Global, Shared, or Project-Wide Parameters

[timcorbett]

I realize people are howling for this in one form or another, but rather than just up-voting others' posts (don't worry I will) I'm going to describe my situation here. "Tell me if this has ever happened to you..."

I'm designing product that needs to be offered in a range of sizes. Think of a complicated cutting tool or a set of measuring cups or whatever. You get the idea. Point is I have to get together a lot of components that are essentially the same apart from the relative size of some of their features. 

Okay I can handle that. I design my product so that key features of size leap around like frogs in a dynamite pond whenever I update the parameters. I Save As to create a dozen or so iterations for production but now I have to update each of those in the case of any revisions. It's more work than I'd like but less work than modelling from scratch. 

Going forward, though, I have to machine these products. This means grouping them into as few fixtures as I can get away with, modeling those fixtures, creating the toolpaths for the fixtures, then creating the toolpaths for the product iterations. If I have an unforeseen issue with the CAM that requires I go back and revise the product, I have to update my fleet of iterations manually.

Oh wait these parts need heat treatment with fixture tempering. This means designing and machining a range of fixtures as diverse as the original range of product, except now there are multiple parts that go into each fixture. From assembly to assembly, the parts look the same apart from key, differing features of size. 

Just in case you were wondering if I was speaking in hypothetical terms, I'm not. In fact as soon as I'm done with these furnace fixtures, I think I have to come up with a range of grinding and polishing fixtures. 

Don't get me wrong, I love this work. I consider myself very lucky to be in a position to have such cradle-to-grave involvement with manufactured articles. All the same, you can imagine the kind of time I would save with some souped-up, globally accessible, inheritable, shareable parameters. 

I realize this post isn't as scope-limited as the submission guidelines usually require, but in this particular case, I don't really know how to ask for what I need here. Leastwise I don't while I'm knee-deep in the work I just described. Maybe best to just consider this a report from the field. 

Thanks for reading.  -TIM

[SolubleSpork]

It sounds like you are basically looking for configurations.  Essentially you could have one fusion file that has one design, with different variations.  These variations (being all under one file) would have a global set of parameters that could also apply to other bodies (fixtures) and the CAM operations would be tied to the geometry that changes based on which configuration of part you select.

The measuring cup example you gave would look like this (if I understand correct)...

One Fusion 360 file that has a measuring cup modeled with dimensions tied to parameters.  In the "1/2 Cup" measuring cup configuration, all your dimensions would pertain to the 1/2 cup sized measuring cup, and the fixturing that you design in context would be able to be linked to the same parameters.  Then, if you change to "3/4 Cup" measuring cup configuration, all your parameters could be changed to produce a 3/4 cup measuring cup, and the fixtures and CAM could update automatically.  This would mean that if you needed to change some feature of the part globally across all configurations, it would only have to be done once and it would apply to all of the others.