Intent Driven Design Preview

[Richard.stubley]

Hi everyone,

I’m extremely excited to announce the public preview of Intent-Driven Design in Fusion.

Fusion has always supported both internal and external modelling, but it has historically defaulted to internal. With this preview, we are bringing external workflows to the forefront,  making them just as visible, intuitive, and easy to use as internal modelling.

Parts and Assemblies introduce a clearer and more guided way to work externally by default, helping you build structure, clarity, and intent directly into your designs.

A Hybrid Design approach is what you know and use in Fusion today. Defaulting to Internal modeling with External Still possible and viable. 

What is Intent-Driven Design?

Intent-Driven Design allows you to explicitly declare the design intent between your parts, assemblies, or hybrid designs. This gives you focused, task-specific workflows and a much clearer understanding of how your design is meant to behave and be structured.

Why are we doing this?

We want Fusion assemblies to be easier and more intuitive than ever.

This work directly addresses long-standing confusion around assemblies, especially for users trying to build structured designs using bodies instead of components.

Our goal is to finally put an end to the infamous “rule number one” confusion and give you workflows that guide you naturally toward best practices.

This project has been in development with our Insider community for about six months, and I’m incredibly excited that it’s now ready for public preview so all of you can see what’s coming.

There’s a lot more we could say about the intricacies of this new workflow, but here is a detailed blog post: https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/blog/intent-driven-design/

Please turn the preview on and get an early look. I look forward to getting into the details!

[Warmingup1953]

Ok, I'm in!

Suggestion?

[Richard.stubley]

@Warmingup1953, nice suggestion!

How are you finding the Intent Driven Design workflows so far? 

[TrippyLighting]

From your blog!

"Pro tip: If you’re not sure where your project is headed or which path to start with, begin with Part Design.

From Fusion R.U.L.E #1

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

Looks to be the same to me 😉

[Richard.stubley]

Hey Pete, 

Yes it's exactly the same principal, but hopefully now helps out all the one part assemblies people make inadvertently.  

[aleksei_ovsienko]

Tried it. To be honest it makes it worse. To me it complicates things, not makes them easier. What if I start an Assembly and then at some point decide to make it Hybrid and create an internal component? How do I do that? The only thing the Assembly mode does is it doesn't let you create internal components. But what if I change my mind halfway? 
I completely get the "only externals" approach for collaboration and data management. The way I see it - if it has a part number and someone or something needs to be able to work with it beside myself - it must be external. But some auxillary geometry that doesn't make its way into a BOM I will still keep internal to declutter the cloud. Certain in-place wiring, glue blobs, anti-tamper seal filling, things like that. 

The real problem in my opinion is that internal components have unique features not available for external ones. You can't move external components in between subassemblies for some reason and you can't cut extrude external components in assembly. For example if I have a weldment that needs machining post welding I can't just extrude cut a sketch in an assembly because it will tell me there are no bodies to cut. Won't let me cut external component assemblies at all. Forces me to derive a separate model for post machining. Drives me insane.

I can't even punch a hole in place for a drill-to-fit situation.

Before we are given an option to lock ourselves out of internal components we need the same features all available for external components:

1. Assembly cutting.

2. Moving external components in between subassemblies or into a new subassembly.

3. Moving/copying bodies in between external components. Thats for when I need to quickly merge a downloaded STP assembly into a single part for example. That may be tricky to implement. But I need a simple way of turning imported assemblies into dummies. I'm not dragging a hundred PCB components into my BOM.

[TrippyLighting]

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@aleksei_ovsienko wrote:

Tried it. To be honest it makes it worse. To me it complicates things, not makes them easier.

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Agreed!

@Richard.stubley 

The very first thing I would expect is that when this is released is that I can enable whatever I want as a preference. I will ALWAYS work in Hybrid mode.

I can see how this can help beginners o folks with a serios attention span problem, but I am not a beginner and use Fusion in a professional setting.

With the preview enabled, now each time I create a new design I have to choose what to do twice!

Once I have to answer what I want to design:

I request to be able to set Hybrid as a default in preferences at the point in time this goes into production!

