How do you create a 'New Body'? and a bug report.

[donsmac]

Right to it.... Bug: Selecting 'New Body' in the drop down menus does not result in a new body being created if that body interests or touches another body. Instead a 'Join" or 'Cut' is performed even though I specifically selected 'New Body' from the drop down menu. However selecting anything else works fine but selecting 'New Body' does not. More often than not I want to create a 'New Body' and I do not want the thing to join or cut because when the model gets a bit complex, the cut or join takes a long time to calculate. Several minutes sometimes and all you want is a new body that takes seconds. But you can actually get to choose 'New Body' and have it actually make a new body: by first selecting anything you don't want! from the dropdown menu, next choose 'New Body'. Now that works! but it would be nice if I could choose 'New Body' and get one.

On a similar topic.... It would be such an improvement to Fusion's modeling experience if in the Preferences, the user has a choice to TURN OFF automatic cut and join functionality. I have done a lot of modeling in Fusion and I still do not see any benefit whatsoever for this. It's such a detriment in fact. Why waste all the time creating a cut or join when you want a new body. I was going to make a video showing a cut being done that took five minutes, when all I wanted was to extrude a circle to a 'NewBody' cylinder which would have taken seconds, not minutes. I'm sure you would not want to watch such a  video or experience the real deal. At least getting the functionality of 'New Body' selection in the drop down menu working would be a great improvement in itself. When I tell Fusion specifically to create a 'New Body'... it Does. That would be super!

[lichtzeichenanlage]

It's a matter of order. If you move the arrow (or enter a value) and the new body "hits" a different body it jumps to join, if you "run through" a different body it jumps to cut. You can change it afterwards. 

And for me this behavior is fine. Why? If I'm using several independent bodies I'm using components, too. And in this case it doesn't switch to cut or join if I hit a body in a different component.  If it's in the same component the assumption from Fusion 360 is pretty right that I either want to cut or join a body. The implementation is totally in sync with the Rule #1. 

BTW: If the software doesn't behave like you expect it, it's not necessary a bug. It might be a good idea if you publish this in the idea station. 

[donsmac]

Thanks for your reply,

I didn't mean or want to get into a discussion on 'rules' and components etc.

The main thing I wanted to point out is the fact that choosing 'New Body' in the drop down menu doesn't work.

It doesn't work and it should work.

There is no reason that it shouldn't,... all I'm saying.

Try it out for yourself.

When you choose 'New Body' it should give you one.

There is no good reason for it not to work.

I can force it to work by choosing something else from the dropdown, something I don't want, then drop down again and choose 'New Body' now it works. 

But I am saying it does not work if you pick it over and over, Fusion should get the idea at some point I do want the new body it is advertising as being available in the menu. 

This is not hard to see as a bug!

Has nothing to do with Fusions expected way of doing things.

Again, choosing 'New Body' does not work and it should work, would it be so bad if it did work?

It is absolutely no reason for this to be broke.

That's why I called it a bug, if it doesn't work  well... maybe there's another term for it?

I hope this is easy to understand, please just try it and see that it needs fixing and I will be way more than happy:)

I can see that it's not working, is what I'm saying... Trying to help you guys out here, ...make me work for it...

Try it please to see for yourself, and if you cannot get what I'm getting at, than please show this someone else till you find someone that can see that it doesn't work, they could explain it to you better. 

This is as clear as I can make it without making a screencast. 

Cheers.

~Don

P.S. Not for discussion here...but BTW, I did put up a suggestion over a couple of years ago regarding the matter of auto cut and join. Got archived but had a message saying in a few years it could be implemented, around now!  

[lichtzeichenanlage]

• I don't agree. It's okay that you don't want a discussion about body vs. component. I didn't mention Rule #1 just because of the sake of a arguing but to add a reason why it in my opinion behaves like it behaves. 
• AD shows in all videos  I've seen that the automatic switch between new body, join and cut is a wanted feature. So - I wouldn't call it a bug. 
• Unless "New Body" is the default, you've changed it from the default to the default. A program might see this as no action. But it also might
• In my opinion removing this feature would remove efficiency. 
• If your entry was archived and not implemented it doesn't look like it's either widely wanted or has a high priority. I wouldn't vote for it. 

