Top Ten Wish List for Fusion 360

[TheCADWhisperer]

Coming soon - The CADWhisperer’s Top Ten Wish List for Fusion 360.

Fusion has been around for a while now.  There has been plenty of time to compare to competitors and for differentiators (think iPhone or CyberTruck) as something the other CADs aren’t doing (yet).

What is on your Top Ten list?

[TrippyLighting]

I'd love to compare notes!

[bentwookie]

Perhaps I'm swimming upstream, but I don't want a ton of new functionality. I'd like to see some basic quality of life improvements made to the app.

Fix Cloud Search and Organization.

After a year of not being able so search at all because of a backend bug, simple searches work, but it's still hard to find things because folders and metadata aren't searchable. Wildcard searching has some odd edge cases. Reorganizing projects is a slow hassle.

Fix Cloud Reliability.

Several times a year I have a panic because a file goes missing. The answer is to clear some local cache data to get it to come down again. That should never be.

Improve UI-Level Engineering

I'm frequently impressed by the magical things Fusion is able to do. However, I'm often left shaking my head at how unpolished the surrounding application can be. It feels like each release has some new oddity.

• Windowing - Years long ordering bugs on the mac (one of which I fixed via plugin over a weekend). PC now hides itself on long compute. HiDPI is still weird. Busy cursors everywhere this release.
• Undo - Dangerous to use in panels, as it just closes them.
• Event handling - Frequent issues with trackpads. PCB side combo boxes get scrambled with scroll events. Escape doesn't exit text entry but closes panels
• Data entry - Tiny entry fields that don't expand. Shrunken panels don't remember their placement or settings.
• Respect of host platform - Doesn't respect dark mode, installs and runs in unusual ways that can cause issues. Ignores Spaces on the Mac.
• Electronics - Like all of it. A scrolling bug made it unusable for a release on the mac. The interactions with the design side are slow and require bouncing off the cloud. It's every bit as strange and unintuitive as Eagle was. I couldn't tell you how stuffing a 30yo code base into Fusion made something better. My wish? Start over.

Usability Around Compute Fail

Despite my best efforts at making clean sketches, I still often find myself wondering why Fusion is telling me it can't do something. When some kind of compute operation fails, or when a sketch is about to become over-constrained, we need better tools for intuiting why. Where possible, I need to see what geometry is connected to the failing operation. I feel blind much of the time.

Import & Decals

Imported DXFs come in rotated and flipped. Decal resizing isn't absolute but iterative. It's been unusable for as long as I can remember.

Grouping in Sketchs

I believe these are called sketch blocks in other Autodesk products. As there is much moving and scaling involved in bringing curves from other apps, the lack of grouping is a pain point.

Fix/Unfix Shouldn't be a Toggle

It's hard to know you've selected only the fixed points in a sketch to then unfix. I end up fixing what I want to stay unfixed and unfix what I want fixed. 

Press-and-Hold Selection Could be Improved

It's rough when you press and hold on a point and see ten other items generically called Point. A better callout for where each item comes from would help me to project the correct geometry and not cause warnings later. 

Better Hot Keys

I'd like to assign keys to turn toggle Object Visibility->All Work Features for example. 

Refactor CAM Operations

The myriad strategy dialogs could be refactored into something a little more unified and streamlined. 80% of the settings are the same, and the remaining 20% are similar but defined differently. I spend a lot of time entering the same (but not default) values into tiny dialog boxes. 

Improve CAM Post

Getting up-to-date gcode to my machine is error prone. Nothing preserves names. It's very easy to forget to push an updated tool path to the machine. I'd like to be able to mark a setup with a milestone and then "release" it to my machine all at once.

Fix Bugs Around Component Reorder and Copy/Paste

This is just a file eating bug that needs to be fixed.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-support/copy-paste-bodies-can-t-resolve-warning/td-p/90233...

[TrippyLighting]

Please start your own thread!

