When will Edit in place be fully featured?

[spercival985UD]

Each month I eagerly await the next major update in the hope that edit in place is shown some new love. When Edit in place was first introduced I was really excited as it would allow me to work bottom up which really suited a big project I was working on. Was so dissapointed when I realised only a few of the solid and surface features were implemented when editing in a part through edit in place. It meant I couldnt work the way I wanted for this project - it seemed a real half hearted attempt....

Please could you let the community know when edit in place will be fully featured?

Many thanks!

[g-andresen]

Hi,

I have tested it again and cannot confirm your statement.
Please show your action in a screencast?

günther

[spercival985UD]

Hi günther

Thanks for getting back to me. Im not sure you have understood my post - the missing functionality I am talking about is published and known, this is not a bug or a techinical question - when I have looked in the past the comment from Autodesk is that further edit in place functionality is in the pipeline - my question is when?

below is a screen shot (from reference on edit in place) of the commands currently available through edit in place:

but what if I want to use surface patch for example? this is not currently available when editing in place

Kind regards

[g-andresen]

Hi,

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@spercival985UD  schrieb:

 Im not sure you have understood my post - 

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What am I supposed to understand when I read this statement?

 ... only a few of the solid and surface features were implemented ...

günther

[spercival985UD]

Hi günther,

Apologies I should have been more specific - what I am saying is that the full list of commands available to the user in the normal design work space are not available to the user through edit in place. 

My question was that Autodesk have published the fact that the full list of commands are not currently available through edit in place but full functionality is in the pipeline.

I would like to know when edit in place will be updated so that the user is able to access the same commands which are available in the normal design workspace?

Can Autodesk provide a date?

Thanks 

[TrippyLighting]

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@spercival985UD wrote:

...

Can Autodesk provide a date?

Thanks 

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I seriously doubt you'll ever get a date from Autodesk.

[TrippyLighting]

@g-andresen I use edit-in-place often and have come across a few limitations. For example, you cannot create explicit joint origins when editing in place. 

@spercival985UD I would guess that the current functionality of edit-in-place covers about 90% of what most users need. If the missing functionality is really that much of a hindrance to your workflow, then you may want to consider not using a pure bottom-up workflow.

Based on my experience, once AD has implemented the 90% the rest will not be implemented at once but bit-by-bit over a number of years! I personally find it frustrating that nothing is ever really finished.

[spercival985UD]

Yes agreed I would say the function is less than 90% implemented at this stage - it would be nice to know this is planned this year or next….

[laughingcreek]

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@TrippyLighting wrote:
...Based on my experience, once AD has implemented the 90% the rest will not be implemented at once but bit-by-bit over a number of years! I personally find it frustrating that nothing is ever really finished.

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careful, someone from AD will come along to say your not being fair.

Also one of my frustrations with this product.

[tyler_henderson]

As Trippy has said, we can't give you an actual date for when this will be complete, but I can tell you we are actively working on this currently.  It's not a simple flip of a switch to get commands working in Edit-In-Place.  That's why we chose to release EIP before we could make everything work.  We thought it provided enough value to warrant that.  With that said, I might ask, as we're working on striving toward 100% coverage of commands in EIP, would you prefer we wait until we have all of them working before we release them, or would you want us to release smaller batches of commands more frequently?

Thanks for your feedback.

[spercival985UD]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply that’s much appreciated. Given the limited
functionality of EIP i understand the choice of functions you provided in
the first release - these prove useful to me almost on a daily basis.

One project I am working on is the design of a space frame UTV. A top down
modelling approach for a project of this size and complexity is just not
appropriate, the timeline would just get too large and unwieldy and
difficult to navigate. A typical approach for my project would be the
skeleton methodology where construction geometry which sits at the top
level assembly is used to propagate changes through the assembly structure.
So I wanted to adopt a hybrid top down and bottom up modelling approach,
mainly to better structure the model so that the design timeline for each
part was contained in its respective external file but at the same time
reference top level construction geometry so that changes are propagated
efficiently.

Parts such as the frame and body panels are driven by the top level
assembly file construction geometry. Furthermore the features used to
produce these parts include pipe, lofts and most surface features such as
patch, ruled surface etc. Unfortunately these features are not accessible
with EIP. It is also not possible to open the external file to get access
to the full features because activating the in context reference geometry
in the external file also limits the available features to what would be
available if you were editing in the context of the top assembly.

So unfortunately I had to abandon this modelling approach and have
struggled to achieve the structure I was looking for.

To answer your question of whether I would prefer you to release more
functionality (but not all) sooner? I would have to say I think I would
prefer to wait until full functionality is released. My reasoning for this
is that some parts require a specific set of features to achieve the
desired geometry and if one of those features is not available the whole
hybrid modelling approach falls down. Also you may provide just the right
combination of features I need but not what somebody else needs.

In my opinion full EIP functionality should be given higher priority so
that fusion 360 can compete with other CAD systems which have bottom up
design functionality at there core. In my opinion the lack of EIP limits
it’s ability efficiently manage large assemblies where the timeline would
become too large using a top down approach.

