Timeline impact
"Indeed, the notion of returning to time T when you want to make a modification to an element related to another element of the future is more time-consuming than productive. Solidworks, onshape even inventor doesn't work like that, why fusion made this choice?"
I don't understand what you mean by this statement. All of the systems you mention absolutely do implement rollback when editing a part. If you edit a sketch in any of those systems, all the later features are suppressed (or "rolled back"), just the same as in Fusion. The only difference is that the timeline is horizontal, while a feature browser is vertical. Is it the fact that Fusion also uses the timeline for assembly operations, such as creating a joint, inserting a component, etc? If so, then you are not required to use Fusion in that way. You can use Fusion very similarly to how you use solidworks: Define each "part" in a separate design, create a top-level Direct Modeling design to serve as your assembly, and insert each part into your assembly. Yes, Joints are different than Mates, but my sense here is that you are not referring to that aspect of Fusion.
I see from the images in your original post that you are taking advantage of Fusion's ability to define "internal components". I understand why you would do that, I love the ability to define components without creating a new external design. It's super convenient and efficient. But, yes, it comes with this price: that means that those same local components are defined as part of the history of the single design you are making, and therefore you must live with the history-based nature of those components. I feel fairly certain that there is no way to support local components in a history-based system without having this behavior.
So, the choice is up to you. I would recommend you try using the "all components are external" approach, and see if you like it.
Jeff Strater
Engineering Director
@mac_ito When you design in solidworks do you have a file for each component then an assembly file? In the assembly do you use edit in place and\or edit in separate window?
Haven't tried this but fusion has edit in place now so you could build all components in separate designs, assemble then either edit in place or edit the components in a separate window. This might give you a similar workflow to other solid modelers. Even in more tradisional solid modelers there's still a sort of timeline in that you can't project features from the end of the tree back to the first sketch. Fusion just takes this further as you can have all components in one design.
Mark
Mark Hughes
Owner, Hughes Tooling
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"no on sw the behavior is not quite the same and it is this detail that is important. The edition of the joints does not have this notion of going back"
That is exactly why I recommended using a Direct Model for your assemblies. Direct Models do not roll back when editing joints. That workflow: Parametric designs for parts, Direct Modeling for assemblies, is the closest you will get to a pure SWX workflow. It will avoid your complaints about joint editing.
Jeff Strater
Engineering Director
I don't know of any documentation of this method, specifically. It may be out there, in some Youtube channel or other, but I have not stumbled across it. It would be a good thing to document, I agree. But, the concepts are pretty simple here:
- assemblies are all Direct Modeling (disable design history) designs
- parts are all Parametric (history-based)
- parts are all external designs (don't use internal components)
- place joints in assemblies to connect parts together
Jeff Strater
Engineering Director
I would not design a larger assembly strictly in a top down design.
However, I need to explain what mean with "large". In my my professional occupation I create concepts for custom manufacturing automation systems. That often involves thousands of components and it isn't too unusual for a "final" assembly to have 10000 components.
Imported components or assemblies that I done need to modify or don't need to modify parametrically will not have a timeline.
Everything else does, including subassemblies.
I break my assemblies into smaller external subassemblies. Some of these smaller assemblies might be top-down assemblies.
The ONLY way to properly position parts in an assembly is joints. The new(er) ground-to-parent attribute can be very helpful to reduce the number of joints.
I am not aware of any documentation or good, professional level educational level materials that cover assemblies.
Most stuff on YouTube is hobby level, created by more or less advanced hobbyists.
