Indicate if features, sketch items etc. are used for reference by other items

[hoegge]

When you get into trouble in big designs is often if you delete things that are referenced by other items. You get a warning before you delete, but since there seems to be no way to find out WHICH other features reference the things you want to delete, it is hard to remedy. It would be very nice if you in general could "ask" everything about which specific items depends on it (by reference) and which specific items an item reference. Or is there a way I have overlooked?

[innovatenate]

If a sketch entity loses references to its source geometry, the color of the sketch entities will change to yellow (perhaps red as well in certain environment color). You can right click on geometry and choose to Break Link to resolve these errors. This breaks the associative link to the source geometry.

If you right click on a feature in the timeline, there is an option to convert to DM feature. This will convert that feature to a direct modeling feature which can also break the associativity and allow to bypass the need to re-associate references for features.

I'm not aware of any features at this time that will provide a list of references in the design. Sometimes the warnings and error messages can be helpful for tracking down what is missing (e..g base plane, or source geometry ,etc). You may want to add an enhancement request by submitting an Idea to the Fusion 360 Ideastation. I agree that it would be helpful, to be able to better track cross component references. 

I hope that helps. Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,

[hoegge]

@innovatenate For instance as shown in this image, there is nothing indicating where the problem is or how to resolve it

I found the issue by deleting tings until the warning wen away. The problem was a "Sketch point" in the lower left corner (point number two from the right in the bottom), where one of the sketch points were a missing reference - which by the way is called "vertex" in the warning window - why not sketch point? 

[Anonymous]

Just wondering if you ever found a workaround for this.  I'm surprised such a useful, even necessary, feature doesn't exist. I get that warning about something I want to delete being referenced by other features but I'm helpless as to how to avoid breaking something.

[rodrigo.alvarez]

Working with assemblies, sometimes I want to delete a component I had inserted and I get the warning. I've found that if I proceed and delete the component, it will delete other features down the timeline. Sometimes this is nice (like deleting joints), but sometimes it can wreak havoc. 

A list of a feature's dependencies, or at the least, an indication of what was deleted would be super.