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Please Bring back Funcinality of Avoid Machine Surfaces

tommyscustomshop
Enthusiast

Please Bring back Funcinality of Avoid Machine Surfaces

tommyscustomshop
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
     Originally we were able to pick one surface and machine it very quickly and very effectively was definitely a highlight of Fusion360, now to achieve the same results we must pick boundaries and trim toolpaths. I've watched videos and read articles to no avail. Other people that use this function are struggling too. Please at least give us origainl funduanlity back.  
 
 
 
Don't get me wrong, Fusion is an awesome software and I have been using it since 2014. If you want to improve something please see the photo.   tommyscustomshop_0-1731416952643.png

 

 
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tessa.colledge
Autodesk
Autodesk

Hi tommyscustomshop,

 

Could you elaborate more on what you feel you can't achieve with the new machine avoid table? Which toolpaths are you using where you feel you can't reproduce old behaviour? It would be useful if you could send me an f3d file with an old toolpath and the new version after the machine avoid table was added that is different. 

 

It sounds like you would like to select one face and set that to machine, with all other faces set to avoid. To do this, create a new face selection group in the table using the plus button, select the face to machine and set the group to machine (that should actually be the default). Then set the model in the table to avoid.  

 

We made some changes to how machine and avoid tolerances work on some of our toolpaths, because we wanted to instate a consistent system where they work the same for all toolpaths. So there are some toolpaths where the behaviour has changed by design. It would be useful to know which ones you are having problems with and see the specific examples.

 

All the best,

Tessa Colledge



Tessa Colledge

Senior Software Engineer
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tommyscustomshop
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Old way pick these surfaces and boom off to the races it would only machine these surfaces by picking only these 3 surfaces. (Parallel,Scallop, Steep and shallow all use to work very well)

tommyscustomshop_0-1731424205940.png 

New way Result next photo

tommyscustomshop_1-1731424359283.png

Here picking avoid surfaces 

tommyscustomshop_2-1731424602230.png

 

Here's result we never use to get the waterfall now we have to use slope and trim toolpaths  

tommyscustomshop_3-1731424658539.png

 

 

 

 

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CRANDALLPRECISION
Advocate
Advocate

Yes, it is more work up front as it works more like other software so you can have multiple surfaces with different amounts of stock to leave in the same toolpath. When you create the toolpath and go to the touch avoid part just right click on it and edit it to red(avoid) now create hit the plus and pick the surfaces you want to cut(green). I attached a simple sample

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tommyscustomshop
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

  Yes PowerMill has had that feature that you are talking about and it is bulky just like Fusion's version now, can it be separated out so we can get the original functualy back? I do not think Fusion realizes how valuable its original functionality has been. Working on complex molds and having to only pick a few surfaces makes calculating times go fast..     

 

Your Fusion is updated beyond publics versions for download (See photo)

tommyscustomshop_0-1731446640339.png

 

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CRANDALLPRECISION
Advocate
Advocate

Screenshot 2024-11-13 050855.png

Screenshot 2024-11-13 051910.png

 Change the whole model to check and a second group of what you wanted to cut.

Fusion had always checked against the whole part in the setup just in the background unless you checked the model

checkbox and told it to ignore setup model. at that point you better use containment and watch lead-ins

or it can violate neighboring surfaces. 

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tessa.colledge
Autodesk
Autodesk

Thanks for the further details tommyscustomshop. I recognise that the previous workflow was simpler and that had value. Your concern is noted. It does sounds like you are still doing more work in the machine avoid table than you need to. As CRANDALLPRECISION points out, you do not need to click on loads of avoid surfaces. Simply set the model group entirely to avoid (see attached picture).

 

I am still concerned that I don't understand the 'waterfall' effect you are seeing in the toolpath. If you could send me the f3d, we could check whether this difference in toolpath behaviour is by design, or if it is a bug.



Tessa Colledge

Senior Software Engineer
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tommyscustomshop
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

   Hello Thank you for the reply. Here is the link https://a360.co/48Lo3us . I do understand to pick entire model the link here is just a simple slide entire model is picked to Avoid Surface (Red) and the (Green) is Set to "machine surface" and we end up with toolpath waterfalling over edges even with "Contact point Boundary and Contact only" Checked and also unchecked either way tool path still falls over this stands true for all other 3d toolpaths now.     If you guys have access to the old way please pull this slide in and program a parallel pick machine surface and you will see the results.   

     One other thing to consider is this is just a simple slide. When programming large molds such as large headlight lenses with many many multi faceted surfaces each time you are picking the entire model to add to a toolpath we are slowing processing time down.   

tommyscustomshop_0-1731503003756.png

 

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CRANDALLPRECISION
Advocate
Advocate

contour.PNG

steep and shallow.PNG

parallel.PNG

 I see steep and shallow works the best but you are right it shouldn't be rolling those corners. The other thing I noticed is what happened to tangential extension for parallel and contour

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tommyscustomshop
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

  So if you look you will see it happens in the rest of the 3d toolpaths with the Avoid and machine surfaces.

One other thing to consider is that we struggled in Powermill that does the same thing, One toolpath leaving more stock in one area then another. When an employee calls in sick or moves on to another shop or has a bad memory it is hard to find out what material is where and how much, so instead of copying Powermill come up with a much improved solution. So I only ask that we keep what really works well.   I can't stress enough Fusion 360 is an absolutely awesome software with great feedback and solutions.       

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dames123
Advocate
Advocate

Can you not just use a boundary?

