Announcements
Attention for Customers without Multi-Factor Authentication or Single Sign-On - OTP Verification rolls out April 2025. Read all about it here.

Please rethink what you've done to CAM patterns

chjade84
Enthusiast

Please rethink what you've done to CAM patterns

chjade84
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

What was the reason pattern behavior was changed?  It used to work great.

You used to be able to post a single instance toolpath or multiple toolpaths for testing/prototyping reasons.  Now you have to post the ENTRIRE pattern.  There is no way to post a single instance anymore?  You used to be able to post the pattern itself if you wanted the entire pattern, or post individual operations inside the pattern if you just wanted those.  Now we can't do that.  How are we supposed to test toolpaths before doing an entire setup?

To make matters even worse, I just discovered you can't SIMULATE a single instance for checking.  Now you have to simulate the ENTIRE pattern just to see if it it is set up right.  What took seconds now takes minutes on HSM toolpaths, waiting for the entire array of parts to simulate before it moves on to the next operation.  And this is done dozens of times during a typical setup.

 

So why was this changed?  Why was a perfectly functional system changed to have less functionality?  What do I do now?  Make a duplicate setup for a "single" op and constantly update both the single and the pattern, never forgetting to do that or else I break stuff?

I don't think this change was thought through.  Or I'm missing something.

If you MUST keep it this way, at least add a right-click context menu option to toolpaths in a pattern that says 'post toolpath >" "post pattern" and "post single".  Ditto for simulate.

3 Likes
Reply
1,090 Views
19 Replies
Replies (19)

Anonymous
Not applicable

Can you clarify what you are having trouble with?

 

I seem to be able to post and simulate individual toolpaths within a project as always, as seen in the image below:

image.png

 

Multiple selection and Setup selection all seem to work similarly, unless I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to do.

0 Likes

seth.madore
Community Manager
Community Manager

@Anonymous the post made by @chjade84  has everything to do with toolpaths that are inside of Pattern folders. As it sits currently, if you try to post one selected toolpath in a Pattern, it applies the full Pattern specification to that

 

I too am puzzled by this change, as I can certainly see many cases where I wouldn't want to post out dozens of toolpaths every time. Let me do some digging and talk to the folks responsible


Seth Madore
Customer Advocacy Manager - Manufacturing
3 Likes

Anonymous
Not applicable

I ran into this yesterday and was told they are working on a fix, for now what I did was create a new folder in your tree, then copy all the toolpaths only into that folder. Now I can select all the toolpaths in that folder only to cut 1 part for testing and proving out, any changes I make to the toolpaths in the folder I just change them in the pattern too. Once testing was done, I suppressed the folder and posted the pattern for multiple parts. Not the greatest workaround, but my program had 60 patterns in it, so definitely better than going through and shutting off all the patterns one by one. 

0 Likes

chjade84
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

As long as they are working on it and it isn't an intended change I can live with the workarounds for a little while.  It massively impacts my workflow, not being able to test on a single part anymore.  

0 Likes

seth.madore
Community Manager
Community Manager

Well...it was an intended change, but it wasn't fully considered that users would post out one toolpath from a pattern without wanting the whole kit-n-kaboodle. Not saying that was the proper decision by any stretch.

The change was made to facilitate the best possible In-Process Stock Management solution. It may not seem like a related bit of functionality, but, under the hood, it's mind blowing how many things are linked in a way the layperson wouldn't expect. (and that's coming from a layman myself). I don't have a timeline for this change, unfortunately. I don't expect it to be solved in a short period of time, sadly.


Seth Madore
Customer Advocacy Manager - Manufacturing
0 Likes

Mk_Tactical
Contributor
Contributor

perhaps a new item in the context menu to post/simulate source only?

0 Likes

tobiboHYXWC
Participant
Participant

I have no words. It's horrible. Working with patterns is no longer logical. When I see that the Fusion 360 has been updated, I get scared (.

1 Like

tobiboHYXWC
Participant
Participant

1. You cannot simulate a separate trajectory of a pattern.
2. The pattern in the pattern ceased to work adequately. The circular pattern (mirror pattern (trojectory)) leads to complete chaos. This is a very serious problem. Previously, building complex structures based on patterns took 5 minutes, now it takes an enormous amount of time or becomes completely impossible because many tools still do not have important settings (3D Radial cannot change the direction clockwise or counterclockwise, etc.)

