: we break this rule into a 2-part post. A TLDR version and an extended version for those users who have the patience to read more than the first sentence. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, I am still hoping that those select few users exist :winking_face: 


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Message 78 of 103
fredsi
in reply to: TrippyLighting

I've become a bit confused (could be old age!) about Rule #1 and Configurations. I recently created a team to try out configurations; created and saved a file, then created a component and proceeded to create a few different configurations of said component. When I saved the configured file, two things happened: 1) got a dialog informing me it would be saved as a configured design, and 2) hit Save and got the upload spiral - that went continuously. When I finally checked notifications it said upload to cloud had failed. I've tried mutiple variations of creating configured part files, but they have all failed to save.



I've begun to wonder if Rule #1 and its implicit creation of an assembly is at odds with the intent of Configurations of parts. The only successful file save was first saving a file after naming it; once I created a component in the empty file, and then configured it, saving the file became unsuccessful. I am obviously doing something incorrectly, so need to be pointed in the right direction. Thanks in advance.



Fred
Message 79 of 103
laughingcreek
in reply to: fredsi

I think your issue is unrelated to the implementation of Rule #1.   I don't have any problems along the lines of what your describing.  I suggest screen casting the steps your doing to create this problem, starting a new post, and posting the screen cast there.

Message 80 of 103
fredsi
in reply to: laughingcreek

laughing creek,

Thanks for the input. The fact that you mentioned having no problems essentially told me the problem must be somewhere else (like between my ears :-). Anyway, went home and tried same routine on my iMac - no problems. Presumably, problem is with Win11 machine at work; more precisely our network/server system's handling of the uploads. Will get it sorted. Thanks for the reply.

 

Fred

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