timeline dependency graph drill-down

[roambotics_scott]

I've talked about this before but I'd really love to see something where the timeline was replaced with a dependency graph.

In writing another idea, a nice solution came to me that would work without drastically changing the UI.

Keep the entire timeline down at the bottom but when the user selects a body, component, feature, etc, show only the fraction of the timeline on which that object depends.

Essentially you would just be looking at the current state in the dependency graph and drilling down into the one branch that terminates in the current selected state of that object (which could leave us with very short timeline snippets even for most complex designs).

Bonus points - add the ability to do surgery on the dependency graph (delete links to isolate things and add links to easily make designs more parametric).

[TrippyLighting]

I think that I understand what you are looking for so I voted.

When activating a component the timeline is filtered to show only the elements that apply to that component. It would ben nice, however to have better tools to do some surgery on the timeline.

[roambotics_scott]

I was not aware of that - great to hear and much better than I imagined (I'm stuck in direct modeling because I had some issues with the timeline so I guess I was just imagining there 🙂

I guess refocus on the surgery then!

[TrippyLighting]

It sounds to me you new to get a better understanding of how to use components. If you've been creating. Ideals and not activated your components before editing you have not been no taken full advantage of the components in Fusion 360. By advice for folks that design to be manufactured mechanical things is to start with creating and activating an empty component first. Only then start sketching your parametric design. That keeps things very nicely organized, flexible editable And seems to help in keeping Fusion 360 happy.

[cekuhnen]

Trippy I know what he means.

Pretty much Alias and many other apps work that way. The features are not listed as a timeline by you can see a design flow step by step how they stack when you click on an object. Cobalt works that way, even Blender and SolidThinking anyway.

The advantage is that you see clearly what influences what because of a nested presentation.

After working a lot with the timeline I found the timeline less suitable for maintaining an overview. The component approach works but currently has the problem that you cannot freely move stuff around between components. But I think with a better way to separate things in the timeline this might solve the over view issue.

At the end the timeline works like the depenency graph specifically with components it just lacks stacking/hierarchy.

But then whats pretty great about the time line is, that is shows you the complete steps you took when in the design phase for all objects at once and that Alias nor SolidThinking can provide.

[odolyte]

I really agree on the general idea to "carify" the timeline. It is versy useful, but when you have complex model with lot of versions, the timeline seems a mess and you're often lost when you're looking for something specific to change. So yeah a stacking/hierarchy would be nice.

"Keep the entire timeline down at the bottom but when the user selects a body, component, feature, etc, show only the fraction of the timeline on which that object depends." seems an excellent idea to me.

[TrippyLighting]

@cekuhnen 

I do understand what is meant, but would have to say that some of this functionality, e.g better show dependencies actually belongs into the browser, not into the timeline. Some of the frustrations of working with the timeline clearly come from the fact that users don't have enough seat time and also fail to organize their work starting with simply properly naming their Items. Items in the timeline can be named as well!

I'ts no surprise that you can't find stuff it you leave it named with the stndard descriptions. Extrude1, Extrude2 etc. is hard to discern when you get to Extrude50 in your 10th component.

The browser is currently underutilized and already has the necessary hierarchy. It falls short, however, to show the bidirectional links betwen many of its objects. For example you can currently not see what a sketch is referenced by. I you used joint locations to join components then the Joint shows the components that you joined but it does not show you which joint locations in the components were used or that joint etc.

[cekuhnen]

I think that is wht when working with components it filters the features already.

so you have tools to adjust usabiity with complex designs it is just a different method.

[cekuhnen]

@TrippyLighting

From my time with Cobalt I know you can see each sketch line etc being used, but in Cobalt you also dont use

sketches like in Fusion/SW/ProE but just well lines/curves entities. But here in the sceenshot you can

see what I htink you mean with the browser.

I agree that the browser can use the beef ups. However I feel they need to keep browser and timeline well

separated otherwise whats then the point of the timeline? So I think for highlighting etc the browser has to be

improved.

[promm]

Thank you for idea - this is getting changed to solution provided due to the suggested solution from TrippyLighting and acceptance by Scott.  There are other ideas brought up in the comments.  If you feel that they are ideas that should be voted on, please create a new Ideastation request referencing the workflow.

Thank you,

Mike Prom