Fusion 360 - Cloud solving will be the only option available for all simulation

[hmortim]

In the latest update notes of Fusion360 there is a notice:

https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/blog/august-2022-product-update-whats-new/

"Simulation

Update to Fusion 360 Simulation Extension Local Solve Capabilities 

In the up-coming September update for Fusion 360, local solving for Linear Static stress, Modal, Thermal, and Thermal stress study types will be no longer be available.  Cloud solving will be the only option available for all simulation study types as a part of the Simulation Extension.  Going forward, we are focusing on the availability and overall experience that is provided. We are doing this in order to focus on performance, availably, and experience delivered as a part of the simulation workflows. "

Does this mean I will now have to start using cloud credits for the features I used to have access to locally? If that's the case, it's very frustrating because I have invested in an expensive computer to be able to handle this program with ease. I use the Linear Static stress simulation quite often as I make frequent changes to my designs as I R&D. It is not going to make financial sense for me to use this feature on the cloud. My system is quite capable doing it locally without issue.

Please keep the local simulation features available! In fact, I would love to see an expansion of the other simulations to be done locally. Thank you.

[tomas.baborsky]

,,If you don't like Autodesk's product pricing, then choose a product from a different vendor. there is plenty of choice!"

If you learnt whole your life only Autodesk and you worked with whole time since the beginning it is harder to go for another product. But yes. I am now learning FreeCad 1.0. But the fact I have to do it after that many years with Autodesk because don't think on customers who doesn't use the product often enough to make it worthwhile, it is just very disappointing. 

@tomas.baborsky-this post has been edited due to Community Rules & Etiquette violation.

[TrippyLighting]

Yep, done that several times. CATIA, HP ME10, AutoCAD, AutoCAD LT, SolidWorks, AlibreDesign, Fusion, ZW3D.

It becomes easier once you've done it a couple of times, and you'll notice that the concepts are very, very similar. Than changing the tool will be much easier.

Never make yourself the slave of a tool!

I've looked at FreeCAD myself, just for experience and to see how it works, but unfortunately, days have only 24 hours, and there are other tools I am more interested in.

Plasticity CAD, would be one of them, for example.

Enjoy the learning experience!

[rhetths]

Someone told me recently that Autodesk bought Fusion, they didn't create it.  If true that explains everything.  They bought it as an anti-competitive measure, to get rid of competition that created a better product, and the whole trend of destruction of the program continues to this day because it hurts their ego that someone else created something better, any time they touch it they usually degrade it out of incompetence.

Imagine if they hadn't bought it and the original developers stayed working on it, how awesome it may be by now.

@rhetths - this post has been edited due to Community Rules & Etiquette violation.

[seth.madore]

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@rhetths wrote:

Someone told me recently that Autodesk bought Fusion, they didn't create it.  If true that explains everything. 

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Patently and demonstrably false. Next question please.

[jeffrbeyer]

Dude, you are supposed to be the "Customer Advocacy Manager. 

@jeffrbeyer - this post has been edited due to Community Rules & Etiquette violation. 

[jeffrbeyer]

Also, they bought Eagle, not Fusion. So, your response is technically correct, although you named the wrong product

[TrippyLighting]

I've reported your post to the moderator. Please refrain from personal insults. If you can't, stay away from this forum.

[TrippyLighting]

Here are some actual facts anyone with internet access can find, with some effort.

Autodesk Fusion 360 was initially called Inventor Fusion. It was purely a direct modeling software and shares similarities with SpaceClaim.

Just as most, if not all, modern CAD software, it uses both purchased and licensed components.  

As a larger player in this market, Autodesk occasionally acquires entire companies. The company that developed the Lagoa Cloud Renderer was absorbed by Autodesk. Same with CADsoft who created Eagle.

This is common not only in the CAD software industry. Many of the current CAD systems are not in the hands of the original companies that created them.

SolidWorks was acquired by Dassault Systèmes long ago. Siemens acquired NX in 2007. It was formerly known as Unigraphics.  OnShape was acquired by PTC, whic own Creo.

This list can span pages!

All modern CAD software employs a geometric modeling kernel, which is rarely developed in-house but is licensed. 

Autodesk Inventor, Fusion, and Revit all use the Autodesk Shape Manager (ASM), which was born out of an early fork of the ACIS kernel.

Many other companies use the Parasolids kernel, which is now owned and maintained by Siemens, but wasn't initially developed by Siemens. 

Importers and exporters of different 3D formats are often licensed.

On the CAM side, many, many CAD software, including Fusion  use the ModuleWorks kernel.

