Autodesk Fusion for the Inventor User

STEVEN PETERSON: Hello, everyone. My name is Steven Peterson. I would like to say, thank you very much for joining me in today's session. This one is called "Fusion for the Inventor User."

I do have a copresenter. His name is Edward Rose. He won't be here for the recording, but he will be there in person. He will be the one who will help with any types of questions that are specifically Inventor related.

So if you're not-- if you're watching the recording, don't worry. I'll be able to cover all of the content here myself.

First, I would like to have a little bit about myself. My name is, again, Steven Peterson. I'm in Phoenix, Arizona. I have one son and one on the way. And I've been doing design work for about 14 years.

And 8 of that was focused on CAM-related work like programming CNC machines and operating CNC machines at times. Most of my experience is in Fusion and I also have experience using Inventor as well.

Currently, I'm an Implementation Consultant at Team D3, which is a Symetri company. And I'll have a slide here that just talks about my colleague, Ed Rose. I'll just go over his info. He's from Fort Wayne, Indiana. He has three sons, one granddaughter, one grandson.

All of his work here is very detailed with what he's done, such as being an Applications Engineer for Industrial Technology, Technical Sales, Technical Sales in Engineering, and then same thing for D3. And currently, he is a Client Success Manager here at our team at D3.

So at our company, what we like to do whenever we're having meetings or we're having presentations, we have something called the Up Front Contract. And all that is is just a few statements of kind of what we were thinking. And so for this case, I have a few statements of what I was thinking when I was creating this presentation for everyone here.

So the first thing I just want to make sure you understand is I do like Fusion more than Inventor. I know this is a class "Fusion for the Inventor User," but I feel like it's important to know where I stand on that kind of conversation, if you know what I mean.

The other thing I want to make sure everyone knows and understands is I do believe both Fusion and Inventor are tools, and each tool has its use. Which brings me right into the next statement, that we should use the right tool for the right job.

And the last one here that kind of frames my entire presentation, at least what I feel and what I believe behind it, is that we are the substance, not the tool. So we bring value to what we use, not the other way around. All right, so within my presentation here, I have three key points for our agenda to focus in on.

The first one, I would like to discover what's the same in Fusion and Inventor and where they might be different. Next, I'll go through how we can optimize your workflows with Fusion by understanding its potential. And then, at the end, I'll just go over some ways that we can embrace change and learn these future tools to enhance our foundation of experience.

So what is the same? What is the same with the two programs? And to be honest, it was a little difficult to find everything about how they're the same. Most of the data I can collect during my research was how different they are and like Fusion versus Inventor or Inventor versus Fusion or what this one has and the other will never have. And there's a lot of contrasting videos in that way in always competing with each other.

But what I would like to do with this is kind of just talk about how they can work together to be more efficient. The story that comes to mind during this was one that I experienced in industry, or as I was kind of learning engineering principles when I was doing instrument building. So what I would always say is I have a tool bag.

And although my screwdriver can and has been used as a hammer, it doesn't really do that job very well at being a hammer, which is why I have a hammer to do that kind of job. So part of all of this is more like how they can be similar so that they can be used together. So some of the things I have here, they're very broad in how they're the same, so not very specific in every minute detail.

So overall, the first thing about how they're similar is that they're both parametric modeling softwares. We can use things like parameters to define the shape of our model. And we can change those parameters at any time to fundamentally change their overall shape, their width, their thickness, their height, whichever parameter we need to control at a moment's notice.

We also have things like constraints and relationships within the same type of parametric modeling concept. All of those give us flexibility over the model itself. So in that regard, in more of a hierarchical type of viewpoint, they are very similar in that regard. We can use the same types of concepts and the same types of manipulation of each one of those parameters to work with our models there.

The next one here is that both programs, they do follow a modeling hierarchy. They're not exactly the same on what their hierarchy is, but more in that they both have a modeling hierarchy. There's things like a parent-child relationship with each model. We can have aggregation of that information that we're able to use in our parameters, like we saw in the previous slide there.

That gives us modularity of all of our models here in that we can reuse them however we need to, however many times we need to, such as we have assemblies that we can reuse as subassemblies in the future and other things like components, or even sketches, that we can reuse to use in other types of modeling. All of that gives us simplification and efficiency. So in that regard, both programs do that similarly.

