change active units

[Anonymous]

I am getting very frustrated as a beginner.  The video's make this tool look so easy to use, but I do the same things, and it just doesn't work the same.  So I tried to follow a beginner's sketching tutorial.

Create a new project - no problem except there is no units item in the browser to change active units like in the tutorial.  Oh welll, who needs any particular units, anything will work there.

Draw a shape, the guy in the tutorial had his come out black, all mine come in blue.  Can not select and copy, and can not delete them other than ctrl - Z.,  So don't make any mistakes, and don't copy anything.

Draw a box, can not move it without selecting all the edges, no way to select a box in one selection.

So to begin alleviating my frustration, how do I get the units in the browser, and how do I draw a black shape?

[James.Youmatz]

Hi @Anonymous,

Welcome to the Fusion 360 Community!

The reason the sketch is in black in the tutorial is that the lines are fully defined/constrained. I'd have to see an example of your model to know where it is unconstrained, but that is the difference between a blue and black line in Fusion - blue is not fully defined and still has degrees of freedom, whereas a black line is fully defined. You can find more information about constraints and dimensions here in our learning section. I would suggest giving this a read through if these concepts are unfamiliar. 

Regarding changing active units - in the browser tree there is a drop down called Document Settings. In here it displays the Active Units. If you hover over this you should see a pencil/pad symbol which you can click to edit the active units. You can also go into your preferences and change the default units for each new document.

Thanks,

[Anonymous]

This is the video I watched:02 Sketching Part1


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02 Sketching Part1
Click here to see the PDF associated to this video: https://myhub.autodesk360.com/ue29c9141/shares/public/SH7f1e... | |

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I try to do EXACTLY what this video does.  There must be some missing steps not shown in the video to constrain the shapes he is creating here.

[James.Youmatz]

Hi @Anonymous,

Is this the video here you are referring to - none of your attachments/links seemed to work. 

If so, then you are right - these should NOT be black. Unfortunately, this video is from 2014 - back when Fusion was just coming out for the first time. You can see it still looks a lot different than the current version today. Although the concepts are the same, the black lines WILL NOT be black in the current version of Fusion as that is not a fully constrained sketch. As you can see when he creates a rectangle in space, there are all the proper dimensions and constraints to define a rectangle, BUT it is not fixed to a point in space - this rectangle can live anywhere within that 2D plane hence not being fully constrained. For instance, if you sketch that 2-point rectangle and snap the first point to the origin, you will notice that some lines turn black. This is because now the rectangle is also defined and constrained in the 2D space. Alternatively, if you follow the video and right click a corner of the rectangle and select Fix - you will notice the lines turn black too (same concept as snapping to the origin). 

Thanks,

[Anonymous]

I think that a large part of my confusion is that a box doesn't work like a circle.  I mean that in sketching there is no concept of a surface bounded by vectors, only vectors.  So with a circle, there is only one vector, but a box has four vectors.  If I want to move the box, I need to select all four vectors.

[James.Youmatz]

Hi @Anonymous,

Correct! And here is where the theory of constraints/dimensioning comes into play. Great example! If properly defined - the rectangle will have relationship between all 4 lines/vectors that fully define the relationship. Therefore, if you move one line (if properly constrained), the rest should move appropriately and should maintain the rectangle shape and dimension. Obviously if the rectangle is fixed in space (per my last post - i.e. it's black), it cannot be moved. But if it everything on the rectangle is fully defined besides location in space - it should be moveable.

Thanks,

[Anonymous]

Yes, but not as a rectangle per se, only as four line segments and four vertices.  I have parallel lines constraints, right angle corner constraints, length and width are set.  What else do you need to constrain a rectangle as a rectangle such that you could move it as one selected object?

[James.Youmatz]

Hi @Anonymous,

It should work, although I do want to caution you with the Move command. I did notice a small bug when I was playing around with it. Sometimes I could get it to work, and other times I had to clear my selection and then reselect an edge to get it to work. My suggestion - choose a vertex as opposed to a line. When you choose a line you can only move in one direction. I.e. if you have a vertical line, you cannot move that line vertically, only horizontally (as there is no reference for how much to move vertically). I demonstrate all of this in my screencast below:

[Anonymous]

This is all very helpful. I can't believe I am spending a day with a line, rectangle and circle.  So next step, adding and removing constraints.  I used the line tool to make a box.  Fusion automatically put in perpendicular constraints.  How do I remove the constraint(s) so I can grab a vertex and make a trapezoid?

[James.Youmatz · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous,

As long as the constraint symbols are shown (you can toggle this in the sketch palette) you should be able to left-click the constraint to highlight it, and then right-click and select Delete to remove them. Hitting the delete key should do the same. If you are having trouble selecting the symbol, hold the left mouse button to bring up the select-other menu. This can be helpful in selecting obstructed or hidden entities. 

Thanks,