Joint to origin only allows joints parallel to XY plane?

[Scoox]

Hi quick question, when snapping components to an axes origin*, why does the joint disc thing only allow joints parallel to the XY plane? There seems to be no way to get the joint disc to flip to either the XZ or YZ planes, not even when I'm holding Ctrl over these planes.

This can be problematic if the only flat face of the component you are trying to join needs to be parallel to a plane other than the XY plane. I was hoping there'd be a rotation handle for each axis, but there is only one such handle and it only allows rotation around the Z axis i.e. parallel to the XY plane, which isn't helpful.

Thanks!

*Off-topic: what's the official name for what I've referred to as the "joint disc"? And where can I find more info about it (for example what it means when it flips upside down and turns from white to yellow)? I mean this:

[davebYYPCU]

Joint origin and Joint disc, both should get hits in the search.

Select a face, you are stuck, disc will always be planar to the selection.

Edges can be parallel or normal, vertices are more versatile.

In your case add a sketch article to select for the purpose.

Might help...

[chrisplyler]

I've also seen them referred to as "joint coins."

Please note that, regardless of where you click and where it default snaps to, the settings in the Joint palette let you then rotate it relative to the X, Y or Z axis.

Edit: Ooops, never mind. I was mistaken.

[Scoox]

I'm just curious, why does Fusion 360 pick the Z axis and not the other axes? What's special about the Z axis? It would be more intuitive if the part could be rotated around all three axes, just like the Move/Copy command.

[chrisplyler]

It would be MOST intuitive - if you're already familiar with placing joints correctly - to have the control/snap functionality of joint placement that works on bodies...also work the same on the origin planes/axes.

[laughingcreek]

when I'm having a particularly had time getting those dang coins to line up, I'll drop a joint origin, which allows you to redefine the z and x axis of the disk.  

[jeff_strater]

the "reorient" control in the Joint Origin dialog will allow you to select a different orientation for the origin.  In this example, I chose the origin X axis for the Joint Origin "Z" axis (the over-use of XYZ in Joint Origins has long bothered me - it is confusing.  We should use UVW or some other notation for Joint Origin axes...).

[Scoox]

But this is not about joint origins, but points such as the top-assembly origin.

[laughingcreek]

using a joint origin at the model origin is the workaround for the behavior your describing.

[jeff_strater]

right, what @laughingcreek is correct.  Sorry, I did not make that really clear.  My mistake.

Some internal details may help.  All joints are between Joint Origins.  Originally, Fusion required you to create explicit Joint Origins before creating Joints - Joints would only allow Joint Origins as selections.  That was an awkward workflow, so we implemented "implicit Joint Origins".  This is what happens when you create a Joint between two components, and select geometry (those snap points).  Those geometry selections are converted to hidden Joint Origins.  However, to avoid exposing you all to all of the complexity of the explicit Joint Origin command, we removed some of the functionality of Joint Origin from the implicit versions.  Reorient and Flip are two examples.  So is the ability to offset the origin from the selected geometry.  So, the solution for any situation where the implicit Joint Origin doesn't give you the right answer is to use explicit Joint Origin.

The default of mapping the origin Z to the Joint Origin Z is just a default.  There had to be some default orientation.  It seems like a reasonable default in most cases.  And, to be honest, we have not seen this complaint a lot.  Not sure if that is because people are silent about it, or what.

Hope that helps, and I apologize for confusing the situation.

[Scoox]

articular caseThanks @jeff_strater, that makes sense now. Some thoughts though:

First, I don't see why implicit joint origins can't make all three directions readily available, especially coordinate origins, which naturally have three planes. Based on how this works elsewhere in the program, it seems a reasonable expectation to be able to hold down Ctrl over one of the three planes and then have the joint origin lie in that plane instead of the default XY plane.

Another case: Say I want to place an explicit joint origin at the centre of a sphere. Again, the Z direction is the default and only direction available. In this case this makes sense because a sphere has no flat surfaces that we could use as a reference. However, once the joint origin is placed pointed in the Z direction, why not provide rotation handles for all axes, not just the Z axis? I find the "Reorient" options very counter-intuitive. The way I tend to use this is to randomly select axes until the joint origin is oriented the way I want. By contrast, rotation handles effectively eliminate this trial-and-error process.

[kristoferstichter]

I run into this issue frequently.  I agree with Scoox, why not make all 3 planes available at the origin, or angle adjustment available for all axes.

Example:  Need to join a cylinder to the origin in the horizontal plane.  Can't reorient a joint origin on the cylinder to provide the necessary joint orientation.

Is there any other method to address this?  Are there still too few complaints to get any attention on this issue?

[laughingcreek]

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@kristoferstichter wrote:

...

Is there any other method to address this?  ...

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place a discrete joint origin as described in post 7

[kristoferstichter]

On a horizontal cylinder, I am not able to select different axes to reorient the joint origin.  Axes cannot be selected.

I created a sketch in the XZ plane and drew a vertical line (colinear with Z axis).  I was then able to select this line for use as the Z axis to reorient the joint origin.

Thanks for the prompt reply