Fusion 360 is an amazing product. I typically spend 30hrs+ a week using it.
Full EIP functionality would truly elevate it above the competition.
--
Kind regards

Simon Percival

Owner/Director
Simtech Consulting Ltd
Tel: 07305 803 792

Unit 2 Devils Lane,
Egham,
Surrey,
UK.
TW20 8HD

[spercival985UD]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply that’s much appreciated. Given the limited functionality of EIP i understand the choice of functions you provided in the first release - these prove useful to me almost on a daily basis. 

One project I am working on is the design of a space frame UTV. A top down modelling approach for a project of this size and complexity is just not appropriate, the timeline would just get too large and unwieldy and difficult to navigate. A typical approach for my project would be the skeleton methodology where construction geometry which sits at the top level assembly is used to propagate changes through the assembly structure. So I wanted to adopt a hybrid top down and bottom up modelling approach, mainly to better structure the model so that the design timeline for each part was contained in its respective external file but at the same time reference top level construction geometry so that changes are propagated efficiently.

Parts such as the frame and body panels are driven by the top level assembly file construction geometry. Furthermore the features used to produce these parts include pipe, lofts and most surface features such as patch, ruled surface etc. Unfortunately these features are not accessible with EIP. It is also not possible to open the external file to get access to the full features because activating the in context reference geometry in the external file also limits the available features to what would be available if you were editing in the context of the top assembly.

So unfortunately I had to abandon this modelling approach and have struggled to achieve the structure I was looking for.

To answer your question of whether I would prefer you to release more functionality (but not all) sooner? I would have to say I think I would prefer to wait until full functionality is released. My reasoning for this is that some parts require a specific set of features to achieve the desired geometry and if one of those features is not available the whole hybrid modelling approach falls down. Also you may provide just the right combination of features I need but not what somebody else needs.

In my opinion full EIP functionality should be given higher priority so that fusion 360 can compete with other CAD systems which have bottom up design functionality at there core. In my opinion the lack of EIP limits it’s ability  efficiently manage large assemblies where the timeline would become too large using a top down approach.

Fusion 360 is an amazing product. I typically spend 30hrs+ a week using it. Full EIP functionality would truly elevate it above the competition.

[tyler_henderson]

Thank you for this information.  I understand and feel your frustration.  Your workflow and your expectations are certainly legitimate.  We are definitely taking your needs seriously and it's one of our main focuses this year in our assembly projects.

One thing you might consider in the mean time is using Derive.  You could derive the skeleton geometry into the components where you need to reference it.  You can use all commands with derived geometry.  The main difference between derived geometry and Context geometry is that Context geometry is "reference" so it doesn't participate in mass properties.  But if you're just deriving sketch or work geometry, then that shouldn't be an issue. 

Anyway, again, thank you for the feedback.

[johan.rutgeerts]

A workflow I applied to deal with this limitation is the following:

- Open your component in a separate tab,

- Activate your assy context,

- Copy needed geometry into new geometry (e.g. define a new sketch referencing the assy context geometry),

- Activate the local context,

- The newly defined geometry is local, and hence still available for reference,

- Continue designing without limitations, by referencing only this local geometry.

I agree, this is yuk. But it works. 🙂

Regards,

Johan

[spercival985UD]

Thanks Johan

Ill give that a try and reply back to the forum

Kind regards

Simon

[TrippyLighting]

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@tyler_henderson wrote:

...It's not a simple flip of a switch to get commands working in Edit-In-Place...

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Understood. I am well aware that other user's (not in this thread so far) often make pretty broad and unwarranted assumptions on how easy it is to change/add a particular feature, but I don't, and I respect what you guys do.

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@tyler_henderson wrote:

... That's why we chose to release EIP before we could make everything work.  We thought it provided enough value to warrant that...  

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That was a correct assessment. People will always complain about limitations and missing features.

My comment was not aimed specifically at the EIP functionality. I've come across some limitations there, but I can work around those easily enough.

The 90%/10% implementation comment was aimed at what I consider the current state of the core CAD tools in Fusion 360. Many of the core modeling tools, have not seen any substantial improvements in years.

I still cannot make a fully parametric component pattern without having to adjust subsequent joints when changing the pattern count. This is just one simple example.

On the other hand some areas of Fusion 360 have seen massive additions and improvements and all sorts of appendages have been added, but the core tool appear not to have received the same attention.

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@tyler_henderson wrote:

... With that said, I might ask, as we're working on striving toward 100% coverage of commands in EIP, would you prefer we wait until we have all of them working before we release them, or would you want us to release smaller batches of commands more frequently?

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How are we supposed to answer that without having even a remote understanding of the time it might take to get to those 100% ?

Currently I have to use other products to supplement the functionality Fusion 360 does not offer. Some of that requires me to start up my win10/bootcamp installation.  I'd love not having to do that and I'd love not having to pay for the next upgrade. Without somewhat of even a remote understanding of implementation times I cannot even plan.