[lichtzeichenanlage]

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@lichtzeichenanlage wrote:

• Unless "New Body" is the default, you've changed it from the default to the default. A program might see this as no action.

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I've quickly tested this theses and yes - selecting a selected item triggers no action. And that's exactly what I expect from a UI. 

[donsmac]

Selecting the item you want triggers no action and doesn't give you what you want.

Here's an analogy to make it clearer as to what the problem is:

Very loosely based on a true story:

A new dinner opened up down the block called 'theChewAndExtrude'. It looks very nice so I went there to check it out a have something to eat. The first time I went in and sat down and picked up the menu. On the cover was a picture of  the most delicious pizza. When I opened the menu I saw that there were only sold three items:

1) 'newBodyPizza',

2) 'freshCutVeggies', and

3) 'joinTheClubSandwich'.

The waitress comes over and I point to the cover of the menu and said "I want that".

A half hour later she comes back with my order but she brings me an order of the freshCutVeggies. 

I open the menu and pointed to the newBodyPizza and told her, "I want that". She says "no problem". In just a few moments she's back with my newBodyPizza order.

I said, "that was fast", and she said, "the newBodyPizzas are very fast compared to the time it takes to make a freshCutVeggie plate or the 'joinTheClubSandWich'. 

The exact same thing happened three times in a row, each time I went there I would point to the cover and say I want that but every time the waitress would bring me something I didn't want twenty minutes later. But I did realize that pointing to the cover maybe the problem because each time I did that I received the wrong order and when

I would open the menu and point, I would get what I want. 

So the next time I went there, I opened the menu and pointed to the newBodyPizza I want and said I want that. "No problem" she says, and comes back with a plate of ... suspense...

freshCutVeggies! So once again I open the menu and point to the newBodyPizza and say I want that and get it right away.

...so I thought I would try and experiment, so the next time I went to theChewAndExtrude, I ordered something I didn't want to see what would happen. Well, this time I got what I ordered, twenty minutes later, but it wasn't what I  wanted so again I open the menu in front of the waitress and point to the newBodyPizza and tell her I want that and she brings it right away. 

The next time I went there, sat down in my favorite spot, the waitress comes over and again I ordered something I do not want. When she was on her way to kitchen I called to her to come back and I said I changed my mind and want theNewBodyPizza instead. A few moments later she comes with my order of newBodyPizza! yes!... no twentyminute wait. I just have to order something I do not want first then change the order before she gets to the kitchen. 

...By this time the waitress and I are dating, and I ask her how come I always got what I didn't want. She explained to me that that's how they do things and said what I needed to do when I go there is first sit at a table, make myself comfy then get up move to another table, make my order from there and get what you want when you ask for it.

 I suggested to her that they ought to give the customer what they ordered, she did not agree and said that's the way do things. Nice restraunt though, great girl.

[ruedi.weber]

If I point on the picture and tell the waitress "this looks like a newBodyPizza to me" she could agree. After thad I could extrude the "I want something to eat" operation. With that in mind the waitress maybe suggest 'freshCutVeggies' or 'joinTheClubSandwich', because they are healthy and preferred at near lunchtimeBody (assuming it's a lunchtimeBody situation).

If I don't like this kind of conversation, I schuld tell the waitress straight away "I would like to have something to eat extruded on my table and it should better be a 'newBodyPizza'". In most cases the waitress would like to deliver this 'newBodyPizza' without any further suggestions, because what this tells here is, it's a fact that this customer knows what he wants.

Hope this helps.

[lichtzeichenanlage]

@donsmac Perhaps you should try it with story telling and not with CAD 😉

I've 25+ years of software development and I can tell you that users expect that UI elements behave the same way over and over again. And one of those mechanics is, that selecting an already selected item in a drop down list shouldn't trigger any activities. Why - it could trigger bigger activities that are not needed. Sure - not in case of the extrude command but in other cases. And again it's important from an user perspective that an item like the drop down list always behave the same. 

And again - if you would use components and not having multiple bodies the software would not switch to automatic mode and wouldn't switch to join or cut like you want it.  So your story lacks a whole lot of plot.

IMHO the valid point in your initial post is to ask for a flag in the preferences. But this is a task for the idea station and the good thing is, that you can see how important it is for other users. 

