It's that time of the year again

[O.Tan]

It's that time of the year again where I'll need to update my Fusion 360 subscription again, I got it from the MacAppStore version as local reseller is slow at responding (at the time of purchase), not used to sell for personal usage (their forms always have a company field in it) and asks too many questions. If AD would allow people purchase right from their website regardless where they are, that'll be perfect.

So last year I brought up a very active post "An honest plea to Fusion 360 Development team”, drawings is still not "production ready" but to be able to see constant improvements (some minor, some major) is a good sign, and just couple of days ago, Timera just posted an excellent report on what’s currently being worked on, next and upcoming. I know many people are crying out for Sheet Metal, but trust me that you'll be happier when AD releases a properly baked/ready SM workspace then what they did with Drawings (introduced earlier then CAM and SIM, yet is much behind in terms of progress then the other 2)

Also another project that seemed to miss it's release date is edit in place External References - Branching & Merging, I'm not sure what's the development status of that one but it does show the difficulty of developing softwares. In terms of stability, Fusion is getting better at that, it's certainly more stable then last year. In terms of new features, there's some things I liked but I'm still waiting for things like Hole Wizard, Bolted Connections, Joints with variable & non-linear travel rate, Joints for Chains related object, improvements to Fusion DM and Fusion Hybrid modelling (direct and history modelling environment living side by side and be able to use interchangeably with...).

And for those wondering, yes, I'll continue my Fusion subscription for another year. Kudos to those working at AD on their excellent customer support, transparency, and hard work!

[al.whatmough]

@daniel_lyall good to hear, keep us in the loop if there is more needed!

[daniel_lyall]

@al.whatmough what phil wants layers, if it's done as one profile for the whole  thing that's 1 layer. what it does ok

1) If it done with a different profile for each part have a new .dxf for each new profile generated.

OR'}

2) The colors are useful as long as there are lots of colors, 1 profile 1 color, 10 profiles 10 colors, 100  profles 100 colors so on.

Ever one will be good, 1 would make people happy for the mean time.

Is .dxf import and export going to be tidied up so it works better, I have been talking to the designer of gearotic about this, some of his user's use fusion and the way the .dxf's are imported into fusion,

It makes the .dxf not useable you have to redo it in fusion, I have worked out the work around for it, it would be good if they did not have to use the work around.

gearotic put out is .stl, .dxf, .crv and .svg

@PhilProcarioJr no layer, a almost perfect .dxf it has lines and arcs only, what's realy good for low file size.

[HughesTooling]

@daniel_lyall I find DXF exports from Rhino are pretty good, try the attached gear the arcs and splines come in nice and clean.

The settings I use from Rhino are here.

Mark

[daniel_lyall]

@HughesTooling

Now that is clean,

Between me and Art we have worked out where the problem is, if he was not a 1 man band he could rewrite gearotic so it can output .dxf that fusion likes.

He's thinking about doing some changes that will help but with what he has to do at the moment he just does not have the time, next winter maybe.

He only just finished doing changes so gearotic can put out .crv and svg.  I have not tried doing a .crv to dxf conversion through Vcarve pro yet the dxf from Vcarve pro are fine in fusion.

if the crv convert fine, I will do the conversion for people who don't have a vectric product for a $1.

Now if Fusion could handle .dxf better in the import and export the user base would grow very fast, it is one thing that is holding some of the hobby guys up they have to keep their existing programs for dxf.

@al.whatmough this is something you guys should get done, at the moment for a easy cad/cam there is vectric and fusion maybe that other online cad program but it has no cam.

For cabinet making it's A cabinet making program, Inventor, A vectric product, other programs that have cabinet making stuff built in then fusion last.

why is fusion last .dxf not that good, nesting by hand, no form tools, dogbone for flat pack is a dead script use one time if changes are needed the dogbones need removed first then changes made then put Back on.