Sketches and 2D designs: Falling out of love with Fusion 360

[bkgoodman]

I love Fusion 360 - but am feeling some major heartburn as I'm trying to do more involved 2D parametric designs.

Simple things we take for granted like being able to declutter the display by hiding stuff like dimensions, being able to put things on different layers (again, so I can declutter) - are lacking in Fusion 360. Having a clutter display, and then not being able to see what's going on doesn't make for a fun time trying to look through a ratsnest of stuff to try to figure out errors I'm getting with constraints - none of which are very well-spelled-out - even after using text commands to try to find things.

I find myself getting desperate and doing things like "Maybe I'll draw it in AutoCAD, then import this piece into F360" - or even wanting to draw something in Inkscape just to get a simple shape in.

Long story short - F360 really needs to work well as a solid 2D, parametric design tool in order to have that be a stepping-point for 3D designs. I'm not talking anything fancy - just some of the standard, old-school basics. 

[Anonymous]

Totally agree with you !

2D sketch is very buggy, and miss a lot of the most basic features...

It has been a good modeling practice in fusion 360, to do as little as possible in the sketch environment, and do the work in solid when it is possible.

Fusion stop everything else and go down and help the sketch team 😉

Remember "Everything start with a sketch !!!" 

[Anonymous]

I support bkgoodman's requests. I am learning Fusion 360, and since I come from a 2D cartographic/graphic arts background, I am frustrated by the tools in the Sketch environment.

Hiding dimensions and other clutter would allow the user to actually design the part and see what it looks like by itself. I can design/arrange/fool with elements in Illustrator easily because I can simply see all the parts.

Also. at the very least, there needs to be a Pen tool like that in Illustrator: one tool to draw corner points and bezier/spline points. Having to switch tools mid-task is inefficient and time consuming. I currently find that I'm inadvertently ending lines before I am actually finished.

The tools Fusion 360 already have may work well for the existing CAD community, but there are many of us who are coming from the Illustrator (or it's superior predecessor, Freehand) environment.

[bkgoodman]

| Fusion stop everything else and go down and help the sketch team 😉

| Remember "Everything start with a sketch !!!" 

I couldn't agree with these (two) points any stronger!

[XanderLuciano]

So much this. Sketching in fusion is so difficult, and the lack of custom keyboard shortcuts doesn't help.

[TrippyLighting]

Doing a little as possible in the sketch environment and moving quickly to 3D features is not just best modeling practice in Fusion 360. It's been a best modeling practice  for other CAD tools such as Solid Works etc. At least it was when I started with Solid Works 17 years ago.

I agree though that sketching is not Fusion 360's strong point!

[roambotics_scott]

That may be so @TrippyLighting but it's also horribly broken and wrong.

It's great that there are tools to start building 3D geometry without going through 2D sketches, but there are so many cases where sketches are the most natural and obvious place to start.

Just look at the number of idea related topics on the front «most popular» page for ideas. Obviously it's something that people need and want.

[bkgoodman]

@roambotics_scott - exactly. You wouldn't believe how simple of a sketch I am trying to do - nothing very elaborate, and it *really* isn't working out. Especially, trying to enforce parametric rules. It's not complex at all, but it needs to be quite precise. If I can't do something of this complexity in Fusion, I'm not envisioning good luck in trying to do anything more advanced.

[TrippyLighting]

If it's that simple, then post it in a separate thread so we can look at it and hopefully provide a solution or workaround or simply report a bug. The Fusion 360 team does not usually look for bug reports here on the forum.

You can safely assume that I am aware of the bugs and limitations of Fusion 360. I am also aware of many solutions and workarounds. My awareness comes from a lot of practice helping others to be successful 😉

[roambotics_scott]

It's maddening @bkgoodman

@TrippyLighting I suspect there may be a work-around but sketch is so badly broken that (without exaggeration) you'd need a work-around for almost every step

[Anonymous]

yes, this x1000.

parametric modeling using equations and feature tree, plus the ability to hide/show dims, or filter is absolutely critical.

i'd wager 75% of my work is done in the 2D phase, then integrating the 3D comes after its sorted.

[promm]

Thank you for your idea, I want to be very clear that I am changing this idea to archived due to the part of the request to have layers and the reference of drawing it in AutoCAD.  I strongly agree that our parametric workflows need to be improved and have put together a strategy with the team on our prioritization to do so.  Currently we are working on taking fully constrained out of preview, CV splines and other core sketch tools.  The goal is to not simply copy what has been done in the past, but take what we have learned and create a improved experience for our customers.  Because of this we have chosen to take our 3D solver and build in 2D instead of licensing the 2D solver.  The advantage is the we do not have an additional 3D solver like other 3D CAD tools.  This involves some more work upfront, but I feel the payoff will be worth it to push the limits on creating the best sketch experience for our users.  Can you provide a list of your top "old-school basics" that would improve your workflow.  I use feedback from users to help influence priorities.

Thank you,

Mike Prom

[roambotics_scott]

@promm Please please please say that means that we'll actually have the ability to use parametrics in sketches when that is released

[Anonymous]

Re: Old School Basics:

Simply look at and try out programs like Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand, CorelDraw, and Inkscape. The basic idea is that you draw and manipulate points (nodes) and the line is drawn between them. Curved lines (parametric) have bezier nodes with handles to define the curve. Straight lines are "point-to-point." To draw a line you click on the first spot, then click again for a straight line, or click and drag for a bezier curve. To extend an existing finished line, you click on the open end point with the same tool you drew the existing line with. You can insert a point (with or without curve handles) at any point on a line. You can also insert points into an existing primitive like a rectangle or circle. Lines can be constrained by holding the Shift key.

Please fix the DXF import from programs like Illustrator and Inkscape, as right now it is unpredictable and makes for major frustration and a total time killer.

Hope this helps, and looking forward to a revamped Sketch.

[roambotics_scott]

@Strongly seconding what @Anonymous said.

Play with some of these other programs. Really get to know them. Think hard about how you can do better, and make Sketch in F360 something that puts at least line / curve drawing and text in Illustrator to shame.

[bkgoodman]

You asked "what old school basics" - but you archived the conversation because I asked for layers. (I really don't know what "archived" means). Layering is just one method to use to "declutter" all sorts of stuff like construction lines and dimensions that I don't need to see all the time - unless I'm working on specific parts of things. The ability to even color different lines and/or construction lines would be good too. 

It tends to be a little worse in F360 because it lacks a lot of the ways that you can use keyboard entry to tell where to place points - and place points relative to other geometries that exist in other programs. Granted, you can do all this with the use of construction lines - which I could find to be an even better way of doing it - however, doing so results in tons of construction lines that clutter up my document to the point where I can't make heads or tails out of what I'm seeing. Then I cant declutter or hide. Then - I find out that the design isn't properly or fully constrained....

So another big thing would be anything that would help to visualize parametric relationships. These things are extrodinarly difficult to figure out, even after resorting to "text" commands to show me what was broken. 

So I don't want to sound like a troll saying "the old ways are better" - I really think that F360 has some newer, neater, simpler ways to do stuff - but the sketches become pretty unwieldy, and unmanageable. We just need some way to simplify them a bit.

Declutter. Layers. Color Assignments. Hide Stuff.

[roambotics_scott]

Missed the bit on layers.. to me that seems like one of the more obvious / no-brainer things to do (though if it were up to me sketch would be deeply reconsidered and redone from the ground up.

I take «archived» to mean «we don't want to do it no matter how much sense it makes, how obvious it is, or how many people want it