Translating Fusion 360 Feature Trees / Design Intent to other CAD software

[msippelB8JWN]

Our company uses Fusion 360 for most of our in-house design work, but some of the fabricators we work with use only Solidworks exclusively and complain that the STEP files we hand off don't preserve PMI and features, requiring them to more or less manually measure and redraw our designs in Solidworks before they can go about calculating toolpaths and developing a fabrication plan. 

We like working these fabricators because they're familiar with our business and are willing to deal with some of the unique constraints we face, but they've asked us to supply future designs as .sldprt (Solidworks native format) because the manual redrawing process has become a time sink for them.  We would prefer to continue doing our design work in Fusion but need a way to translate Fusion files into .sldprt while preserving features trees, etc. 

Can anyone recommend a conversion software that works well for this type of workflow, or are we stuck trying to find a conversion service to translate our designs every time we start a new project?

[TheCADWhisperer]

Are they making physical changes to your geometry?

Can you Attach a *.f3d file here that they had trouble with in *.stp form?

[jeff_strater]

@msippelB8JWN - this is a good question.  However, to the best of my knowledge, this has never been done successfully in the CAD industry.  There are some tools which claim to do this, but they are limited.  Think about it:  All it takes is one feature out of 100 where that feature has a slightly different result for the total result to be useless.  So, while I agree that this would be super useful, there is no way to do it today.

[msippelB8JWN]

They're generally not making changes, though we usually do a phone call to talk over new designs we submit and sometimes minor tweaks come out of those conversations.  Usually the vendor executes those changes in the Solidworks version of the file they've made as having us make the edits in Fusion would force them to go back and redraw in Solidworks again from scratch off a new STEP export.  I've attached a sample part - it includes lots of tapped hole features, which seem to be a sticking point.  If you don't check the box to model the threads in the Fusion Hole Wizard the STEP file comes out with smooth holes - nothing to indicate they should be tapped.  If you do model the threads they become much more difficult to redraw in Solidworks - because the feature tree isn't preserved it's necessary to first "fill" the tapped holes with extrusion, then re-center and re-draw the hole features.  Either way, not efficient.

Is it typical for CAM packages to require a feature tree to parse correctly?  I would figure that most could work reasonably well with "dumb" STEP geometry given the ubiquity of that format for interchange, but my own experience with CAM is admittedly limited.

[TheCADWhisperer]

Do not model threads.

Send an annotated 2D detail drawing with the thread specifications.

(I am surprised that the SolidWorks user did not suggest this as it is EXACTLY the same in SolidWorks.)

Everything else the SolidWorks user should be able to edit with direct editing tools if needed.

(BTW - what happened to the feature history of this part?) 

When I measure some of the features - the sizes do not make logical sense.

This probably raises red flags with an experienced SolidWorks user.

When I see something like this - I don't trust any of the geometry.