New extrude set to 'New Body' still joins??

[Scoox]

What I'm reporting here may be related to what has been reported elsewhere, although this seems to be a bit different.

I wanted to post a screencast but the Screencast app tells me I need 6GB of available disk space to record—I have way more than that, so I'm not sure what the story is, so I'll have to put it in words.

I have two concentric circles, first I extrude the 'ring' between the outer and the inner circles to create a hollow cylinder. Then I extrude the inner circle to created a solid, smaller cylinder, but first I choose 'New Body' as the operation type because I want to have two bodies. Even if I select New Body, Fusion will still join the two cylinders.

My current workaround is to hide the first cylinder before extruding the second, then unhide.

This looks like a bug because no matter what you select it always joins, which means the New Body operation type is completely redundant.

[ryan.bales]

Hi @Scoox,

I'm not seeing this on my end. I can sketch two circles and extrude the two cylinders in two features and they do not join.

[ryan.bales]

Lets see if screencast actually will put it on here..

[Scoox]

@Anonymous what your screencast shows is exactly how I expect it to work, but for some reason it's not so bad at my end. I'll try restarting the software.

[Scoox]

OK here is what's happening. If I first select New Body and then Extrude, as soon as I start pulling on the profile the operation type switches to Join automatically. If the pulled profile interferes with an existing body, it switches to Cut. So basically the operation type must be selected afterwards. The problem was that I was selecting it before, then hitting Enter to commit directly, and I incorrectly assumed the option wouldn't have changed.

If I choose Join, then choose New Body, then extrude, the option stays as New Body, so it only happens the first time if the option has not been manually set.

I'm not sure I like this, but now that I understand how it works, at least I won't be losing any hairs over it.

EDIT: Nope. This is just wrong. Here's another example, instead of two concentric circles we now have 3. Extrude the first circle, then the second one to create two separate bodies. Now extrude the third circle and pretend you forget to select New Body. Fusion will join the newly extruded body to the adjacent body but it will all so join up ALL adjacent bodies of the same component. It's VERY easy to not spot this when done by mistake, which could cause problems down the line.

[jeff_strater]

@Scoox:  I agree that the auto-detect behavior probably should be smart enough to know whether you have manually selected an operation type before you start to drag.  I think we tried to do that once, but there is some limitation in the UI framework that got in the way, and it hasn't been enough of a concern to try to fix that.

But, regarding your "Nope" edit, I was not able to reproduce what you are seeing.  Perhaps I did not understand the workflow.  Extrude should only join to bodies that directly intersect the profile being extruded.  That is the behavior I saw when I tried it:

[Scoox]

@jeff_strater than you, you understood that correctly. What you did in your screencast is exactly what I did here, the only difference is that I was ending up with a single body. It's as though once Fusion had joined the first two bodies (adjacent bodies), the third body would too be considered adjacent—my friends' friends are my friends. I deliberately tested this several times and was able to reproduce it consistently, but that was the other day—right now I can't seem to anymore. If this crops up again, I will try to analyse it in more detail and report back.

[beananimal]

This (and 100 other fiddly behaviors still exist) - while this software has some great features, it is frustrating - even  tedious to use at times.

Lets look at "create box" 

Click a PLANE

Click start of box

TYPE Width

TAB 

Type Height

ENTER

You can TYPE a DEPTH - but this defaults to "JOIN" 

NOW you must CLICK into tool dialog and select "New body" - or tab through and use down arrow UGGH 

But now that you CLICKED - DEPTH is not focused so you cant TYPE and have to CLICK or TAB to the DEPTH control. THEN you can TYPE.
Then PRESS enter or CLICK OK.

Insanely tedious to create a simple box - and most of it because nobody had the forethought to allow you to select "JOIN, CUT, NEW BODY, etc" when you fist select the tool, let alone remember your selection?  Then it would be CLICK - TYPE - TAB - TYPE - TAB - TYPE - ENTER

Every tool has behavior that requires more work than it should, but even at that, they all behave a bit differently. Lets not get into the quirks of MOVE - God forbid you don't remember the EXACT order of operations, because they reset themselves if you click things in the wrong order. 

Leave it to a generation of clickers to create software that takes 10 clicks and a keyboard to do what "older" packages used to do in 2 clicks and a few strokes of the keyboard.

