OK, I am trying to make the switch to Fusion, I have used Rhino daily for about the past 10 years or so, But I keep seeing all these amazing things you can do with Fusion.
Any suggestions on making the switch less painful?
I have gone thru several of the basic tutorials but the whole parametric thing is throwing me. Something that would take me 10 min in rhino is taking me over an hour:-(
thanks!
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There are a couple of good series…
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There are probably a bunch of people here who will offer to help with specific problems you run into. I feel like I’ve passed the beginner stage and can figure most things out, but I have no experience with other similar programs, so in a way I’ve grown up with F360 and don’t know what I’m missing.
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I didn’t see this thread until now…
I’m also a long-time Rhino user. I’ve dabbled in Fusion 360. Currently I use SolidWorks mostly.
Fusion 360 is good software. Given the price, it’s downright amazing. It is also… um… how to put this? It’s quirky. And also incomplete, unfortunately.
One of the several projects I’m (quarter-heartedly) working on is an intake manifold flange for an engine. I’ve made one before, for a different engine, and this new one is much less complicated - it’s a 2.5D part, 6 circular holes, a wavy-ish perimeter, five bolt holes. Not exactly rocket surgery.
When I sat down to start drawing the part I decided that it would be a good candidate to make start-to-finish in Fusion. I probably spent an hour and a half messing with it. I think I got the model reasonably complete, but it required several workarounds to do things that would be easy in SolidWorks and Rhino.
For instance, I don’t believe it lets you dimension from the edge of a circle, you can only dimension from the center (AFIK). A little math will let you work around that limitation, but it’s not convenient.
Being somewhat frustrated with Fusion 360, I decided to go draw it in SolidWorks… prolly took 15 minutes.
I guess my post is mostly trying to convey that “you aren’t alone” and that Fusion 360’s quirks (many of which seem to be intentional) probably account for a fair amount of the difficulty you’re having. It’s not quite schadenfreude, but I do find it relieving when I see John at NYCCNC continuing to be bewildered by Fusion 360’s quirks, despite the fact that he’s been using it exclusively for… at least 2 years now.
So, it’s been a month, making any headway?
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Getting better:-). But it’s a slow transition. I keep getting “real” jobs that I can’t spend the time to try them in fusion. So I end up back in Rhino. But I do like what I am seeing.
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I didnt even notice this until you mentioned it, but you’re right. In Geomagic Design if I select a circle and any other sketch feature to dimension, it brings up a menu with a slew of options like edge to center, edge to “near” quadrant, Edge to “far” quadrant, etc. to specify exactly what you need it to do. In Fusion 360 if I needed to constrain the material width between a hole and the edge of that material, I’d have to draw a construction line from the center of the circle, then place a point at the intersection of that construction line and the circle, then dimension that point to the edge of the material. Not the end of the world but a few extra steps, but in a complicated item those extra lines and points can clutter things up in a hurry.
One thing I REALLY like about Fusion 360 is the ability to put several profiles into a single sketch, and pick and choose which ones you want to use for features. Even use multiple profiles from the same sketch within multiple features.
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