The problem with delivering software updates throughout the year instead of all at once is like a restaurant giving you each part of your dinner one at a time. You end up with a full dinner but you miss the Wow! factor.
Autodesk, perhaps hearing no Wows after issuing 14 product updates in 2022 for Fusion 360—its design and manufacturing platform of the future—decided to count all the improvements it made in 2022 (over ten thousand) and remind users of all the new features that were introduced (219). And don’t forget all the speed enhancements:
- Component Visibility toggle: 32x
- Capture Design History: up to 10.8x
- Extrude/Fillet: 9 to 55x
- Move performance is now up to: 2.2x
- Compute All: 86% on assemblies
- Windows Unselect: 57%
- Joint performance: 40%
- Generating sketch profiles: 33%
- Edit Sketch: 20%
- Timeline Move to End/Begin: 15% to 81%
Lattices Get Sophisticated
Lattices are a great way to lightweight a design. Hollow out a shape and fill it with a lattice structure and you have preserved most of the part’s strength and lost most of its mass. 3D printing the part will require less material and take less time to create. 3D printing may be the only way to create a latticed part—but that is another story.
The latticing capabilities of Fusion 360 were greatly enhanced in 2022. Users can vary the lattice’s cells gradually along a direction. The direction can be along an axis, which is common in CAD programs, or along a spline—making Fusion 360 among the most sophisticated of in-CAD lattice design tools.
Unlike most programs that involve hollowing out a part and adding a lattice, Fusion360 lets its users design a part inside out. You can create a lattice and then form a skin over it, letting the lattice cell structure shrink as it nears the skin, producing a cell structure that effectively distributes local stresses from the surface to the internal lattice. This is what nature does routinely. Look at a section of the head of a femur for an example.
The only thing missing in the comparison to naturally occurring lightweighting internal structures is the irregular and haphazard structure of internal cells. Crystalline and lattice structures are geometrically perfect, whereas natural structures are irregular and adjust as they grow in any direction.
The Volumetric Lattice tool graduated from a “technical preview” in September 2022 and is now available as part of the Fusion360 Design Extension, which at $595/year, more than doubles the $545/year cost of Fusion 360. In addition to lattices, the tool lets users have manufacturing-aware functionality, feature-based automation and geometric patterning.
Automated Modeling
Autodesk is most excited about Automated Modeling, introduced late in 2022. At first glance, it appears to be a new name for its generative design, but there may be a bit more to it. Call it a “super loft,” says Mike Smell, senior product manager of Fusion 360.
Lofting is the practice of creating a 3D shape from 2D sections. Automated Modeling outdoes ordinary lofting by:
- Allowing use of sections that are not completely on a 2D plane
- Letting you declare a no-go zone for the loft to avoid
- Supplying 6 results: with 6 possible lofts, you choose the one you like
Autodesk may be hoping that Automated Lofting’s few inputs will make for a less intimidating interface and simpler process than generative design and will be the lure that brings users to generative design in droves. However, lofting tends to be one of the least used operations in solid modeling, so it remains to be seen if the fish will bite.
Every CAD program tries to measure up to the drafting gold standard that is AutoCAD and, in that regard, Fusion 360 is no different. Fusion360 closed a big gap to its older brother’s drawing prowess by being able to create auxiliary views. An auxiliary view is sometimes the only way to clarify a part feature. The inability to create them must have been a rude surprise to many Fusion360 subscribers who were still expecting to produce dimensioned drawings.
Smaller gaps closed were the ability to create hole tables; dimension arc lengths; jog radius dimensions; edit title blocks; change line types, width and color; create and use drawing setting templates; and have “advanced” print control.
Concurrent Assembly Design
Fusion 360’s main rival, Onshape, has from its beginning understood the importance of the cloud in enabling multiple users to see and work on a design, from wherever they might be located. It may have taken the pandemic for Autodesk to allow Fusion users to work concurrently on an assembly in 2022.
Integration of Electrical and Electronic Design
Autodesk started Fusion 360 as a mechanical CAD application but has added enough additional disciplines to qualify as a design and manufacturing platform. From within Fusion360, one can perform a simulation, do generative design, perform a CAM simulation, and lay out an electrical design—something that had previously required an external electronic design automation (EDA) program. Though big manufacturers still segregate electrical and mechanical engineers and universities still keep the disciplines distinct, the product design engineer in smaller firms may have to manage both. Such engineers will benefit from having both MCAD and ECAD applications under one roof.
Much of the ECAD technology of Fusion360 comes from its acquisition of a second-tier German EDA company, Eagle, which Autodesk acquired in 2016.
Fusion 360 EDA capabilities now include Place Component Panel, Automatic EAGLE Library Importer, Layer Stack Manager, Pattern/Arrange command and Flat Cap Lines.
The Package Generator library has swelled with additional components. Users can sync to a central library, enabling them to work from any computer.
A signal integrity extension using Ansys’ PCB electromagnetic analysis was added.