Performance problems/crashes when modeling many objects

[Anonymous]

Dear community,

I have recently started using Fusion 360. I would like to illustrate different types of warehouses in 3D. Since I want to show different views, it is not enough to draw the warehouse in 2D.For this I need to sketch a rack, some loading units and simple vehicles. All the bodies used are very simple (cuboids and cylinders).

Modeling a load unit (box) and a shelf is not a problem. If I now try to build up my warehouse via copy and paste, I run into difficulties. The program starts to lag and eventually crashes.

• Is there a limit to how many bodies can be created at the same time?
• Are there any tricks to increase the performance/draw more objects? Reducing the complexity of the objects (cuboids instead of detailed box) did not help.
• Is fusion 360 suitable for the task or should I look for another program?

The following screenshot shows a first try. Here I can already barely select the objects without the program lagging heavily. Adding shelves, aisles and vehicles is not possible.

Please let me know if you need more information.

Best regards

Nicolas

[TheCADWhisperer]

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@Anonymous wrote:

• Is there a limit to how many bodies can be created at the same time?

Please let me know if you need more information.

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Can you File>Export your *.f3d file to your local drive and then Attach it here to a Reply?

My guess is that you have done a sketch pattern rather than a pattern of bodies.

[Anonymous]

Attached you find the file.

[TrippyLighting · Accepted solution]

Before continuing, my suggestion would be that you go through one of the courses here.

Afterward you might still have questions, but will be much better equipped to ask them.

1. Your sketches, as simple as they are are not fully defined, meaning they are not fully constrained and dimensioned.

2. In such a design I would not want to see any body move features.

3. Mirroring bodies creates new geometry. Mirroring components would be a much better approach as it only creates instances. Basically there is only one dataset holding the geometry and the instances are pointers to that dataset.

4. There is a pattern command available in Fusion 360 ( not the sketch pattern. I'd avoid that one)

[jeff_strater · Accepted solution]

Thanks for sharing the design.  That always is helpful to those of us trying to help.

You are working too hard here.  The "move, copy, move" approach, at the body level is very inefficient.  Since all these are identical, as @TrippyLighting says - use components, not bodies.  Components all share the same geometry, so is way more efficient.  Second, use Component Pattern to make the array of these boxes.

Your design is 12.7 MB on disk, and takes about 1:40 for a Compute All operation.

This version uses component pattern to get to the same place.  It is 850KB on disk, and takes under 5 seconds to compute.

All of this is not your fault.  This is not immediately obvious to a new user, and Fusion does not really offer guidance in the application that you are doing something inefficient.  It is an interesting design problem, actually, whether we could even provide that feedback in a way that is useful, but not annoying.  I'm not aware of any product that does a good job at this.  Looking at all the various training material out there will help.  But, so will trial and error.  Ask questions here, as you did today.  You'll be an expert answering questions for others before you know it.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your guidance and detailed pointers. Now I know what I did wrong and which concepts are important for my project. I really appreciate that besides the detailed explanation I also got a file that shows how it is done correctly.