And here's a screenshot of the toolbars on both programs, just on the first tabs there of each one. On the top, I have Inventor. And on the bottom, I have Fusion. And what we can see is that most tools are the same. They won't be in the same spot.

And they'll be organized differently. But what we can see is that some of the icons are almost exactly the same. And most of the tools might work almost exactly the same as well.

Obviously, there's going to be some tools that exist in one program versus the other. But most of them are using the same terminology, the same verbiage. And how they work is also going to be very, very similar from one to the other. So that's one thing we can expect from looking at it as if I'm using Fusion and I'm very accustomed to being an Inventor user.

I've always modeled in Inventor and I'm going to give Fusion a shot. So at least you'll know that the icons look the same and the words are, what they're called, do the same thing, relatively.

The other thing that is the same, I would say almost exactly the same, is navigation. We have things like the ViewCube on both programs. Sometimes, our up axis might be different. Sometimes, we'll have our y-axis as our vertical axis.

And other times, we'll have our z-axis. And in both programs, we can decide which one is our up axis. And we can also have customization on that.

Our navigation is also very similar, where we can use our scroll wheel on our mouse, we can hold down that scroll wheel, and we can use the Shift key and pressing down the scroll wheel at the same time to have almost the exact same type of navigation in both programs. You might have to change your zoom direction up or down, but those are both options that we can change as we need to. But they'll still feel and move the same.

All right. Now that we have a base understanding of how they're very similar, let's go over some contrasting features. And I kind of separated the contrasting features, not in a head-to-head, kind of combative way, but more of showcasing the strengths of each program.

I think there's more than enough content that you can find of how you can put them head to head in doing a specific task. But again, I want to focus on how we can utilize them both together, so in some contrasting features where we might see some strengths here.

I'll start at the very top. I'll go from one program to the other back and forth here. But the first one here on the left, I have Fusion. And on the right, I have Inventor. Some of the design environments in Fusion are-- they're kind of segregated a little bit differently. But what it does is it allows simplification of each one of those environments.

So if, let's say I'm switching from my solid modeling environment, going to my manufacturing environment, all my tools in my toolbar will change and populate based off of what environment I'm in. There's also workspaces within those environments or within those workspaces. And some of those environments in the design workspace are also going to change our toolbar and populate with the tools I can use in those environments-- a little bit easier to navigate, especially if you're just coming to learn that software.

Where Inventor has a great contrasting feature here is design accelerators. We might have things like iLogic or a frame generator or things like that that are very powerful design-assisting tools that we can use and just really be very efficient with how we can develop new models and new things.

Fusion, the second one here, is cloud storage. Cloud storage, it is a feature. It's a great feature, especially if you need access anywhere. This allows you to sign into your account, essentially kind of like a subscription-based program. Let's say just use my account and login, my login name and password, there's all of my stuff, just like I would expect at any system.

Now, Inventor's contrasting feature is it's not a cloud storage. So in some cases, being a cloud storage is not beneficial, especially for anyone out there that might be under ITAR specifications. In those cases, cloud storage is under a lot of-- you can't do a lot of stuff if it's a cloud storage program if you have ITAR specs that you have to abide by.

So another Fusion feature here is its CAM capabilities. So Fusion has had a lot of development and a lot of focus around its ability to program toolpaths, to have very efficient toolpaths, and to just be able to manufacture parts with a lot more techniques and a lot more capabilities. On the other side here, for Inventor, we have technical drawings. So Inventor is very robust in its ability to create technical drawings.

Whenever we need to share our data or share our schematics from one place to another, or having other engineers interact with our data, let's say, or maybe we're just the design firm and we outsource our manufacturing-- being able to communicate those types of complex drawings is very important to really have your correct data and even your own style, the way you would want to communicate that data.

On the Fusion side, a great feature to look into is AI tools. There are things like generative design, which kind of works out where it's not exactly like a design accelerator, more of a tool that can help with iteration of a design. And it can do some things automatically as well.

Not only does it is there a generative design, but there are other things like automated drawings. So in some cases, we can have drawings that are populated automatically. And there's some later down here. I'll be able to showcase some of that feature when we're talking about future tools there. But you can probably see how that might be very beneficial for future use.

