Create inspection routines with Calipers / height gauges / ect (New Preview)

[Richard.stubley]

Hi All,

I'm happy to say we have some new preview tech for you all. 
Please watch the Video to get a good overview of how it works. 

In essence it will allow you to define diameters and distances between faces to inspect.
You can either use connected devices that will send the inspection data directly to Fusion 360, or you can type the data directly in the input field.

Once you have fully inspected your part this can then be exported as a PDF inspection report to be shipped with your parts to the customer. 

We are one step closer to less paper sheets on the shop floor!

Again this is preview so please give your feedback, we see this as a solid foundation to build on, there is lots in the pipeline so watch this space and become an early adopter of integrated inspection. 

[a.r.j.dunbar]

Hello, just had a quick play with this and I really like the way this inspection stuff is going. Looking forward to seeing how this feature progresses.

I've got some thoughts - some of them are probably already on a roadmap somewhere but I hope they're useful anyway.

• The option for the image to be labelled with either the measurement name or a letter identifier (feature "A"), perhaps an option between the three, which also appears in the results table below. This would help when exporting several parts at once - at the moment if you select two sets of results from the browser tree and export a PDF it superimposes the results on top of each other in the image at the top of the page but lists the dimensions in separate tables below. I assume this is because the image is generated in same way as the Fusion UI - the measurements overlap when two sets of results are selected there as well.
  
  
  
  
• When exporting a single part with the measured dimensions on the image include the option to display the Over/Under/On-size pictograms (as in the inspection results window - ▼▲=) so that the page can be printed black and white and is suitable for colourblind users. Perhaps also integrate into the on-screen display of measurements?
• The ability to enter a serial number (auto-incrementing?) when creating a "New Measure" recording would also be useful.
• CSV export of data from the table in addition to the copy-paste. Select All working in the inspection results window would also be nice.
• Option to Export a blank page that can be printed and filled in at the machine, with a space for the manual measurement and checkboxes for Over/Under and prefilled reminders of the max and min allowable values for each measurement point. It kind of defeats the "paperless" ideal, but it would be useful for edge cases.

Thanks!

[edgar.uribe]

Hello, when it´s available for students versions; its excellent for teaching metrology inspection of parts, and get X-R graphics.

[Richard.stubley]

Hi @edgar.uribe, as far as I'm aware the educational licences still have access to the preview functions.

[Richard.stubley]

Hi @a.r.j.dunbar,

Thank you for the feedback. 

The selection overlay: this is interesting, are you trying to compare the results from 2 parts here? Or is there another reason for having the same feature measured twice?

Really good point on the arrow icons, defiantly taken that on board.

Auto serialising a parts is something we need to investigate, do you think it would be something like it just adds 1 to the last measure name, or are you thinking something more complex?

CSV export, this has been asked for before. What would you do with this CSV once exported?

Now onto the most interesting one, printing a paper "blank" sequence. Is this because the inspection does not have access to a PC or does not have access to Fusion? Would something like an APP on a tablet or mobile device be suitable, thank you for understanding the point we are trying to make with this and setup sheets being digital though. 

Excellent feedback and much appreciated, I hope you can continue to use Manual Inspection in your day to day workflows as we develop it. 

[edgar.uribe]

Thank you  I already found it, really helpfull tool, I'm so exiting to use it 

[a.r.j.dunbar]

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The selection overlay: this is interesting, are you trying to compare the results from 2 parts here? Or is there another reason for having the same feature measured twice?

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With several result sets (different parts?) selected the image in the PDF is unreadable in the same way as this image so we could do with another identifier as mentioned. Please ignore the second measurement in "Measure1" as I added that to see what would happen after reading your post. It does the same without that measurement!

This particular image is just to demonstrate the overlapping text, I'm not sure what use doing this inside the UI would serve.

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Auto serialising a parts is something we need to investigate, do you think it would be something like it just adds 1 to the last measure name, or are you thinking something more complex?

It could be as simple as that - at the moment it increments by one (Measure1, Measure2, Measure3) etc. but a way to give it a serial number at the point of doing the measurement would be nice. Thinking about it now, the CMM software we use asks for a serial number (and some optional comments) at the start of each measurement cycle and there is a checkbox for "Use this serial number for future measurements" if you are running a batch.

Perhaps it doesn't need to be auto-incrementing, and it just needs a way to input the name of the result set without having to rename it later? 

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CSV export, this has been asked for before. What would you do with this CSV once exported?

At the moment I don't have a use for this, but I could see it being useful in the future when there are a lot of data points, especially if doing surface inspections in the machine. I work in a higher education environment so some weird requests come up from time to time - getting the data out neatly might be helpful for someone down the line. For the moment drag-selecting everything in the inspection results window mostly works out!