[bentwookie]

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@TheCADWhisperer wrote:

What is on your Top Ten list?

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He asked what my top ten list was, so I replied to him. 

[TrippyLighting]

Oops, true. I missed that sentence!

[laughingcreek]

My list is fairly long, and my top ten probably varies some day to day, but my number one stays fairly consistent.  Time line management.  IMO the time line is both a strength of fusion, and it's Achilles heal.  And doesn't seem to have gotten much love in a while.  Of people I work with, most abandon it in favor of a different software solely b/c of the timeline.

A small number of things that I would like to see-

-better tools for visualizing it, and how things are inter related.  that ribbon along the bottom isn't cutting it.

-better ways to re-organize and manipulate.

-grouping features currently sucks.

-book marks with comments 

-being able to see settings in a feature by hovering over them without having to "edit" it or going to the parameters editor.

-related to the last one, we can change sketch dims on the fly w/o having to "edit" the sketch (which rolls the whole timeline back).  we need to be able to do that with features also. (again, without having to go to the parameters editor.) 

[jacob.michaels]

I've got 8, they mostly pertain to the drawing space though.

A way for 1 drawing to reference multiple designs. This would greatly enhance organization for large assemblies. Having just 1 drawing file would be a nice quality of life improvement. This way I don't have to compile everything in acrobat if I'm submitting a packet that has multiple designs. 

I'd like a text formatting panel that would stay open at all times. I understand that window popping up for formatting is consistent with the UX of the rest of the program, but I would like to easily select a text size and have it stay the same until I change it, rather than going back to default. This would be a big time saver.

I'd like better snap tools too, the grid-snap in drawings feels half-baked and unresponsive compared to other programs. Going back and forth between Revit and Fusion leaves me wanting better-feeling drawings. I'm consistently having to line up views by eye when I feel like I should be able to snap to a grid and have everything line up nice and professionally.

A non-circular detail view. This is nitpicky. The circular detail view is weird, and I often have to explain what it is to people, as I often have to include unnecessary parts of a view along with what I need to convey. I'd like to just be able to draw a little box. I feel like it would allow me to more accurately convey what I want in my drawings.

Better stability in drawings. I consistently run into issues in the drawing space, namely when changing text size, image size or view scale, where my program crashes.

A way to lock animation storyboards. I just made a full post on this, right before finding this thread, but I want a way to lock my storyboards to not show new components in a model if I make them.

I'd like to be able to natively insert a render into a drawing. Rather than saving to my computer and inserting an image.

I'd like a better way to visually understand sketches. When making sketches, I feel like the constraints are hard to interpret. namely colinear. I don't know how I'd better represent it, but I find myself having to trial-and-error delete different colinear constraints until I find the right one if I need to change something.

[TrippyLighting]

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@TheCADWhisperer wrote:

Coming soon - The CADWhisperer’s Top Ten Wish List for Fusion 360.

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This thread has become synonymous with the usual development commitments in software.

The term "soon" is streeeeeetchable to the limit 😉 

[TheCADWhisperer]

@TrippyLighting 

I gave up on the idea. Doesn’t seem like there is much interest.

I thought it might make a good AU presentation to follow along annually, but no community interest.

Only 324 Views as I write this and essentially only 4 Replies.

[TrippyLighting]

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@TheCADWhisperer wrote:

@TrippyLighting 

I gave up on the idea. Doesn’t seem like there is much interest.

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Yep, that is my assessment as well!

There's too little interest in this "community" and not at Autodesk.

[vincemiccio]

I would like the capability to name a feature while entering its parameters - for example, an extrude - we could specify the name of the extrude while entering its parameters instead of having to go back and rename it later on the timeline.

[tookemtoni]

Thanks @TheCADWhisperer for this post.

Before I begin, in the context of "compare to competitors"  I have to give it to Fusion for its relatively recent implementation of configurations.  Great job. 👏 IMO Configurations has allowed Fusion to be a true contender with the likes of Solidworks,  Inventor and Onshape.