On the Inventor side, I think this is a fantastic feature. But it is more customizable in its user interface. Inventor has more options, more capabilities, and more control over how it looks, how it can work, and just the overall feel of the software itself-- not to mention what I think is a very important one [COUGHS] dark mode.

And I'll just say that because I've used Fusion for a long time with the bright background. But a dark mode is nice to have, especially when I'm staring at a screen for hours on end. Another great Fusion feature is that it is more affordable, with being at a lower cost of entry.

If you are just getting a single-user license, it is a lower cost than it is for Inventor single-user license. If you're already purchasing the Product Design and Manufacturing Collection, then you have both, which is the main idea behind this entire class, is that you might already have access to both if you have that collection.

Inventor, on the other hand, another feature that's fantastic is it works amazingly with Vault data management. So if you do need that level of control over your data, Vault is a fantastic solution to be able to do that across an entire team, an entire company. Vault is a very robust, very powerful program for data management.

And currently, it's just not very smooth with interfacing with Fusion since, because Fusion is more cloud based, it wants to do a lot of that data management itself, which is why it doesn't really play well with Vault. It is possible to have them work together, but it usually is like a one-way valve, where we can send data from Vault to Fusion, but not so easily the other way around.

With Fusion, the last one here is rapid deployment as a feature. Now, what that could look like since, let's say, it's more affordable and it's a cloud storage, I don't have to upload all my libraries. I don't have to upload all my data, all my models. And I don't have to have this huge, large data set accompanied with everything that is necessary to get off the ground and running.

Since it's all cloud based, I can literally have a new computer, install Fusion, log in with my credentials, have full access to everything I've modeled for however long I've been modeling. I do have a cool story about that after this last one here with Inventor is, with that in mind, large assembly models or, sorry, management can really be a big flex for Inventor here because it can handle those large models, large assemblies a lot easier, just in how the program was created and how it manages all of that.

Fusion is getting better with that as the years progress. But it is definitely a true statement that Inventor does handle those larger assemblies a lot easier. Now, that story was mentioning with the rapid deployment-- when I was working at a machine shop, I was on the shop floor. I was operating machines and programming toolpaths.

The reason I have that last one there is because I have a real-life experience of this where we used Fusion to do all of our toolpaths, post-processing, stuff like that. And if any of you have ever been in a shop environment, you'll know that it's kind of a harsher environment than in the office. It can be very dirty. It can be very dusty.

If it's metal that you manufacture with, then there could be metal shavings all over the place. That being said, we had a computer there that just one day died. And there must have been metal shavings that got in it or someone spilled drinks on it, something. Any one of those could have happened.

But the point was the machine died. And we needed that to not happen. So what we were able to do, fortunately, is we were able to go to a local computer store, or a store that sold computers, and purchase one, bring it back to the shop, install Fusion. And boom, we were right back where we were.

We didn't have to upload anything extra or have any type of additional data-- just install, log in, back to where we were doing. We were posting the same stuff from the same model, from the exact same thing as if we didn't skip a beat. I mean, obviously we had to go and get the system. But the point is the rapid ability to replace a critical machine like that, very useful in that type of situation.

All right. So let's go ahead and look at some potential workflows here on how we can get both of these programs to work together. The first thing we'll have to do when we're trying to have both of these systems work together is we're going to need to install this other Autodesk product called Desktop Connector.

And what this will do is it'll essentially create a cloud drive-- kind of like Dropbox, if you're familiar with that program-- where it can, on your computer, put another folder that has all of your data for that area, like a cloud storage folder. And on the left here is kind of where I have an example of that, where it would have a new drive called Fusion. And that's where all of your Fusion files could potentially have a copy or a link associated to them.

So once we have this connector installed and configured properly, we will have the ability to have Inventor save directly to one of those folders, which will be synced to your cloud storage. Here's a video of an example of both of these two programs working together. Now, I just have it paused here just for a moment so I can make sure I explain a few things with this video.