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Now onto the most interesting one, printing a paper "blank" sequence. Is this because the inspection does not have access to a PC or does not have access to Fusion? Would something like an APP on a tablet or mobile device be suitable, thank you for understanding the point we are trying to make with this and setup sheets being digital though. 

Some use cases off the top of my head would be to perhaps give a student a drawing and number of these sheets, have them produce a stack of parts, inspecting each one as it is completed from either a manual or CNC machine. Access to computers in the workshops can be touch and go, and it's definitely not guaranteed that a PC nearby will have recently updated version Fusion on it or even a recent version of Windows! A web app on mobile could work well in this case. 

The main use I see for this is an inspection sheet following the part through its journey from the waterjet cutter, rough milling, heat treatment, surface grinding before being broken in some test equipment in a lab somewhere. Throughout the process it might touch two or three different people - from the student cutting the first parts to the technicians doing the heat treating and grinding before going back to the student doing the destructive testing. 

There's no guarantee that everyone along the way will have appropriate access to the Fusion file or know what to do with it, but everyone can fill in the paper inspection sheet that comes stapled to the wallet the part is in! The academic world is not as streamlined as some shops (typically very high mix, very low volume, 101 different stakeholders, about as many different software packages) so in this case, I don't think a web app would work. 

It would be relatively straightforward to make a drawing or what-have-you that fulfilled these purposes using a combination of Fusion and Word or something but the inspection results PDF gets me 80-90% of the way there already, and the process of defining the measurements and tolerance works well.

Excellent feedback and much appreciated, I hope you can continue to use Manual Inspection in your day to day workflows as we develop it.

My pleasure, glad you found it useful. Because of the huge variety of people we interact with our department tends to push Fusion 360, but the rest of my institution is heavily Solidworks based. Hopefully features like the inspection suite will help to tip the balance a bit. I know I'll be using it for the next parts I run!

Thanks,

A

[ChrisDPCnc]

CSV export would help with loading the results into some external SPC software.

Hopefully SPC could be a goal for fusion in the future😉

I had a go with manual inspection and i think it's a great idea!

I only dimensioned up a bush but found I couldn't add the chamfers (maybe add snaps to circle quadrants ?)

I also need to report the surface finish on the face (maybe select a face then have some option box?)

Would be nice to have more control over the tolerancing too, like being able to specify different + and - limits.

Love it so far and I'll continue to post as I use it more 

[Richard.stubley]

Hey @ChrisDPCnc,

Really appreciate the constructive feedback. 

RE CSV: We do want some form of export but not sure what is the best way yet. e.g. if we give you a CSV do you need the option to remove columns / re arrange columns things like that. So we didn't rush into this task just yet. 

Chamfers are a interesting one, are you measuring size / angle or both?

Surface finish, we already have an idea on this that involves being able to add items that don't relate to CAD. So a "free" item if you will. We have talked about the opportunity to add Pass / fail as well.

Asymmetric tolerances s high on the list too 🙂

Thanks for giving this a go, we felt that although its still very early in development it was too good to keep hidden away. 

[26-Taylor]

Hey @Richard.stubley ,

@a.r.j.dunbar  & @ChrisDPCnc  covered almost everything on my list, I would like to see all of their suggestions set into motion. 

The other thing I would add is a little more functionality on the screenshot that is placed at the top of the report. I think you are already laying the groundwork for this with the "Lock Camera" radio button when creating the dimensions. However, I can't seem to find what this button does at the moment. What I would be really excited to see is:

On the less complex side, the option to select an orthographic projection view for each dimension (dropdown list would be just fine). Say you have a block with two holes in it. I would like to see a front view on the report with the height & width dimensions and a top view on a separate section/page with the hole diameter dimensions. 

On the more complex side, possibly integrating the manual inspections with a fusion generated 2d drawing? i.e. you could make as many views as you wanted including detail views, section views, etc.

Food for thought. I'm excited to see where this goes 😁

[Richard.stubley]

Hi @26-Taylor,

So are you thinking rather than just the one screenshot at the top, that is taken from the view at the moment you right click > save inspection report.
You want to be able to add other pre defined CAD views throughout the report?

[26-Taylor]

Correct. This is how I see our workflow:

1. We get a customer supplied drawing. They would like an inspection report with the first part delivered. I've attached a Fusion sample drawing as an example.
2. We use Fusion's Manual Inspection to setup all of the applicable dimensions, they get measured & recorded in Fusion.
3. We format the inspection report in a way that looks similar to the customer drawing. 
   1. Could be a cover page with multiple views
   2. Could be a "Front View" picture with all front view data on one page, then a "Top View" picture with all top view data on the next page, etc.