[donsmac]

I agree that selecting an item from the menu that is already shown as the selection shouldn't change anything. 

BUT the point I'm making is that the selected option doesn't give you what you want in the first place. SO I'm saying that there is no reason not to have 'new body' created when you select it. You are specifically telling the program to make a new body at that point. So in this case there is no need to keep the non functionality of the Default 'New Body' selection. Just give the new body as requested. I can't see this as causing some problem, and would be a big improvement.

So we narrowed the problem down to this. Using our analogy, with our restaurant menu. I want the choice on the cover or in the menu and when I do that I get it. You are saying if you pick what is on the cover you don't get it and if you pick the same thing from inside the menu you also get what you don't want because it's already on the cover.

I hope you are beginning to see the light here. 

I put up an Idea to the 'idea station' as you suggested: 

I received a few comments from other Fusion360 users:

1) "If it's an option, I'm for it"

2) "The option to turn this off is a good idea"

3) "My current project involves a bunch of lumber and I'm having the same problem (though not to the same extent I'm sure).  I can't imagine that this is that hard to implement.  This is one of the first frustrations I had using the program.  Generally I want to create a new body rather than join (or cut).  In fact, I'm having a hard time thinking of when I would have a bunch of joins to do repeatedly and the auto selection would actually help me out. Don't we usually construct things out of smaller pieces? I understand the purpose of this feature but it's really painful when you have a lot of extrusions to do and it chooses the wrong option every single time. "

4) "Seriously!!?? This is my biggest gripe when using Fusion 360. I also want to be able to set "New Body" as the default. PLEASE!!!!!"

5) "Hey Autodesk can you please make this an option. ...it's such a cumbersome thing to have to change from Cut to New Body each time I extrude. 

I also have designs that have hundreds of components and the lag from Fusion to process the DEFAULT Cut each time is seriously frustrating. 

Imagine each time you wanted to push the brake pedal your foot first had to touch the gas pedal...

Love the program but still find this to be the most cumbersome thing."

6) "agreed. As a new fusion user, this is something I intuitively expected. I searched 100% assuming there was a way to change the default operation. Mine shows "new body" as the operation until I extrude, then it automatically switches to "join". I have to finish the extrusion, and then switch back to "new body"

I do not have 25 years of experience with cad. Congrats to you. In that regard I have only the experience with Fusion360 and only within the modeling environment. I have never looked at the other stuff like CAM etc. because I do not require it. That being said, I have been given AutoDesk Elite status and all I know of Autodesk is one part of one program. Autodesk recognizes me as an expert in the modeling environment of Fusion360. I do not consider myself an expert as I do not know everything that an expert should know. I only need to know what I need to know to do the job.

Even though I can model relatively quickly in Fusion360, the two things that trip me up is:

1) AutoCut/AutoJoin

2) Double clicking while holding the shift. In many cases will zoom out to see the full model, that's a drag when you are zoomed way in on something and just want to rotate it. This also needs an option to turn that off in the prefs.

Those two changes alone would make for vastly improved user experience, and in no way have any effect on a user that doesn't want to choose that option!

Here's an example of my work:

I do not think users would get confused if they could turn off AutoCut/AutoJoin and all of a sudden they get what they want.

They do get confused however when it's unexpectedly changing to something else.

Think it through some more and don't let your 25 years of experience limit your thinking to 'it's always been that way'. There are a lot of new users yet to come with no experience who will be confused with this, and you are concerned the an experienced CAD user might get confused if they pick 'new body' from the drop down and get one?

"Oh I'm so confused?" I really don't think so.

I hope other people on the F360 team are seeing this beside you.

I'm glad you liked my story... just wanted to make it very clear what the problem is. I think you are close by now to understanding this. I have no problem understanding you and where you are with this, but I am trying my best to get a change made to the program and so far I do not feel the support from you to make that happen. Maybe someone there that agrees with me might be who I should be talking to. But thanks, I always find it amazing when people cannot understand something very simple. I could thicken the plot to make it clearer but if it ain't clear already then I need to be talking with someone who can understand this better than you. Components are great for a number of things but shouldn't have to used simply because you want to avoid a AutoCut/AutoJoin operation. 

