Press/Pull bug?

[kellings]

I have a question about press/pull. When I use press/pull with a native Fusion file and history turned on, Fusion will record all Press pull moves in the timeline. When I import a part, but have capture design history turned on, press/pull moves aren't recorded in the timeline. Is that a bug, or as designed? It would seem that move should be recorded in the timeline.

Thoughts?

Thanks,

Kevin 

[davebYYPCU]

Does the imported part arrive as a Base Feature?

Are the unrecorded press pulls associated to the imported part?  

Base Features do not record history when edited.

My 2 cents, but may be off track. 

[jeff_strater · Accepted solution]

Press/Pull is a weird beast.  The default mode for Press/Pull is "Automatic", which means:  If possible, edit the feature which created the face being acted on.  So, in a fully parametric model, if you Press/Pull on the termination face of an Extrude, it edits the Extrude distance to match the drag.  If you Press/Pull on a side face, it edits the sketch curve that drives that side face, and so on.  In an imported design, those faces are from the Base Body feature from the import.  So, "editing" that feature means just doing a direct modeling modification of that face, so no feature is recorded.  Whether that is correct or incorrect is a matter of opinion, I guess.  I would say it is intentional, but won't try to argue it is the right behavior.

If you switch the mode to "New Offset", you will get Offset features in the timeline.

Personally, I think "Automatic" mode in Press/Pull is an abomination, and I never use it, unless I forget to turn it off.  I argued against it from the beginning, but lost that argument.

Jeff

[kellings]

Thanks Jeff. I never know when to use Automatic, or new offset, or Modify Existing Feature. 

One thing that can be stolen from the HSM team is how fantastic their dialog boxes are. Hover your cursor over a field and you get a popup with a text description and usually a visual too. 

Kevin

[jaredxrandall]

I'm having the same issue with imported features. The entire point of my importing geometry was to modify it, so to have that feature disables is a huge waste of time for me. Can anyone @Anonymous explain why they chose remove this capability by default? I don't understand?!?!
(sorry - meant to reply to @jeff_strater not Dave)

[jeff_strater]

Nothing has been "removed" here.  This is the way Press/Pull has always worked.  What is disabled for you?  Can you be more specific?  If you are working on imported geometry, "Automatic" won't be any different than "New Offset", since there is no timeline in an imported model.

[jaredxrandall]

Hey Jeff, I simply meant that in parametric cad software in general, and specifically in F360 with record history enabled, the default is always to record what the user has done in the history tree so that the defining traits of the model can be edited in a rigorous way. This is how Autodesk has implemented it on new geometry created with extrudes, etc. and that same capability has 'not been included' (I previously said removed) on imported geometry. (specifically with the push/pull tool, but perhaps with other important tools as well)

If my feature creation process starts where someone else's left off (I imported their geometry) and my entire job is to push/pull things into the right place (e.g. move this feature .010" to allow for better assembly tolerance), then that is important for me to document those edits so that I can know where it started, know what I changed it to, and then go back and change it later on. Not recording those edits in any way into the history tree makes doing my job more difficult.

I think this may have more to do with how F360 has chosen to treat imported geometry differently than native geometry, and less to do with the push/pull tool being a bit odd.

Not recording edits seems to go against the main reasons to use a parametric program. Why bother asking/allowing me to type a precise number associated with a feature if I can't go back and edit that number?

(I'll also note, that CAM toolpaths associated with the push/pull geometry did not get flagged for regeneration like they normally do after design changes, which is a separate bug worth looking into)

[jeff_strater]

I think what you are objecting to here is:  imported geometry is, by default, created as a Direct Modeling design.  Yes, that was intentional (and has always been that way), because most of the time, there is not a need to modify imported geometry.  However, that is just the default document state.  Once translated, you can enable history on that design:

Then, every change you make after this conversion will be captured in the timeline.  And, because there will be no earlier features, the "automatic" mode in Press/Pull will never be used.  Each face move will create an Offset Face feature. (or, you can just use Offset Face directly).  Does that help with your concerns?

[jaredxrandall]

Thank you for the help here!
So what I'm seeing is that yes, manually switching to the "create new offset" option does indeed allow me to force the push/pull to get recorded in the design history, but it defaults to "automatic" and also allows "modify existing" neither of which show up in the design history.
I had some issues getting loom to record, but take a look at what I'm seeing to make sure we're talking about the same thing: https://www.loom.com/share/ce32493b68414e2684477cfd1d105675

[jeff_strater]

oh, yeah, thanks, @jaredxrandall - I had forgotten that "edit feature" includes the Base Feature that is created with imported geometry.  So, on "automatic", or "edit feature" mode, Fusion will edit the Base Feature, and not record the face move as a feature.  So, then, I would recommend just removing Press/Pull from the toolbar completely, and use Offset Face instead.  I am pretty sure that Offset Face, in a parametric design, will always add a new feature to the timeline.

[jaredxrandall]

Thanks for the help here Jeff - that offset face trick will work for me in this one specific instance.

I think you and I disagree that this un-communicated selective recording of history represents a fundamental flaw in the software, but if there is a way to file this as a bug or feature request, please do so.

I hold the opinion that in a parametric modeling application where history of events is recorded, doing that for ~99% of actions while having a seemingly random ~1% of things not get recorded in the history can undermine trust in the all future edits. Even having a message pop up that said "You asked to record all history but we can't record the thing you just did." would be preferable to having no idea which features are getting recorded and having to go back to previous versions to try to compare and notice miniscule changes made months ago.