[Anonymous]

Found your post through googling my same frustration, and I was having the same exact problem. I was able to work around it by:

Extrude (E)

(choose bodie(s))

Type/Drag extrusion perimeters 

Default >>New Body

***click Operation

***click New Body

OK

For whatever reason, reaffirming "New Body" fixed the issue for me. 

[jaydenjbg]

After you set the extrusion length and the body comes into contact with another piece it will automatically switch to the "join" function. You must change it back to "new body" after setting the length. 

P.S. If you don't want to have to do this for every time you extrude then you can toggle visibility for all bodies.

[beananimal]

So it is "as designed" clunkiness 😉

This (in all honesty) has to be one of the least efficient UX designs I have ever used. Not only does it take far too many clicks and hand to keyboard round trips to do simple things, but no two tools use the same conventions or logic. And the full or partial reset of tool options as input changes is insane. 

The most frustrating part is that most of this nonsense is a result of trying to do things differently instead of using time tested conventions.

[TrippyLighting]

@beananimal wrote:

This (in all honesty) has to be one of the least efficient UX designs I have ever used.

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I wonder what other CAD applications you are using. I am currently in the process of comparing 4 different CAD systems modeling a design I had done over the last Christmas holidays. This involves Fusion 360, Inventor, SolidWorks & ZW3D. I have worked with SolidWorks since 1998 but have not used it for the last 8 years. Obviously I use Fusion 360 a lot but I also frequently use ZW3D. Inventor feels very familiar due to its using many of the same UI elements as Fusion 360.

While Autodesk Alias is not part of this evaluation, I am also tinkering around with it.

I find Fusion 360's UI very accessible and very easy to use compared with these above.

Yes, there is certainly room for improvement but UI elements and interfaces have continually improved since I sated with Fusion 360  less than 6 short years ago. The loft tool interface, for example, is vastly improved from the beginning.

In fact, I am rather surprised how odd SolidWorks feels, the one tool I have the most experience with. In Fusion 360 I don't remember a single UI field that does not accept a user parameter or a formula. I am absolutely baffled how many panels I've come across just in this one exercise that doesn't take a user parameter and I have to consort to use some convoluted workaround to make this parametric.

---

@beananimal wrote:

And the full or partial reset of tool options as input changes is insane. 

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While I would not call it "insane" it is unfortunate and can really get in the way. But just because that's how it is now, does not mean that it will remain that way.

[GoodDogBadDawg]

I know this post is a couple years old, but Autodesk engineers, apparently, still haven't fixed this problem yet.  A work around I've found is to REMEMBER (EVERY TIME) to change the action to "cut," and then back to "new body,"  before extruding.  Otherwise, despite the default command being set to "new body," it will try to adjoin itself to its contiguous body, and, presumably, that body to its contiguous body,  ad infinitum. So it will often drag down the computer in a complex file with hundreds of separate bodies for several minutes before you can even hit "cancel."  

[davebYYPCU]

Or you hide the body / bodies it wants to join to.

Might help....

[beananimal]

Easy when you have 2 bodies, hard when you have 200... and have to navigate the rather frustrating expansion triangles and the many other quirky aspects of the UI.

Nonetheless, the coming 2021 (again) crippled hobby feature set (1 page drawing, no reasonable import/export ,etc) has pretty much sent me packing. I can't justify $500+ a year to gain the simple ability to create a 2 page drawing or export/import from autocad. 

[davebYYPCU]

Your making a new body, hide all others, it reduces mistakes and there is a menu item for this workflow.

Might help...

[mibarra228.a]

so i have this little problem where im trying for them to join but keeps creating a new body no matter how hard i try to make the cylinders join

[jhackney1972]

Need to see your model.  If you do not know how to attach your Fusion 360 follow these easy steps. Open the model in Fusion 360, select the File menu, then Export and save to your hard drive. Then use the Attachments section of a forum post to attach it.

[jeff_strater]

one thing to know:  You can only join if the new extrude overlaps with the existing body.  You cannot "join" a separate set of material unless there is at least coincidence with the existing body.

[chris.worthFCJYK]

I have just been experiencing this same situation.

I have 3 bodies.  I create a new sketch across the 3 bodies(making the end of a jig)  side note.  there are 6 surfaces that I am projecting across when I have all 6 faces selected, when I hit OK  the first face selected deselects and I have to redo the projection command. 

so when the sketch is finished and I go to extrude the new body, which is set to New Body, when I extrude it creates a new body that incorporates 2 of the previous bodies AND the new body extrusion.  so instead of 4 bodies, I now have 2.

no idea why it is doing this.