It might be a slightly older version of both programs here, but the concept and the workflow would be similar. So just as a little bit of a setup here-- on the left, we have Inventor. And on the right, we have Fusion. And the idea behind this is that we have a generative design on the right here made in Fusion that we'll be able to send to Inventor and also update when we make some changes.

So you can see in the design, it's intentionally accessing one of those generative design files, bringing it into the model itself. And let's say we had it there and we needed to make a change. We can go back to Fusion, kind of change some of those positions or sizes or parameters, even, save our progress. And once we do, we can go back into our Inventor and update our model and have it represented now on both systems.

So with that Desktop Connector, we'll just be able to connect the two systems essentially, where we can utilize some of those tools that might not exist in Inventor and use them in Fusion and send it to our Inventor program.

And the next thing that a lot of clients of ours request is for manufacturing. So since we've seen a lot of development in Fusion with its manufacturing capabilities, we have a lot of companies asking, hey, how can I use Fusion for manufacturing? So with that Desktop Connector, again, installed, configured properly, we can use Inventor to design our part. And not only can we use it to design it, we can also utilize Vault as well, in conjunction with Inventor, for managing your design.

And then we can have it send to Fusion. And Fusion will be able to start from step two. So you've designed your model in Inventor. We've sent it to Fusion. And now we can create our setup. If you're familiar with manufacturing, the setup is just the blank material as it is when you first put it into your machine.

Since all of milling is essentially called "subtractive manufacturing," where we're just removing the material we don't want, so we have to define those positions and sizes when we put it in our machine. And then, from there, we program our toolpaths.

The fourth step is to simulate. Although, you can skip this step. But let me ask, how many of you have crashed a machine before? I'm sure some of you will raise your hands and say, yes, I have crashed a machine. And it is not fun. It is terrifying in some cases. Although you could skip step four, I recommend you don't, and only because it could potentially find a crash in your toolpath there.

So just make the time, simulate your toolpath. Don't be like me and crash a few times before you learn that lesson. But from there, you would postprocess everything that you've programmed. Which essentially what that does is it creates the G-code for your machine to understand. And then, from there, we can send that G-code to your machine and make the part, obviously loading it properly and making sure all the safeties are enabled.

So now that we kind of understood some of the contrasting features, how we've seen some of these workflows together, let's use all of that, what we've seen here and what I've been talking about, to kind of embrace some new things, how we can utilize both of these efficiently.

So the first one I always like to talk about with Fusion here-- and there's a lot of data behind this one-- is generative design, a fantastic design exploration tool, AI-powered design exploration tool. It's fantastic. It will be an amazing solution to be able to make things lighter, potentially; just as strong, potentially; and also allow us to create a more efficient shape as we're iterating our design, as we're coming up with the initial design concepts itself.

It doesn't have to be a new product either. Just my own experience, there was a time I was working with a snowmobile company. And what was really cool about what they needed at the time was they needed a new way to make the front control arms that held on to the skis. And that control, that little mount, they were using-- it was taking about four hours to manufacture a left and four hours to manufacture a right.

So all together it was about a whole work day, eight hours of manufacturing to make one set that will be sold for one snowmobile. And with the use of things like generative design, I was able to define the mounting points, define my manufacturing limitations. At the time, it was a three-axis mills. And what we were able to do and come up with was a new shape that was easier to manufacture.

It was just as strong as the original. But it was lighter than the original, which is a very big deal with the types of snowmobiles they were making. Lighter weight, it was always better for them. So it was an amazing part. I think the biggest celebration to that type of generative design was that since it was easier to make, we had more space in the machine and we can actually fit our left and right in the machine at the same time.

So what that did is it turned our eight-hour process into 3.5 hours for both the left and right. Amazing story of money savings, efficiency. And that was a part they were making for years. And just by utilizing this tool and just using the different types of manufacturing limitations, we essentially reoptimized their existing design that bolted right into their current infrastructure so they didn't have to redesign anything else.

I love that story only because of the amount of gains that they saw was huge, amazing. I don't know if I'll ever be able to optimize a part to that scale again, but it was a great feeling, a great celebration for that type of stuff.

The other great thing to look forward to in Fusion is things called "electromechanical design." So there was a program called EAGLE, which is currently discontinued. And it was acquired by Autodesk. And now, we see a lot of that infrastructure of that program built into Fusion.