I guess what I'm really after is having something that can get as close to the customer supplied drawing as possible. If the inspection report and customer drawing don't look similar or if you can't really see a dimension because the angle of the model is wrong, we have issues. Namely, there will be a lot of time wasted going back&forth between the drawing, model, & inspection report to decipher where the inspection report dimensions live on the actual part. I know this drawing is straight forward but it is easy to see how this issue would be significant on a more complex part. 

Another note to add, we like to add Sheet # and Zone to our inspection reports (SHEET 2 B4 for example). This is how we bridge the gap between our report and the customer's drawing. Adding a "Drawing Location" text field to the measurement creation would probably be the quickest/easiest way to address everything I mentioned above... but adding drawing views would be sooo much cooler 😊

I guess I better stop ranting, thank you for the collaboration!

[Richard.stubley]

@26-Taylor This was not a rant, far from it!!! 

This is what makes Fusion, Fusion. The 2 way street, making sure what we develop is what you need.

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I guess what I'm really after is having something that can get as close to the customer supplied drawing as possible. If the inspection report and customer drawing don't look similar or if you can't really see a dimension because the angle of the model is wrong, we have issues.

 That's absolutely golden, we had a concept of this but that explains it really well. 

[Richard.stubley]

@a.r.j.dunbar,

Another question on the overlayed measurements. 

Our development team have been talking about solutions to this but we cam to the conclusion we don't fully understand what you want.

So you have a part you have measured 3 times. There are now 3 sets of results. are you looking for an individual report produced for each part only showing 1 set of results at a time. Or something like a comparison report showing how they compare?

Or have I misunderstood completely. Sorry for all the questions but its far easier for us to act now than when we have developed this even more. 

[a.r.j.dunbar]

If I had three parts and wanted to export them all in one Inspection Report the numbers overlap each other. I may have confused matters by including the UI screenshot. I've attached some files below to hopefully explain my idea.

I have created an inspection process to measure the circular boss on the top of a simulated part, and created three measurements by selecting Inspect > Record Manual Inspection* three times, entering three different values for each of the three separate parts I have measured. 

Saving an inspection report for one single measurement set produces the expected result of a readable annotation on the image.

Exporting the inspection report by right clicking on "Results" in the browser tree and selecting "Save Inspection Result" gives me the file "Results.pdf" which has no annotation on the image, but lists the relevant dimensions for the three parts I have measured in one file. This one is good, because it lists the relevant data in a compact format - it's not repeating the image over and over again or creating a load of different pages but it's not clear which feature the measurements refer to because of the lacking annotation. 

Selecting the three measurement sets "Measure1", "Measure2", and "Measure3" in the browser tree, right clicking and selecting "Save Inspection Report" on any one of them results in the file "3xMeasure.pdf" which has an annotation on the image which has the three measurements overlapping each other and therefore unreadable. It's still clear which feature the measurements refer to though because there is only one.

My suggestion would be to offer an option to give measured dimensions some other identifier, such as a letter, rather than showing the measured value on the image when more than one result set is selected. This might be more involved than grabbing a screenshot of the current view, however. Take a look at "3xMeasureSuggestion.pdf" for how this could work. Something like the "family of parts" drawings which have dimensions lettered and a table of possible combinations in the corner. 

To build off what @26-Taylor suggested earlier, could it be possible to import a drawing? Select the dimensions you want to use in the manual inspection and prepopulate the manual inspection process with the tolerances from the drawing and use the views for the image at the top of the page?

An alternative would be to create a PDF inspection report which has multiple pages, one page for each of the measurement result sets that have been selected. This might be more straightforward to implement but would have the downside of using up more space.

*After creating a measurement you have to reselect the measurement "Setup" before it will let you take another reading. Completing one set of measurements moves the focus in the browser tree to the measurement result set you just created so clicking Inspect > Record Manual Inspection gives the error "No items to measure in selection".

Thanks, A

[rafaelmath1]

Richard, Thank you very much for your explanation !!! Sorry that my comment is not as extensive and technical as the others, but I am amazed with this level! I feel very excited about this !!!! My question would be the following, could we also use it for parts produced in 3D printing? Waiting for more videos and explanations from you Best regards Rafael

[Richard.stubley]

@rafaelmath1

Any and all feedback is appreciated, no matter the length.

Yes, this can be used for any parts you can measure. Regardless of how they were made. You can just make a new setup, there is not an "Inspection only" type yet so just choose milling. Then head over to Probing > Inspect > Create manual measure.

[BrettCottle]

Such a cool feature long overdue!

[BrettCottle]

If it was possible it would be awesome to add this functionality into the Fusion Android / IOS apps but this is a great start. @al.whatmough