NYCNC made a video about that.

I've provided links above to some of this for further study for those who like to dig a little deeper.

Trying to draw conclusions on the quality of any CAD software based on what software components have been absorbed into a given CAD software is a futile undertaking. 

[jeffrbeyer]

My apologizes, I was unaware of that situation. However, I hope you understand that from my point of view, and I'll admit I didn't know the full context, it is not really appropriate for an employee to act like that to someone who is seemingly asking a real question? You are still representing Autodesk here. And really, he wasn't too far off. Autodesk purchased Eagle from another company, and in turn some of the Electronics side of Fusion is based on it.

Also, @TrippyLighting you aren't a mod yourself. You really don't have to add the "I've reported your post too the moderator". If I get in trouble for my action, an actual mod can tell me. 

@jeffrbeyer - this post has been edited due to Community Rules & Etiquette violation. 

[jeffrbeyer]

I admit I was quick to judge. However, a paid "Customer Advocacy Manager" making a statement like that to a customer (and not being 100% accurate in his statement itself) isn't a good look for the company. 

[rosie_lucas1]

Community Moderation has assessed the posts against the ground rules Community Rules & Etiquette  and executed accordingly. Please keep this topic discussion in compliance with the ground rules as otherwise we reserve the right to lock down this topic from further replies. Thanks a lot for your understanding, and please feel free to bring everything through the 'Report' button to our attention. 

[rhetths]

My post supposedly went against the etiquette rules and supposedly has been edited, but i dont notice anything missing, and if something has been deleted i dont know what and therefore dont know how to write in future.  Therefore at this stage the system seems to be designed in such as way that there is no oversight or transparency or systems in place to actually help people ensure compliance.

I think it is important for me to convey that about five years ago i assessed a variety of programs and decided i wanted to learn and purchase and use Fusion, which is a significant investment especially for a startup, and since that time there has been very regular software changes that have caused a multitude of issues and degradations.  Considering i have a design and manufacturing business and use Fusion for hours each day, typically seven days a week, Fusion sits very firmly within the core of my business.  When Fusion is degraded, my business is directly degraded, in many ways, both financially and non financially, although everything ends up with an associated cost.  I use Fusion for design, simulation and manufacture.  Regarding the specific aspects of the program that i use, i estimate that 95% of software changes to those aspects have degraded the software.  The cost to my startup is thousands of dollars.  This situation is likely to be conveyed in my posts, and while some may have a different view or find it inconvenient to their interests, or it makes them feel bad, my story in and of itself should not in any way be seen as a lack of etiquette.  It is important for the future of Fusion and Autodesk for people to be able to convey their story, to seek to understand, and to get help when there are software problems or user problems.  This is exactly what constructive criticism looks like.  Etiquette is not about feelings.

I note that i find that most of the programs i have been using over the last ten years have been similarly degraded by software changes, with a similar ratio of about 95%, however those programs are changed less often than Fusion and hence suffer less degradation overall, and are not quite as core to my business as Fusion.

I have screenshotted a copy of this post.

[jeffrbeyer]

I have to agree on all of your points. With the first one, I was told I had a strike already against me, despite having found no notifications to that point in my email for the past year. 

Constructive criticism is one of the  most important parts of having a community in the first place. If Autodesk is unwilling to hear any criticism, then maybe having this forum isn't a good idea. Or better yet, a forum not run by Autodesk in the first place.

The main issue I see is that this forum is the ONLY way people can actually speak directly to staff members without having to go through a faceless "contact us" form. However, when people do speak up, they get shut down? 

[tomas.baborsky]

Huge corporates are always more like communists. You must spread their narratives or you are silenced. If you are employer and you say something bad then you can be fired.... I am curious when they will start listen? If shares will decline much more? But it will be late as usual... 

[seth.madore]

@rhetths I can't speak for my colleagues, but in general, we actually DO welcome negative feedback, since, well, it drives us to make a better product. What I, and others, find issue with is the approach that many customers take of "there's a problem, but I ain't gonna spend one second more describing the issue or sharing data that supports my claim. Tough luck, figure it out". And then these same folk insist on coming back time and again to repeat the same tired lines, never providing evidence. If there's a problem; share data privately, expand on your issue, or we're just wasting everyone's time. 

We want to deliver the best CAD/CAM software available. I repeat myself, but...if there's a bug or a change in workflow that is impacting you (the customer in general), we need to know about it and we benefit greatly from actual examples.