Imagine for moment a senario where you could turn off the Auto/Cut from the prefs in Fusion360 and the user has it turned off. Now the user goes to make an extrude and he sees that 'NewBody' is the title at the top of the menu. He makes the extrude. The extrude happens very quickly because it is not calculating a cut or join at this point. 

That was so easy. If he wants to join, cut or intersect then he goes and chooses it from the menu...DONE!!! YESSS that's what I'm talking about.

This would not confuse anybody, so your argruement doesn't hold up at all. It would be the new expected behavior, giving the user what he ask for. What a novel idea!

BTW, I have made suggestions in the past for changes to Fusion360 that were eventually implemented, including having the option in the prefs to turn of AutoHide of Sketches. 

I'm sure by now that the point I am making is clear. Even someone who has never used Fusion360 would understand such a well stated case.

Cheers

[chmed]

I'm not sure about the "bug" that the OP mentions since I don't think I've encountered that but, I do have something to say about the automatic selection of cut/join/newbody.  I don't get it. 

(sorry for the topic swerve but I'd really like to understand this)

If, as the second poster suggests, this is because this workflow is in line with the rule #1 of Fusion, then are we supposed to immediately make each and every body into a component?  If so, then do we have an option to make "new component" the default action in the extrude command?  No!  It automatically selects what it thinks best.  To thwart it, I have to manually select 'new component' every time.  Again, I find myself wishing for some control over the default action.  

At this point I tend to make all joins using the Combine command since I've had lots of trouble with the "join" function in Extrude.  It often joins with bodies that I don't want or expect.  Rather than doing the join and then editing it if it selects the wrong thing, I find it faster to just make a new body and then run Combine.  This leaves me with no guess work or frustration trying to figure out what it did and then hide or redo which bodies are selected.  Again, all I'm asking for is a preference to set a default for this.  

I suppose I need to watch more videos of folks using Fusion to see how their approach is different.  This (the automatic selection of join/cut/newbody) has been one of the weirdest things for me with Fusion.  I haven't been able to understand why it doesn't frustrate others.  That said, Fusion 360 is a very mouse/menu driven program that is a lot slower than I remember other AutoDesk products [AutoCAD] from years ago.  There was a very strong emphasis on eliminating repetitive actions that slow things down instead using lots of key commands.  I have to think I would pull my hair out if I were using Fusion360 all day every day.  🙂

note: I just read through this thread again and I think I understand the "bug" mentioned above.  Whether we're wasting time just doing more clicks than necessary or actually waiting on the machine to do an operation that we didn't intend it to do, we're wasting time with a "helper" that isn't being helpful.  

Also, this has been in the idea station a number of times.  I'm going to make a list...  

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-ideastation/stop-automatically-changing-the-operation-from...   This one was early on a created by the OP in this thread.  It has also been archived!!  

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-ideastation/from-sketch-to-new-body/idi-p/7331298?advanced...

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-ideastation/extrude-each-region-as-separate-body/idc-p/815...

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-ideastation/extruding-separate-bodies-and-default-extrude-...

[donsmac]

@chmed Thanks for the links.

I have gathered a few more quotes from Fusion360 users:

1) if you have extruded 1 body from a sketch and wish to make a new body next to that one the default is JOIN, if you wish to have more control over the parts in a early stage new body is prefered and later you make the merge manualy

Suggestion: option to change the default extrude command JOIN,CUT,NEW BODY ...

2)New body as a default is a lot more flexible. I can't count the number of times I have had to work through the timeline to edit an extrude feature because I forgot to change the default behaviour to new body. Join and Cut can not be reworked except through the timeline. New bodies can be combined to achieve whatever is needed as the design progresses.

3) Simply adding the option to prevent automatic changing the extrusion will save a lot of time for me. It is not the issue, if you work with simple single body. I totally frustrating experience when you extruding another part with the number above 100 and relatively complicated shape and need to wait 10 - 15 second till Fusion figure out how to join ALL THE HUNDREDS PARTS TOGETHER because it switches to "join" for some strange and completely useless reason!

4) The current settings where it changes even if you pre-select an action is ridiculous and forces a certain type of workflow, usually leading to extra steps to undo the action switch.