This software is crap

[riccardo.bartolucci]

All references of future feature are lost after changing a previous sketch.

As result I keep fixing problems instead of producing a result.

Thanks

[TrippyLighting]

You have a brilliantly eloquent way of introducing yourself to a new community 😕

[riccardo.bartolucci]

I'm very disappointed with the way Fusion handles all features and the fact they may be linked together in a inexplicable way. There is still big room for improvement especially on simple things like edit a sketch with a double click done today, not at the fifth click on the last 30 seconds. You must understand this is very time consuming. Other platforms like Solidworks don't have this lack, but rather a much better accessibility. Fusion is still very clunky!! Like most of Autodesk products, see Inventor the super clunky. So, team please work at it! It's just as simple as copying Solidworks, being the market leader.

[dieselguy65]

if it is as simple as copying Solidworks.

you should get started on that right away, there must be a huge market for a new CAD/CAM software. you will be a billionaire by tommorrow.

maybe it is the operator in this case, and not the software package

[ToddHarris7556]

It almost sounds like maybe you're in Direct Modeling mode, i.e. Design History turned off. 

Right click on the top-level component, and look all the way at the bottom for 'Capture Design History'.

New users sometimes get tripped up by this.

Good luck 🙂

[ToddHarris7556]

Re: Solidworks, Inventor, and tools in general...

Some entry-level folks have never had the chance or need to become proficient at more than one package, and it's not unusual that they would see this as being the best. 

I think that most experienced designers who have used both SWx and Inventor would agree that they're both very capable tools. I've always been partial to Inventor, but Solidworks can get the job done, too. They each have strengths. My team uses Inventor and Fusion on a daily basis, and I assure you that Fusion is quite capable, with it's own strengths.

If you find Solidworks is a better fit for you, then personally, I would would Solidworks 🙂 

A pretty good general rule is to use the most appropriate tool for the job. If I were in aviation or automotive, I'd be using Catia or NX, regardless of whether I thought Inventor, Solidworks, Fusion or Sketchup were easier to use.

[Anonymous]

Its a cheaper way less good version of solidworks. The software is not ready for sale. They should not be charging for it or selling it as design software yet. 

[TrippyLighting]

@Anonymous 

[chrisplyler]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Its a cheaper way less good version of solidworks. The software is not ready for sale. They should not be charging for it or selling it as design software yet. 

---

Your opinion is crap.

Yes, it's cheaper. Yes, it's different and in some ways missing functionality. But that means it IS ready for sale... to those people who want SOME of solidworks' capabilities at a lower price. Duh.

And, HELLO, built in CAM included at no extra charge? Very marketable.

And plenty of us get it for FREE, because Autodesk's pricing model is awesome. So...80% (or whatever) of solidworks' capability for 1/infinityth of the price. Amazing deal, right?

[ToddHarris7556]

If SWx (or any other tool) meets your needs better than Fusion 360, then I'd say you should probably be using that. 

I assure you there are plenty of us who are using it every day in a production environment, and find it to be a great fit. In my shop, we run a couple of large CNC routers, a CNC mill, and a handful of 3D printers all from Fusion. We do have one seat of Product Design (Inventor) but honestly find that Fusion meets the needs just fine in most cases.  

[smeharg]

   I dunno about crap, But All I seem to do is scour the internet to find out ways to do some pretty simple stuff. I thought we were in the age of having tools work for us, not the other way around. Just seems like a fight every time I try to do anything. The Intuitiveness of the program is far from being anything but.

   Another Issue is the lack of actual resource management, I wait 1600 seconds for a tool path to generate, Just to find out it's not even in the right area. So I was like wow this thing must be smokin, NO!!!! it barely uses 30% system resources!?! now that makes no sense to me if it's doing calculations....... it should use this big fancy calculator we have.    Ya ya Multithreading, GPU use, If the system has resources they should be used, plain and simple its just wasteful any other way. 

I'm not trying to bash the product here but there seems to be some fanboying going on here. The Program is not even a fraction of what it could be.

Bottom Line You have to work around the program instead of having the program work for you.

[ToddHarris7556]

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@smeharg wrote:

   I dunno about crap, But All I seem to do is scour the internet to find out ways to do some pretty simple stuff. I thought we were in the age of having tools work for us, not the other way around. Just seems like a fight every time I try to do anything. The Intuitiveness of the program is far from being anything but.

Fair enough. I've 'scoured the internet' a few times to learn how other folks are approaching specific head-scratchers. I've also come up with some good solutions, so I guess it doesn't really bother me much. 

---

Another Issue is the lack of actual resource management, I wait 1600 seconds for a tool path to generate, Just to find out it's not even in the right area. So I was like wow this thing must be smokin, NO!!!! it barely uses 30% system resources!?! now that makes no sense to me if it's doing calculations....... it should use this big fancy calculator we have.    Ya ya Multithreading, GPU use, If the system has resources they should be used, plain and simple its just wasteful any other way. 

Again.... fair point, and I'd say that this forum is a great (and appropriate) place to post those questions. Lots of AD folks monitor here.  I just use the product to get parts out the door..... others are in a better position to answer the hard questions 🙂

I'm not trying to bash the product here but there seems to be some fanboying going on here. The Program is not even a fraction of what it could be.