The second time I have to answer a question is this:

By default I usually create timeline based designs. But I work with an enormous amount of imported geometry from manufacturers/vendors and out own mechanical design department. They design 100% in SolidWorks. Again, by default I expect to import geometry into a DM design. However, I can only set one default for new designs AND imported in the preferences. So I have set that preference to  Prompt, so I have a choice.

That choice is then also made more unintuitive by a seriously stupid implementation. If I opened/created the previous design as a parametric design with a timeline, the newly imported design will also have a timeline. In order to import a STEP file, for example I first have to create a new empty design and choose DirectModeling Mode. Then I can File->open the STEP file  in a DM design mode and are left with an empty tab of a design I don't need or want. At least that is what I have been able to figure out this far.
I could of course delete the timeline in every imported design. That might be the easier alternative, but I work with very large imports (5000+) components. Not only does the import of such design take much longer in timeline mode, it is much larger in data size (up to 3 times), which in result takes longer to open. Last week I tried to delete the timeline in an imported design of that size and after 30 minutes I had to use the task manager to quit Fusion! 

In combination this is a hindrance for professional and experienced users I would not expect!

I would strongly urge the Fusion team to implement such features in a way that does not hinder professional and experienced users in their work. 

[a.laasW8M6T]

As a primarily CAM user of Fusion, Hybrid is the only one that makes sense, all of my workflows rely on Internal components

Currently you can use CTRL+N to create your preferred document, but I propose having a setting to flip this behavior so Clicking plus symbol at the top creates the preferred document and if for whatever reason you wanted to create a Part or assembly(extremely unlikely for me) you would use CTRL+N.

I agree that as advanced users we should never see the "What do you want to design" screen

I would be happy If there was a way to get the current behavior with any bloat, plus I do not want to have to explain new stuff to our other users, invariably the will pick the wrong type and then wonder why it doesn't work

[Richard.stubley]

Hi @aleksei_ovsienko 

To answer your question of 

I'm happy to say that's simple done, under document settings you can easily change the design type. 

[Richard.stubley]

@TrippyLighting 

In reply to:

I request to be able to set Hybrid as a default in preferences at the point in time this goes into production!

This can be done now in your preferences setting the default design type. 

Being 100% transparent choosing this preferences will not remove the dialog. It will pre select your preferences - Hybrid, so you only have one click not 2. 
It will also have created your default on launch underneath the dialog, clicking anywhere in Fusion will dismiss the prompt to reveal your default doc. 
then using CTRN+N will also create your default doc without the prompt. 

If you would like to continue to work in Hybrid if you are not collaborating with others, wanting the performance gains or external or reusing parts across different assemblies then this will not have changed for you. You will see the prompt on start up. but that should be the only change you really see. 

[TrippyLighting]

@Richard.stubley

I re-enabled the new feature set in the preferences and restarted Fusion.
The choices I see are shown in the screenshot below:

I explained why I chose "Prompt" as the default. This is not my preferred way of working. It is a suboptimal choice as there is no choice that allows my preferred way of working. 
My preferred way of working is to start using hybrid designs by default with no additional clicks needed.
I would also, by default, like to be able to import/open STEP or other file formats in direct modeling mode, without more clicks or workarounds.\

Edit:

I am also not particularly fond of the new Tool Bar layout. The Assemble menu is now a separate tab I have to click on to get to the Relationship meu  to be able to select a joint type.

Old Toolbar

New Toolbar

 

More clicks and more mouse movement that adds up quickly when you do this a hundred times a day.

Fortunately We can add the most used commands to the S-key Menu.

[Richard.stubley]

@TrippyLighting 
Regarding the toolbar layout, 100% agree, when this goes into production the Assemble Commands will be back in the solid tab. 
That was one of the items that although important I decided it wasn't on the cutline for the preview, other items like getting the switcher between design types took priority. I would have rathered the UI be exactly as planned but we had to draw the line somewhere. Without going through the list of tasks left the toolbar change is the only real user facing change left, there rest is "backend" work. 

