Electronic design schematic hierarchy

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone,

I am about to start my fist schematic with fusion 360. It is a fairly complex schematic. i wanted to know if i can do a Hierarchy. ive been looking for information on this but so far i havent found any.

[jorge_garcia · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous ,

I hope this message finds you well. It is possible to do hierarchy using the Module and Port commands. One word of advice make sure to use module prefixes otherwise the reference designators on the board will become very long.

Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

Best Regards,

[sehaque]

ok, I am a veteran user of Eagle desktop, and also Fusion 360, but just started to investigate Fusion 360 Electronics (or Fusion 360 Eagle -- which is the official title or something?) and noticed a whole different UI that launches the usual Eagle program sections. In the case of Hierarchical Schematics (6.3 The Hierarchical Schematic, in manual_en.pdf) what are the Fusion 360 Electronics Eagle equivalents please? Is there a quick table of equivalents (of buttons) or a guide on this ? And is there an officlal website on the UI elements of the Fusion integrated Eagle? Did I miss that somewhere?

Items:

• Creating a Module (got this one)
• Define Ports / Moving Ports (difficult one this)
• Using Module Instances (got this one)
• Assembly Variants (how in the world .... ?)

Autodesk, team, (@jorge_garcia thank you for your hard work over many years) please provide a better reference guide (PDF manual/HTML manual/HTML table/PDF table) of the newer 2021 vintage Fusion 360 / PCB product buttons/UI elements - where are they and what do they do in one handy quick reference. We need to quickly get up to speed on it, otherwise it's back to Eagle standalone!!

I have a paid subscription:

2.0.10253
Active Plan: Fusion 360, Subscription
Windows 10 (19042)

[jorge_garcia]

Hi @sehaque ,

You can find the most up to date Fusion 360 Electronics(that's the official name) here:
https://help.autodesk.com/view/fusion360/ENU/?guid=ECD-OVERVIEW

It will cover most of the UI changes.

The Variant Function can be found under the document menu in the schematic editor. Most everything has been transferred into Fusion, as you've noted it's just in different places.

Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

Best Regards,

[kb9ydn]

---

@jorge_garcia wrote:

Hi @sehaque ,

You can find the most up to date Fusion 360 Electronics(that's the official name) here:
https://help.autodesk.com/view/fusion360/ENU/?guid=ECD-OVERVIEW

It will cover most of the UI changes.

The Variant Function can be found under the document menu in the schematic editor. Most everything has been transferred into Fusion, as you've noted it's just in different places.

Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

Best Regards,

---

So how DO we go about editing/moving/deleting ports on modules?  There seems to be no mention of this in the official help pages at all.

<rant>

And regarding the official help pages, this is an example where it's organization is quite terrible.  When looking for reference material on using modules and ports, you would expect to find a single section with an overview describing what they are, how they should be used, and how to actually use them (add/delete/modify/etc.) in the software.  The important part is that this information is grouped in such a way as to be easy to find.  Right now I have to look through a giant list of unrelated items "Schematic design tools", that is in absolutely no order at all (alphabetical even), pick out an item that seems related, click on it only to see that it contains two or three sentences about what the thing is, but not how to use it, go back, scroll through the list again, hopefully find the item that describes how actually use the tool, and then maybe finally make some progress.

There are 4 list items related to modules and ports:

 -adding ports
 -add a port to a module
 -add a module
 -about modules

... when there should only be one called "Modules and Ports".  The first 3 list items all begin with "add", which makes finding the relevant items that much more difficult because you have to read the whole title instead of just the first word.  It may sound silly but when you have to go through a list of 72 items (yes I counted them) to find something specific, and half of them start with "Add a thing" and "About a thing", it makes you want to smash your head against your keyboard repeatedly.

</rant>

I get it, it's still a work in progress.  But at the very least PLEASE alphabetize the list if you can't organize the material in a more logical fashion.

Ok, I'm better now.  🙂

C|

[jorge_garcia]

Hi @kb9ydn ,

Thanks for the feedback, documentation on ports and modules is very scarce because that still needs a lot of work. Editing ports is very painful because you have a very limited region for selection. To apply an operation to a port you have to hold ctrl and left click at the intersection of the port and the module. This is the same for the MOVE, INFO and any other command you may want to apply. 

This is definitely an area that needs to be revisited.

Best Regards,

[kb9ydn]

---

@jorge_garcia wrote:

Hi @kb9ydn ,

Thanks for the feedback, documentation on ports and modules is very scarce because that still needs a lot of work. Editing ports is very painful because you have a very limited region for selection. To apply an operation to a port you have to hold ctrl and left click at the intersection of the port and the module. This is the same for the MOVE, INFO and any other command you may want to apply. 

This is definitely an area that needs to be revisited.

Best Regards,

---

Hi @jorge_garcia ,

Thanks for the hint on port selection.  It's not so bad if you zoom way in but then you can't move very far.  So yeah, it does need some work.

Is it planned for the module functionality to (eventually) be able to link schematics from different designs?

C|

[jorge_garcia]

Hi @kb9ydn ,

I hope you're doing well. We have a lot of plans for the hierarchy implementation in Fusion, but it's still a ways out and hasn't borne any fruit so there's not much I can comment on it at the moment.

Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

Best Regards,

[sehaque]

Jorge help us a bit and please arrange an  autodesk sponsored user and developer meeting. We deserve a brief as we are struggling to understand the roadmap between versions while having no choice but to pay fees each month.

[christopher2KLSVU]

Any update in hierarchical design since 2021?
Is there any example or tutorial of using hierarchical design with sub blocks?

[jorge_garcia]

Hi @christopher2KLSVU,

Thanks for posting. There has been work done on this front but it has proven to be a difficult nut to crack what we have been exploring is a feature that solves the existing problems with hierarchy but gives the flexibility of the design blocks of old. Planning the feature and scoping it has proven to be difficult. If you have any ideas I'm sure @melisa.kaner and Andy roberts would be interested in hearing them.

There is a good example of hierarchy in the ngspice examples. I have attached it here for your reference. Is this kind of what you are looking for?

Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

Best Regards,