Bottom Line You have to work around the program instead of having the program work for you.

---

Sorry your experience has not equaled ours. I can understand (somewhat) your point about 'fanboying', but at the same time, I can assure you that I (as the business owner) don't feel that my team spends much time working around the program. I'm not claiming it's perfect, but I do think that the 'workarounds' that we sometimes have to use still allow us to be competitive in the marketplace. 

For reference, ~70% of what we do is 2D (contouring/pocketing) on CNC routers in plywood, acrylic and aluminum. Another  ~10% is 2.5D on a CNC mill, 10% full 3D, mostly in HDU (signfoam) on routers, and the remainder is 3D printed for mold making.

Pretty much everything we do is one-offs. Every once in a while we run into a real 'stump-the-chumps' scenario that we'll reach out to the forums for help on, but mostly it's pretty straightforward. 

Personally, I'd list the Fusion 360 community/forums as an asset, not a liability.  

[TrippyLighting]

Let me clarify that just because some of us disagree with your opinion does not mean we are fanboys!

Many of the users that have commented and criticized the tone of the original post and other negative comments in this thread are long time, professional users of CAD software, not just Fusion 360. I personally have used CAD software professionally since university days, so for almost 30 years. I've used Solid Works for 15 years, when it became unavailable to me I used for a few years with Alibre Design and today Fusion 360 is only one of a number of tools I use. I use ZW3D frequently.

Creation of geometry and tool paths in any CAD/CAM tool, not just Fusion 360 are handled by a geometric modeling kernel. In Fusion 360 and Inventor that is ASM (Autodesk Shape Manger). These kernels are all relatively old and a lot of development has gone into making them functional and stable. The math that is the foundation of these tools often does not lend itself to parallel processing on multiple cores. That is unfortunate, but it is what it is.

Fusion 360 is certainly no speed daemon. If you need more speed and a more mature tool, maybe you just need to invest in another tool. But be prepared to fork over some real cash!

In my experience expectations level out pretty rapidly when confronted with the investment requirements for some tools.

Also, in many cases performance limitations are a result of suboptimal workflows. I've got 1200 solutions posted here and feel I've got a pretty good overview what users struggle with.

If your designs do have performance problems, maybe create a new thread and ask question.Perhaps we can help.

[smeharg]

   Sorry, Don't Get Me wrong I have/do/will belong to some great communities. Hats off to all you guys! To all you do and share and most, give time to others.

   God Bless the coders that's all I can say. I have done some amazing things, written just with code. This Program seems to have a much steeper learning curve than most I have used. So I sympathize. I hope that was diplomatic.

   Sorry to start anything, The Guys responding on here every day are doing a great thing and in no way did I want to diminish that in any way.

  ----------->Bows away looking for the exit.

[Anonymous]

My thoughts exactly. I have spent the last two days doing a small amount of design and a whole lot of just scratching my head and trying to figure out how to do simple stuff. Granted, I am a long time Inventor user, and the experiences are much different. But everything I build seems to be inexplicably connected to everything else so whenever I make a change, something else blows up. If it tells me it's using cached geometry one more time and then won't give me any way to select the correct geometry, or even tell me what the wrong geometry is, then this laptop might go through a window. If I had a way to run Inventor on my laptop, I would happily ditch this clunky program. I'm sure that with time, I'll be able to figure out how to do stuff. I didn't learn Inventor overnight, but the new user experience for this program is terrible.

[HughesTooling]

@Anonymous  Have you read the Rule#1 thread? Should help organising components with it's sketches and features easier. How many components are you trying to work with in your designs?

Mark

[ToddHarris7556]

FWIW.... I run IV and Fusion side by side on the same Dell Precision laptop.

I'm also a long-time IV user that struggled with the Fusion learning curve. As a business owner, I had to make a decision about the best tools for my very diverse team. The relatively shorter learning curve and significantly lower price point of Fusion meant I could put Fusion on every desktop in the office, and get product designed, fabricated, and out the door. Basing the whole business model on IV would have looked very different. 

I use Desktop Connector to bridge between the two products, and we're using the Fusion Team environment for collaboration. I'm significantly more fluent in IV, but have spent a fair amount of time in Fusion to help develop standards and workflows that work for everyone. There are certainly things I prefer to do in Inventor, but can get most parts done in Fusion, and utilize the power of Inventor when appropriate. 

Each of us needs to make the decision around the best tools for our particular needs. I've certainly worked through headaches trying to develop Fusion best practices, but sound fundamentals go a long way. Some of our team were less experienced, and we worked hard to get a base level of robust modeling practices built. There have been a few headscratchers that we had to ask for help on, and there have, indeed, been some bugs and kinks in the system. Having said that, 'crap' is not a word that comes to mind when I reflect on the amount of work we've gotten done with Fusion.

If IV really is the best tool, I assure you it runs just fine on a laptop.

[daniel_lyall]

@ToddHarris7556  sums it up very well.

[Anonymous]

I agree this software is total garbage especially if you don't like wasting your time. You need to remember this program is often marketed to students.

[daniel_lyall]

@Anonymous Then delete your account and move on, life is to short to get over-excited over a program