Patch Surfaces, remove hole

[Anonymous]

So sometimes you have to start your work where the model ISN'T solid! That's surprising, right?

I got a model from Rhino. The previous user cut out the logo from the surface. In Rhino you just run a command, "untrim" to remove holes. It doesn't work if the trim ends up on an edge though. So when two surfaces meet, if you have a hole, it's annoying to get rid of it. (you'll want to use "Replace Edge" BTW, to solve that there, but there's a lot more manual selection)

But I can't find a similar tool in Fusion. 

So for now, I have to patch fill each hole. Then sew that all together, then merge the surfaces. 

If you're not aware, this is probably the Worst part of Fusion. It'll do that. Great! BUT it changes the shape. Ok, so that's expected. There's always Some slight change due to things Having to round at some point right? Well, Fusion doesn't tell you How much something is changing. So often, it's imperceptible. And other times you make an ugly face with an expression that clearly states "WTF?" And then there are all sorts of changes in between. BUT, for what I need at the moment, it's good enough. It sure would be nice if they were to indicate how much something changes though.

SO, is there any way to just remove a hole in one relatively quick step? The way I'm doing it is rather time consuming.

[TrippyLighting]

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@Anonymous wrote:

SO, is there any way to just remove a hole in one relatively quick step? The way I'm doing it is rather time consuming.

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No unfortunately there isn't. We've  have asked for an un-trim function many times to no avail.

[jeff_strater]

@Anonymous, Peter is correct - today there is no "UnTrim" tool in Fusion surfacing.  There are actually several IdeaStation requests for this:

• https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-ideastation/untrim-tool/idi-p/7298983
• https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-ideastation/untrim-tool/idi-p/5713148
• https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-ideastation/untrim-command-dm-mode/idi-p/6918881
• https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-ideastation/untrim-needed/idi-p/5384671

But, none of these has more than 15 votes so far.  So, if this is something that is important to lots of people, I encourage everyone to vote for it.  At the current level of interest, it is not very high on our priority list.

[HughesTooling]

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@Anonymous wrote:

So for now, I have to patch fill each hole. Then sew that all together, then merge the surfaces. 

If you're not aware, this is probably the Worst part of Fusion. It'll do that. Great! BUT it changes the shape.

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Rather than merge and risk the surface deforming, switch back to the solid work space and select the patches and delete. In the solid workspace the hole will heal and not deform the surface.

As the modeling kernel can obviously untrim a surface it should be pretty easy to implement an untrim for the patch workspace.

Mark

[TrippyLighting]

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@jeff_strater wrote:

But, none of these has more than 15 votes so far.  So, if this is something that is important to lots of people, I encourage everyone to vote for it.  At the current level of interest, it is not very high on our priority list.

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Aaaalllllringhtttt. That's IT!

Let me gear up like Arnold before we continue the conversation!

via GIPHY

Is that really how the Fusion 360 team decides what needs to be added to the tool. More low end CAD functionality for people that truly like Solid Works better but are to cheap to hand over the cash for it ?

When working with surfaces the un-trim function is very useful, particularly when working with other tools in conjunction with Fusion 360. That isn't exactly unheard off. Autodesk aggressively markets to mechanical design and Solid Works users. Recently I need to create technical drawings for my lamp business and found it easier to learn that functionality in ZW3D AND create them there than looking for some function like a decent hole callout in Fusion 360 and not finding it.

We've already almost completely lost the Industrial Design crowd on the forum. Maybe we can occasionally also enhance other areas of Fusion 360 for those folks that appreciate the strengths of Fusion 360, not just the price point!

@jeff_strater this isn't aimed at you personally as you hopefully know, but I do have a gripe with these references to the Idea Station.

[TheCADWhisperer]

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@TrippyLighting wrote: 

When working with surfaces the un-trim function is very useful, particularly when working with other tools in conjunction with Fusion 360. That isn't exactly unheard of. Autodesk aggressively markets to mechanical design .....

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Autodesk already has an MCAD tool for this functionality.

Demonstrated how to untrim imported surfaces in Autodesk Inventor 10 yrs ago.

[jeff_strater]

and here's me:

via GIPHY

I knew this would poke the bear.  I debated whether to respond to this at all, or to just supply the link to the IdeaStation, or respond with "yes, this is on our list, we realize it is important, and we'll get to it as soon as we can".  But, I didn't think that was fair. 