[TrippyLighting]

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@Richard.stubley wrote:

... I would have rathered the UI be exactly as planned but we had to draw the line somewhere. Without going through the list of tasks left the toolbar change is the only real user facing change left, there rest is "backend" work. 

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Fair point! Thanks for the feedback!

[tookemtoni]

Great to see Fusion trying new things. I have no problem with the hybrid system and will continue to use it BUT….

I frequently work with 500-1000 components and Fusion is noticeably slower. I would gladly DM the you a link of a hybrid design to see if a Part and Assembly workflow could improve performance.  

[aleksei_ovsienko]

Yes, this is also something I noticed coming from Creo. Fusion is slow and prone to random crashes. It crashes on me several times a day. It is particularly slow when dealing with imported assemblies that were then rigid grouped to stop them from falling apart.
Creo handled large assemblies much more gracefully. And it also is pretty hard to crash.

[TrippyLighting]

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@aleksei_ovsienko @tookemtoni  please keep this thread limited to feedback on the new features.
Precisely none of the workflows resulting from these new features are new. Any and all of it we were able to do previously. As such, there will be NO changes in performance.

Also, when you do make statements about performance, you need to be way more specific!

Both of you would very likely be surprised if you looked at the other design workflows. As such reasons for performance problems might be very differnt.

One reason @tookemtoni's designs might be slow is that they use configurations heavily. If you want to share a design, I'd be happy to look at it.

@aleksei_ovsienko I work with Fusions on three rather different computers: 2 Windows 11, one macOS (still Intel). I very rarely experience Fusion crashes. Maybe once a month.

I can also not relate to your statements in respect to imported designs. That comprises a large part of my work in developing concepts for manufacturing automation systems. 

Once a design gets over 5000 components, that's what I call large.

If you experience that many crashes, I suggest you open a new thread, post models and crash logs, and make a screencast of your workflow.

[tookemtoni]

Here is a fork to this thread: Intent Driven Design and Performance - Autodesk Community

[TrippyLighting]

If you've had a chance to look into this a little more, you'll discover this is simply a limitation in menu choices.

When you are in Part Design" mode, you cannot create a new component in that part. The "Assemble" menu is gone.

When you are in "Assembly" mode, you can only insert external components.

You can create new components, but your choice is limited to external components. 

If you looked at the toolbar carefully, you'll see that you can create sketches.
Now, if you select the "Utilities" tab, you'll see that there is a switch, that allows you to enable to create and model internal components.
So in essence, that allows you to switch to Hybrid mode.

Working strictly with external components still has limitations. Not all things are possible with EIP (Edit in place).

For example you cannot EIP configured components to add a new configuration. You'll have to open these configured designs create the new configuration(s) save the design and then update the assembly design.
You cannot create explicit joint origins in EIP etc.

References between the assembly and/or external components can be created using Assembly Contexts, but that isn't nearly a s frictionless as it is with internal components. 

[Richard.stubley]

@TrippyLighting 

Perfect analysis, 2 comments from my side. 

1) This is all about making external easier for those (there are many) that prefer that workflow, not about convincing users who what to model internally to change.
2) This is just a start of improving external workflows, EIP with configs is just one of many items high on our list.  

Our view and early feedback is users using both depending on their intent. Small isolated assembly, or ideation, Hybrid can't be beaten. Large Assembly for production in a team. Parts and assemblies help keep discipline and allow concurrent working. 

[djlunty]

@Richard.stubley

I have had this feature feature turned on for a couple of weeks.  Not sure why this is necessary - to me it is just a "nag screen" that pops up every time I start Fusion.  I don't see where there is any advantage to having these options appear every time I load Fusion.  If somebody wants to make a bunch of parts (components in the Fusion world) and then load them into an assembly file, have at it.  They should not need these options presented to get started if they know what they are doing.  If they do not know what they are doing I can see many starting with the wrong method and wondering what has gone wrong.  The rest of us can carry along as we always have using the hybrid method .  At least give us the option to turn off the these options that appear every time Fusion is loaded.