Here is my wish list as of June 2025 as a single user, cabinet maker that relies on the awesome Arrange Feature (which by the way is a unique native feature as compared other CAD apps)

• Major 
  1. A performance mode for large assemblies.
     1. for faster GAL, uploading and compute all
  2. Global Select
     1. for features, joints, sketches, etc...
     2. "if we named it let us search for it"
     3. It could be an enhanced "Select by Name"
     4. for example select for sketch named "X" so that we can hide/show
  3. Better Exclude Selection in Edit Derive for large assemblies.
     
     1. The goal is to select at the root level so that all changes are pushed to the derive and easily exclude unnecessary items such as sketches and fastener hardware that slow down performance in the manufacture workspace.
     2. For example: Filter Selection by Name to select components to exclude. 
  4. Create component to be used solely as a "container" or "folder" and move other components to it anywhere in the timeline.
     1. You can do this currently but it requires a lot of planning ahead because timeline marker has to be at the end of the timeline in order to move components the "container" component
  5. BOM for Configured Designs with flat view.
     
     1. BOM one could argue is such a important feature. It arrived over a year ago but only for standard designs. It's time to firstly get it working for configure designs. Then please implement flat view.
     2. My flat view goal is to see quantities of a single part name or number for example to get a order quantity for fastener "X"
     3. I use the addin Bommer....Which can do everything above AND synchronize it in a table in your drawings.  Thank you Bommer.
  6. Bigger dialog boxes for timeline renaming and sketch dimension input
     1. This one drives me crazy. please fix this.
  7. Native Configurable Parametric Text
     1. The addin ParametricText by Thomas88 is awseome but it's not working with when inserting configured designs. Either AD opens up the API for that feature for ParameticText or Adds it natively to configurations. 
• Pet Peeves:
  1. Collapse/Expand All in browser. (Like in SW's Feature Manager)
  2. Auto Push Favorites to Derived Parameters (allow favorites to be automatically favorited when inserted. Do not make us go through the parameter table again to make them favorited.)
  3. Allow the appearance Wood (Solid) to be recognized in grain alignment in arrange and nest features
  4. Finish implementing UI dark blue 😎

[TrippyLighting]

#2: You can actually "select by name":

It's a bit clunky, but it works.

It expands the browser to the level of the selected-by-name component, which can be a significant issue due to the browser's lack of "collapse all" functionality.

#5. OpenBOM will do what you need, whatever you need!!! 

[tookemtoni]

thanks @TrippyLighting. 

A true "Global Select":
Select by Name is awesome. I could not use fusion without it.  It is the only way I can quickly hide all of my hardware in the manufacturing workspace.  I WISH for it to do more than select just components and bodies. We name sketches, joints and features, right?  Let us search for that too. See screenshot.

BOM add-ins:
I love that we have options.

Pricing and features (As of June 2025 subject to change check for current pricing and features):

Premier:
openbom $1,200 yearly (FYI need to pay 3 years in advance to start)
I have never tried it but it looks like it will make all your BOM dreams come true. I do have experience that the developer is very involved.

Great:
bommer $200 yearly
I use this and is great for both support and functionality. Dev team is very responsive.

Basic:
BOM Creator $10 one time payment
I have also used this for before Fusion BOM existed. I guess you can now export with Fusion BOM but BOM Creator will simply export everything even in a configurated design!

[tookemtoni]

To easily rename features right after creating them....Try the add in “DirectName” 

Fusion Store: Plugins and Add-ons for Fusion | Autodesk App Store

[tookemtoni]

Where is your list?

[TrippyLighting]

Who’s list ?

[TheCADWhisperer]

@tookemtoni 

Kind of hard to make up a Top Ten list when there is no engagement from the community.

@TrippyLighting asked you a question that you did not answer (lack of community engagement).

[tookemtoni]

I was asking for @TheCADWhisperer  list, but I get it now….he’s aggregating our lists. Is that right?