 

dames123_0-1731532723716.png

 

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tessa.colledge
Autodesk
Autodesk

Hi tommyscustomshop,

 

Having taken a closer look at the file, another colleague and myself both believe the heart of this problem is that a change was made to allow the toolpath to 'touch' an avoid surface with a clearance of 0 on it. This can have the undesirable consequence that on vertical walls in 3-axis, the toolpath sometimes spills over. However, unfortunately, if we return to the previous way of internally defining a small avoid tolerance, there are other common and fairly simple cases that go wrong. We do not yet have a solution that solves both cases.

 

To overcome the waterfall effect, add a tolerance or fraction of tolerance sized avoid clearance on your model surfaces. Adding 0.0002 inch avoid clearance gave me the following result.

tessacolledge_0-1731575022232.pngtessacolledge_1-1731575078413.png

 

 

I hope this helps you overcome some of these challenges. We have taken notice of the fact that you find the waterfall on vertical walls problem significant, and that the lack of a simple workflow to select a small number of machine surfaces is undesirable. We generally allow feedback like this to direct our decision making processes, so thank you for engaging with us. 

 

All the best,
Tessa Colledge



Tessa Colledge

Senior Software Engineer
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tommyscustomshop
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hello, so when we add .0002 or even .0001 this is what happens the tool rises off the surface as seen in photo  (This part is just an example)  For some people this will not be an issue But in building silicon mold our vent depth is .0002 so you see this is an issue.                                          Is there a way for me to roll Fusion back to previous version?

tommyscustomshop_0-1731584896006.png

 

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tommyscustomshop
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hello dames123

 

 The whole point of this feature is not to have to pick or build boundaries when Fusion 360 introduced it we were excited because it was a much better way of doing this than their competitors but with this update it is a big step backwards, Boundaries limit the toolpaths in a lot of cases when dealing with many multi faceted parts the photo is just a very simple example.

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dames123
Advocate
Advocate

Hi @tommyscustomshop,

 

I think that was the point of the old functionality. I agree that was nice, but this new way serves many more functions, such as the ability to leave stock on one surface but not another. Perhaps they should have left both options in the software. This may be a "big step backwards" for you but not for others.

 

That being said, @tessa.colledge if you can fix the waterfall issue that would be amazing. This was never addressed in PowerMILL as it does the same thing.

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FrodoLoggins
Advisor
Advisor

Adding rads to rapid repositioning moves would be amazing.

- Time Magazine’s Person of the Year 2006
- Apple M1 Max rMBP A2485 // Latest MacOS // Latest Fusion
- Usually working off files uploaded to Fusion as: Step, STL, SLDPRT. If it matters ask me.
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tommyscustomshop
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

 Yes Autodesk already owns PowerMill so they know what to do. We just need them to know this is a need. If they ran cnc centers day in and day out they would know how much this would benefit machining and the longevity of the machines so it is up to us to make it known. 

tommyscustomshop_0-1731605398626.png

 

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tessa.colledge
Autodesk
Autodesk

I will try to address multiple things here as clearly as I can:

 

1. tommyscustomshopwhen we add .0002 or even .0001 this is what happens the tool rises off the surface

I apologise, I gave you slightly the wrong solution to reproduce old behaviour. Just add a tiny tiny radial clearance, not axial clearance to the avoid model surfaces. It should work with a very small value, and if it's only radial, the passes shouldn't lift off of the surface the way you describe.

 

2. dames123Perhaps they should have left both options in the software

We are realising that we underestimated the impact the total change would have on customers. We are working with a workflow designer to see how we can improve things in this area, but we can't make any promises at this stage. We are aware of the issue of not having a simple workflow anymore and will try to address it.

 

3. tommyscustomshopYes Autodesk already owns PowerMill so they know what to do. We just need them to know this is a need  

I started my career as a programmer on powermill toolpath algorithms, so yes this is familiar territory :-). Unfortunately, this is a case where tuning things in one direction causes the waterfall problem and tuning them away from that causes surfaces to not be fully machined in other common cases. You probably agree that is not a good situation to be in. It is one thing having to trim the toolpath away, but when the toolpath falls just short of the edge of the surface, it is fairly useless. If we knew how to tune things to prevent both problems occuring, we would certainly do that. 

 

4. tommyscustomshopIf they ran cnc centers day in and day out they would know how much this would benefit machining and the longevity of the machines so it is up to us to make it known.

We actually have a machine shop on our site, which has done commercial consulting work for decades, using our software in all sorts of industries. Lately it has reduced the consulting work and is focussing heavily on testing the software. The machininsts have decades of experience, which we can leverage to make the software better. Unfortunately, the toolpath algorithms have to serve customers doing every different geometry under the sun, and sometimes we hit problems that are very difficult to resolve. In this case, solving the waterfall problem causes another worse one and we can't see right now how to fix things so that both go away at the same time. We are still thinking though, and your feedback is immensely valuable to us. If many people report a problem, we will put more resource towards finding a solution, so thanks again for speaking up.

 

All the best,

Tessa



Tessa Colledge

Senior Software Engineer
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tommyscustomshop
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Thank you.

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FrodoLoggins
Advisor
Advisor

tuning them away from that causes surfaces to not be fully machined in other common cases.

 

Just reduce the size of those rads in those areas or omit them where needed? This wasn't an issue with PowerMill but is with Fusion?

- Time Magazine’s Person of the Year 2006
- Apple M1 Max rMBP A2485 // Latest MacOS // Latest Fusion
- Usually working off files uploaded to Fusion as: Step, STL, SLDPRT. If it matters ask me.
1 Like