Why is my sketch text appearing upside down?
The thinG to learn is when ever something like that happens remember that it's not our fault and it must be a Fusion 360 bug
This is a known issue, not sure where they are at with fixing it though.....one way to keep this from happening is to select the face you want to use and do an offset plane with zero offset. then use that plane and your text will be correct.
@jeff_strater any idea when this might get fixed?
Phil Procario Jr.
Owner, Laser & CNC Creations
This one is a bit more involved than it first seems. At the risk of inciting violence, this is not really wrong, in a purely technical sense. Whether text is "upside down" or "backwards" is all dependent on the view. For instance, if I put text on a sketch on each of the origin planes, it looks like this:
You could argue that the one on the XZ plane is wrong. But, it's right in terms of the coordinate system of that plane. The X and Y axes of a sketch on that plane are:
So, in this view, the text is actually correct. But, you might ask, why, when I start from the standard home iso view, and edit this sketch, do I get:
?
This is a good question. The answer is that "look at" for a sketch (or any object, for that matter), does a "minimum rotation" to get to the view. It doesn't always guarantee that you view the sketch along its sketch normal, and with X in the positive direction to the right, and Y in the positive direction upward. We could do that, but the view transition would be jarring in a lot of cases. And, in 90% of the sketches which do not have text, it doesn't matter. There is no backwards or upside-down for a rectangle 
You can see this minimum rotate in action if you start from different views:
So, long story short: Yes, we could change the behavior so that "look at" for a sketch always orients the sketch so that text is right-side up and forwards. And, that might be correct. The other thing, which we are planning (although I'm not sure exactly when) is to offer commands to flip text (you can already rotate). Do you think that will help?
Jeff
Jeff Strater
Engineering Director
I see what your saying but explain this to me. In the screen cap below I started a sketch on the front plane and I have orient to sketch turned off so my view doesn't change. Now if you look at the view cube you will see the word FRONT, now look at the default orientation of text and it is upside down and backwards in relation to the view cube. Do you really feel this is the least confusing way to display the default orientation of text? That's like saying it doesn't matter if the word FRONT on the view cube is upside down. It's very confusing to new users and to be honest it confuses me because it makes no sense. I agree there should be a box to flip a sketch and text in both directions, but I also feel the default orientation should be fixed. Currently the text isn't even correct when viewed from the back view, it's still upside down. Now even aside from all of this if I create an offset plane with zero offset the orientation of the text is as expected. So by your teams own definition of wanting everything across Fusion to work the same, one or the other is broken. And you guys wonder why new users get frustrated..........
Phil Procario Jr.
Owner, Laser & CNC Creations
Another reason this seems wrong to me.... Say I am doing work ok my client wants text model with a 2D print. Ok great so my drawings defaults to a front view so I pick the front plane to draw a sketch on type out my text and extrude it ok great. I save the file and create a drawing and select the front view, Houston we have a problem, in the print my text is backwards and upside down...can I fix this by choosing the back view? Nope...so now I either have to do a work around every time I do text or give my customer something that makes me look like I have no idea what I'm doing. Now if I sketch on the front plane it works the opposite of how the text works and shows up in the front view as expected. So what's right?
Phil Procario Jr.
Owner, Laser & CNC Creations
Now if I sketch on the front plane it works the opposite of how the text works and shows up in the front view as expected. So what's right?
It used to work as expected but one of the updates broke it......
Phil Procario Jr.
Owner, Laser & CNC Creations
@PhilProcarioJr: All good points, I agree. I was just trying to explain how this all works as it is today, not to try to imply that it is not confusing.
The XZ plane has always been a problem child, because of its odd axis orientations. The reason for the "upside down and backwards" part is because it was considered important that the sketch normal of a sketch on the XZ plane point in the +Y direction, so that a positive Extrude would go in the direction of the Y axis:
It helps to look at the coordinate system for a sketch on each origin plane. I've modeled a coordinate system using solid bodies, which makes it easy to rotate into various orientations. Here is the global CS (which is also the CS for a sketch on the XY plane):
In all these images, red is X, green is Y, and blue is Z (RGB...). This one is easy to understand.
Now, let's look at the YZ plane:
Remember, we are looking at the local sketch coordinate system. So X and Y are now rotated into the YZ plane, and Z is oriented toward the "inside" of the model. But, this is all kosher as far as text goes, which we have seen.
Now, the problem child: XZ. In order to get the default normal for the sketch to point along the global Y axis (toward the inside of the model), and to maintain a right-handed coordinate system, the local coordinate system of the XZ plane has to be oriented like this:
Which you can see if you rotate the axis model bodies.
So, it all comes from wanting that normal direction to be in a certain orientation. We could certainly change the normal direction for the XZ plane. Or make it an option. But, this is the way it is today.
I'm pretty sure nothing has changed in this area for a very long time, though. The "zero offset plane" approach never should have changed this, I believe, because an offset workplane inherits its coordinate system from what it was offset. So a zero offset plane from the XZ plane should produce the same results as the XZ plane itself. This seems to be the case, as far as I can tell.
I'm confused by the comments about drawings. Drawing views appear to be doing exactly the right thing: The view you get is exactly the same as the view when looking at the front view. Yes, the text is upside down and backward, but the drawing agrees with the model, doesn't it?
Thanks for the patience to have read all the way through this. I've also attached this model to this post, in case you want to take a look.
Jeff
Jeff Strater
Engineering Director
Actually, I just realized this morning that my XZ plane image was not quite correct - I was missing one more rotation. This is actually what it looks like:
And this agrees with text in that plane, as well:
Another thing to consider: If you switch to "Y up" as the default orientation, it works more as you expect:
Jeff
Jeff Strater
Engineering Director
Y up wont work for me. All my machines assume Z up so if I use Y up I have to rotate all my models. Either way it is what it is, I will continue try to unconfuse new users and use work arounds.
Thanks for the explanations but I already understand why it is the way it is. My concern is no other 3d app has default behavior like this so it's a pain and confusing for new users.
Phil Procario Jr.
Owner, Laser & CNC Creations