The IdeaStation concerns have been discussed with some regularity, both on the forum and internally.  For us, it all comes down to prioritizing from a very large list of requirements, with limited resources.  The medical triage analogy is pretty accurate.  We have to treat the life-threatening cases first.  Whether we always pick the right projects to fund is certainly debatable.  But, hopefully you all realize that we can't do everything, and we have to have some way to prioritize things.  For better or worse, IdeaStation enhancements are weighted by votes.  I'm just trying to set realistic expectations.

[chrisplyler]

If you change your decision tree model to reflect whatever @TrippyLighting thinks should be prioritized, I suspect things could only get better.

[Anonymous]

You know what's even easier than that? Using Rhino. That's what I did. I just went back to Rhino.

Autodesk (and adobe for that matter) should NOT be using user feedback and Votes to decide what to add. If someone mentions something, your team should evaluate if that would add value.

If you ask users what they want, they'll tell you impossible things mostly. And you only get responses from a few types of people (mostly people who feel they have TIME). The busy people, Those are the people you should be learning from. 

I was too busy. I just went straight to Rhino. I already have tools that can do this function. So I just went there to do it.

I'm not using user voice, because it doesn't work. If you think people might like to have it, YOU add it. Don't try and treat your software like it's open source. We pay for it. 

So add features, don't add features. I'll just use what's the easiest. I use Fusion for a couple really small tasks that it can handle. For engineering work? We use whatever the client wants, or whatever the team we are working in is using...because you can't go back and forth. So that's usually either Creo or SolidWorks. For surfacing? Well, that usually has to be Rhino for speed because defeaturing fails too often in Fusion, and I can't to basic tasks like....remove a hole. 

Looking down the line here, it looks like a Bunch of people are frustrated by user voice. 

[Anonymous]

Just keep in mind that allowing the users to help weight your decisions, you'll end up with features like TrimmyMcHoleInTheSurfaceFace.

That's an obvious joke regarding the naming of a boat, and Several other things. The people who respond to votes, well, they aren't usually the ones that should be contributing.

We find the same thing when doing design research. If you want good research for actual customers, you Pay for it. That's right, you actually have to bribe them. Because you're asking them to take time out of their busy day to help you. 

User voting sounds like the user is helping themselves, but it doesn't work. For one, I notice more engineers respond than designers. Well, fusion is kind of built for both. Engineers are Much more accepting of a workaround. Designers hat that you have to select Every face from a hole individually to select the hole. In rhino? Drag select around it. Don't get me wrong, Rhino has Lots of drawbacks. But they have So many things that just make work faster, when I have to manually do something there, or rebuild work I've already done? it's still many times faster than Fusion at the moment. That's Partly because I know the tool Much better, but every time I go looking for the tool for Fusion? It simply doesn't exist, so it's definitely falling short as well.

I'm getting a little off topic, but my point is, user voting isn't at all a representation of your user population. So treat it that way.

[HughesTooling]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Designers hat that you have to select Every face from a hole individually to select the hole. In rhino? Drag select around it.

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You can window select in Fusion but it doesn't work well if you have history enabled. With history the first click needs to be in space also helps if you use selection filters and have Face Priority enabled.

I usually defeature models with history disabled then enable and carry on with design\manufacture. Only time I have to go back to Rhino is if a model doesn't import and needs fixing to make it a solid or I need to untrim a surface, the outside edge not holes.

@jeff_strater any reason why window selection doesn't work with history enabled if the first click in on a face. See screencast.

Mark

[HughesTooling]

Figured out a way to select a pocket\hole with a window selection. Right click and select Delete, make sure you have your selection filters set to Body Faces and Select Through then window select the feature you want to delete.

Mark

[jeff_strater]

@HughesTooling: "any reason why window selection doesn't work with history enabled if the first click in on a face?".  Yes, in a way, there is a reason.  In parametric designs, click and drag on any BRep entity (face, edge, vertex) is interpreted as a component drag.  The thinking was that this is the only way for the user to exercise joints in an assembly.  I've forgotten, now, why we decided not to implement the "component drag" option checkbox for parametric, but essentially, that is gone in parametric designs, which means that we default to "component drag" being on.  Which means that if you try to start a window select over a face (at least a selectable face), Fusion will try to drag that component.  Not sure that was the best choice, to be honest, but that's the state today.