A forum bug report should look something like this:

1. Brief overview of issue
2. A more detailed explanation and what expected results should be, steps to arrive at said issue
3. A file or video/screenshots that give us enough info to recreate the scenario/issue.

Post and ghost solves absolutely nothing, other than making one feel better that they get to rag on the software one more day.

[jeffrbeyer]

If you look back at this entire thread, you can see our issues with it. There isn't just a single instance of issues happening with a cloud based system, because it is happening all of the time. It isn't a simple bug report. In fact, in this case,  many people have provided examples as to why a cloud only system does not work for them. We spend a lot of time and money on our server infrastructures so we are not reliant on your cloud system. Taking that away from us is the issue. You are making more work for yourselves, and it is unneeded and not welcome. Why can't there be a non-cloud option as well as a cloud option? Lots of companies do that, where a cloud based solver is available for those whose systems are not powerful enough to run it themselves, but a local solver is available so there is no reliance on your own server system. If your servers go down for any reason, we lose the ability to continue our work until it is back up. We do not want to be forced to rely on your system, when we have the ability to run things ourselves.

Again, this is not a simple bug report that can be sent. It is a core problem. If you really need to see an example, may I suggest the following:
Your task is to run a basic test simulation. Nothing fancy, just basic.
Go offsite to a non Autodesk location. Open up any file that has some simulation that needs to be run. Now, turn off wifi on your device to replicate a server going down. Now try to finish the task. You will see the problem immediately.

[seth.madore]

@jeffrbeyer oh for sure, on the topic of Simulation being cloud only, fully agree that nothing more needs to be documented or explained. To the point of Sim and Cloud; this isn't going to change. Fusion is a Cloud Connected software and there's no indication from our leadership that this is going to change.

Unfortunately, this thread has morphed into a bit of a collection of "airing of grievances", some of which are quite valid, and others that....aren't so much. My most recent response (which I should have clarified better) is more along the lines of general guidelines for feedback 🙂

[rhetths]

I personally dont focus on the financial performance of a software company as necessarily indicative of their health or future health.  I find that basically all of the software i have been using over the last ten plus years has degraded over that time in proportion to how much the software has been changed.  Pretty much every time it gets changed it goes backwards, so the more it gets changed the more it goes backwards.  Sure, new programs are being created and some of them are good or better than previous programs, but that is a separate point, and of course AI is progressing amazingly.  It may be that all of the talent is being drawn out of regular programming and into AI.  The process i have been talking about for years is now being recognised and labelled as "Enshittification".  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4Upf_B9RLQ

Financial performance is substantially a competitive thing, how well competitors are doing against each other, and since most programs are being degraded consumers have few options to switch to better programs.  We all sink as a group.  Productivity goes down across the board.  What share prices typically dont tell you is what is around the corner.  Is for example another organisation going to use AI to create a good CAD program and then a flood of people switch to it?

Industry seems yet to properly consider the risks of modern CAD offerings that time out and are internet dependent.  It may not be far off that business funding is conditional on engineering firms having more secure programs.  Autodesk used to offer ArtCam and now it doesn't.  Programs are shed all the time for one reason or another.  Autodesk could have underlying financial problems now or in the near future (due to AI?) that could make it shed a program or go bankrupt.  Or it could be bought by another company that already has a lineup of programs and sheds a competing or unprofitable or whatever program or more.  Or another product might already exist or be created and Autodesk buy it and shed Fusion.  Any organisation could also suffer a deep cyberattack that compromises or knocks it out for a period of time or forever.  Or WW3 could create a lot of problems including the cutting of undersea cables, just when you need strong engineering Fusion might be down and out without undersea cables, and Inventor would time out within a year.  These are critical security vulnerabilities.

[TrippyLighting]

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@rhetths wrote:

...  I find that basically all of the software i have been using over the last ten plus years has degraded over that time in proportion to how much the software has been changed.  Pretty much every time it gets changed it goes backwards, so the more it gets changed the more it goes backwards.  

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Can you be more specific on what has degraded in Fusion from your perspective?

I am interested in a nuanced discussion.

[tomas.baborsky]

I will be very specific what degraded in Fusion. It is why this discussion started. Autodesk took from us simulations running on our PCs. Imagine my situation. U bought quite expensive PC only for those simulations and 2 weeks after Autodesk announced that simulations will run on cloud! This is degradation because trough cloud it was much slower and as rhetths wrote now this is safety issue. Who wants software which is dependent on the internet? Do you read news? Are you interested of the outer world? We are heading into WW3 and damaging undersea cables is now happing and can be worse anytime. Only fool can say that it is not probable.