0 Likes

chjade84
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Thanks Seth.  I do (somewhat) understand how complex coding can be, especially in a product such as this, however I'm surprised they went ahead with whatever changes needed to be made, despite breaking a pretty critical workflow component.  I mean, of course people need to test their toolpaths before committing to a whole run of parts - and that's not a one-time thing in a lot of processes.

I wish as a paying customer I could opt out of updates.  How's that for a business model?  Paying to NOT get updates... The updates come far to frequently and break too many things.  Businesses don't want 'beta' software.  Fusion could do well to adopt the approach of almost all other software packages and have a 'stable' build and a 'beta' build.  Stable being updated every 6 mo to a year.  Let those who want experimental software use the beta builds that get weekly updates and let those who just need their software to work the way it is to stay out of that mess altogether.  

2 Likes

Mk_Tactical
Contributor
Contributor

any update on fix progress for this? Without the ability to test patterns before I commit to production, I feel like I am paying for amateur/hobby level software :disappointed_face:

1 Like

spercival985UD
Contributor
Contributor

Any update on this please? I was very disappointed to realise the functionality to simulate and post process an individual part tool path under a pattern has caused enourmous issue in my work flow - I typically run 50+ part patterns which are constantly changing. I use the duplicate pattern function mainly - if you deselect pattern so that you can simulate and post process a single parts tool paths - you have to reselect 50+ points as part of the duplicate pattern definition every time!

 

Please address this issue

 

Many thanks

 

0 Likes

Anonymous
Not applicable

One workaround that might help... you can change the pattern settings to "preserve order" and you will get the simulation of the one part all before the others.  Also when posting you can just delete the gcode that follows this first part for running a test. 

 

I stumbled on this post while looking for a solution to why the other parts do not show simulated stock.  Any ideas how to simulate stock for the entire pattern?  Thanks!

0 Likes

r.blahynka
Observer
Observer

Hello. May I ask whether this undesireable behavior got any more attention and if some fix has been attempted? It has been three years and it is ridiculous that I have to resort to workarounds when wishing to machine just the first instance of a pattern or simulate the entire pattern when I just want to check the single instance. 

Sorry, this was of course meant as a question for Autodesk, not chjade84

0 Likes

r.blahynka
Observer
Observer

Hello. May I ask whether this undesireable behavior got any more attention and if some fix has been attempted? It has been three years and it is ridiculous that I have to resort to workarounds when wishing to machine just the first instance of a pattern or simulate the entire pattern when I just want to check the single instance. 

0 Likes

Laurens-3DTechDraw
Mentor
Mentor

There is a way to only post at least one instance in the NC Programs.

See this GIFRecording #19.gif

Laurens Wijnschenk
3DTechDraw

AutoDesk CAM user & Post editor.
René for Legend.


2 Likes

seth.madore
Community Manager
Community Manager

@Laurens-3DTechDraw thanks for sharing that .gif. 

What you show is the correct method of posting out the code for the first instance of a pattern. (you know this, of course, so I'm just stating it for anyone else following this thread).

 

 

Odd that this conversation has come up recently in other channels as well :thinking_face:


Seth Madore
Customer Advocacy Manager - Manufacturing
0 Likes

r.blahynka
Observer
Observer

Aha, I did poke around on that tab, but I only highlighted the first instance in blue and then tried posting, which of course posted the whole pattern again. Didn't notice the function of those three bars. It's a usable solution, thanks for the tip @Laurens-3DTechDraw .

The problem with always simulating the full pattern can be "solved" by using "preserve order" in the pattern, and while the whole pattern is still simulated, you can just watch the first instance. If however I have operations nestled in different patterns (or even stock configurations), this will not help and cherrypicking operations from different patterns results in ALL the connected patterns being simulated and me having to find the specific operations I am interested in within the timeline. Also, due to this I can't check the estimated duration of a specific operation because I only get the overall duration of the pattern(s). It's pretty inconvenient and though I understand it may have underlying reasons in the code, I also find it hard to believe this couldn't be made to work more intuitively.

 

Anyway, thanks for considering

0 Likes

Laurens-3DTechDraw
Mentor
Mentor

You can also simulate a NC Program, which would also be a way to only simulate the first instances.

I'm not saying that's intuitive but at least it's associative. 

Laurens Wijnschenk
3DTechDraw

AutoDesk CAM user & Post editor.
René for Legend.


2 Likes

r.blahynka
Observer
Observer

Yes. Or I can take the operations I'm working on out of the pattern(s) in the hierarchy and put them back under the pattern only when I'm done tweaking them. But still, it would be nice to have a more intuitive option. :slightly_smiling_face: But thanks for your suggestion.

0 Likes