A more user friendly way of constructing planes, axes, and points

[patrik-web]

The current implementation of the Construct menu, where you create construction planes, axes, and points, consists of a long list of alternatives where you have to find your exact combination of planes, faces, edges, axes, or points to accomplish what you want. I think the approach used by Geomagic/Cubify is more user-friendly. Instead of forcing the user to specify how they intend to generate their object in advance, this is inferred from the selected objects. For example, if after selecting "create a plane", you:

• Click on a plane. The dialog assumes you want to make an offset plane and asks for the offset.
• If you now select an additional point, it realizes that the only alternative that makes sense is to make an offset plane going through that point.
• If you instead select a plane and an axis/edge parallel to that plane, it generates an offset plane going through the axis/edge, with an optional rotation angle around the axis as well.

This has two big advantages from a usability standpoint:

• The user can just mark what they intended to without having to find that alternative in a long list first.
• The plane/axis/point can be edited to a different type of definition. (My impression is that in 360 right now if you have made a plane as an offset plane but realize you actually want it to be rotated, there is no way to do that except deleting the plane and creating a new one, which would break dependencies. I might be wrong about this though.)

The types of planes that can be generated in geomagic/cubify seem to be:

• Selecting an edge: Insert plane perpendicular to the edge at the endpoint of the edge.
• Selecting a plane or face: Insert plane parallel to the plane/face with a specified offset.
• Plane/face and point: Insert plane parallel to plane/face going through point.
• Edge/axis and point: Insert plane either containing or normal to edge/axis going through point.
• Two parallel edges/axes: Insert plane containing the two adges/axes.
• Three points: Insert plane going through the three points.

For axes:

• Selecting an edge: Insert axis collinear with edge.
• Two planes: Insert axis at the intersection of the two planes.
• A plane and an edge parallel to but offset from the plane: Insert axis in the plane, parallel to edge.
• A cylindrical face: Insert axis passing through centerline of cylinder.
• A plane and a point/vertex: Insert axis normal to plane going through point.
• Two points/vertexes: Insert axis going through the two points.

For points:

• Selecting nothing: Insert point at a specified coordinate.
• Selecting an edge: Insert point on edge at a specified fraction between the endpoints.
• Two intersecting edges/axes: Insert point at intersection.
• A curved edge: Insert point at curve center point.
• Three nonparallel planes: Insert point at the intersection point.
• A plane and an axis: Insert point where axis intersects plane.
• Two points: Insert point on line between points at a specified fraction of the distance.
• A point and a plane: The point projected onto the plane, with optional offsets in the plane.

 (Note that several of these alternatives are currently not available in 360 at all.)

[kb9ydn]

Right now the CONSTRUCT menu has 19 separate entries for creating only 3 different types of contruction geometry; planes, axes, and points.  This slows things down because you have to dig through the menu to find the specific one that you need.  It is also totally unnecessary because the software should be able to figure out how to create the plane/axis/point based on what you select (or have already selected).

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[schneik-adsk]

Inventor had this three command behavior for many years.  After a lot of feedback It ended up adding the explicit creation methods so as to help new users understand the required inputs.  There are also certain cases where the inputs are overloaded and can result in more than one result.

That said, UI simplification is always a  goal. Let's see how voting goes.

[kb9ydn]

And therein lies the holy grail of user interface design; how to make the interface easy to learn for the beginner, yet efficient for the expert.

Solidworks uses the simple menu setup with a secondary options screen as shown in this video:

https://youtu.be/N3b3-wKUkzk

I suppose you could argue that having the specific reference types broken out in the top level menu (as does Fusion) is maybe faster because it doesn't require an extra click to confirm creation like the SW method does.  But I think that savings is offset by the extra time it takes to find the item you need out of a list.

Or maybe it doesn't really make much difference either way?  IDK, but I figured I would throw it out there and see what happens.

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[kb9ydn]

Looking back on this:

I get the idea of wanting to help new users understand the required inputs for creating construction geometry; however I don't think having a large numbner of menu entries is the right way to go aobut it.  And in fact I think it's even counter productive.  Having a million menu options to choose from will be more confusing for new users than a few consolidated options.

If users need guidance it would be better to have selection prompts appear after the type of reference geometry is selected from the menu.

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[promm]

Thank you for idea - this is getting archived due to lack of votes.

[kb9ydn]

Excellent!  Someone else is annoyed by this as much as I am.  I sumitted pretty much the same idea awhile back and it went nowhere.  Perhaps this time it will get a few more votes.

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-ideastation-request-a/simplify-the-construct-menu-from-19-e...

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[Ndenekamp]

Incidentally also pretty much how it works on Inventor I think! Anyway, has my vote