So we're actually able to utilize a lot of those tools to design electronic PCBs. Not only that, but we can also have a 3D version of that schematic inside of Fusion. And since Fusion is a mechanical CAD software-- so it's like we can also use it for the enclosure that might hold that PCB.

And having all three of those in one program is fantastic and really efficient. If we ever need to change the enclosure. Or let's say if I could make this one shape slightly different, I can fit more-- I can nest more of these onto a sheet of material if it was just slightly different, stuff like that. And that can influence everything throughout its process.

Here's kind of a short video showcasing what that might look like with the nature of having all of that in one program. So switching from our schematic here, being able to apply some of these different options and features and just design iterations of that schematic, it influences our 3D model. We can even change the 3D model.

We can say, hey, we want to move this thing over. Or maybe this should be at this position, stuff like that. And it updates on our schematic. And it updates on our 3D model. And we can also put that directly into our enclosure, where they're all associated and they're all connected together-- an amazing tool to consider if you have a need to create your own PCBs.

The other one I want to showcase here is our automated drawings. So this is a video that I took. And just a little bit of a caveat with this one is this is live. I didn't speed this up or edit the duration. It takes about a couple of minutes here for it to do its entire thing. But I did take some time to create a template. And from that template, it's called a "component-level template."

So although this is an assembly with subassemblies, it kind of breaks it up into all of its base components. So it's showing me each individual part as opposed to the entire assembly. Automated drawings are great in that it's going to apply some of the dimensions for me. It's going to lay out everything for me in kind of like a third-angle projection-- like a front, top, left, right, isometric.

It'll be able to place all of that for me. But it's not perfect out of the box. It does take some refining to make sure that it looks exactly how I want it to before sending it out. But the really cool thing about this type of AI automation here is that it could potentially, I would say probably at the lowest, give me 10% gain in time, or that it's going to take me 10% less time to create a drawing potentially.

And in some cases, it can remove even more. So as you see, I have the program here. I'm just kind of going through some of the sheets it made. It looks like it made 10 sheets in total when it broke apart the entire hand clamp. And I did have influence on the template there with kind of the dimensions. It shows two units, inches and millimeters. And it's colored blue, obviously.

But again, I just have to do some refinement with positioning and maybe add another dimension if I wanted to, stuff like that. So what that can mean is instead of me doing the monotonous thing of placing each one of these for 10 pages and adding each individual specific dimension, this is going to give me a good amount of that so I don't have to spend as much time per page, per drawing.

Again, at the least, 10% time gain-- at the most, maybe like 80% time gain. If it's very simple, if it's internal use, again, this video was only like a minute and a half. And you have something that could definitely be sent to your internal shop floor if you're just trying to quickly communicate.

And just a little bit more time, it could definitely be ready to be viewed externally. So an amazing tool to have, an amazing tool to know about, especially something to look forward to with Fusion.

The last thing I'm going to show you here that I think has a huge benefit is machine simulation. So since Fusion has more development in its CAM capabilities, I just again have a video here kind of showing a part being created where I can simulate my entire machine.

And what's great about that is if not only have I already made sure that this machine had a virtual version of it, but also made sure it had the correct postprocessor with the machine so that it actually moves the way it would, or at least command wise, which allows me to see my live G-code on the right-hand side.

So once you do have a machine simulation-- a machine to simulate with, sorry, and a postprocessor associated to it, and all of the kinematics figured out and applied to your virtual machine, your simulations can be very, very accurate to actual manufacturing. I think it's fantastic to see the G-code at the programming level, just like what you would expect, when you're at the machine, you would be able to see that as well.

But with the simulation, I can slow it down. I could move closer, closer than I ever would in real life. I would never put my head this close to the part as it's making it. But it allows me to really diagnose, slow down, and see what I could expect when putting this part in there. Just that flexibility to see all that, to get right up in there and just visually see the difference when it's making these parts is truly beneficial.

The other thing that I find beneficial is that once you do have all of the geometry of your model here-- for your machine, that is-- it can take into account your work holding, which is like the vise. And in this case, not only does this have a vise, but it has a rotary. When you're working with larger components in your machine like this, it is possible to crash not with your spindle, but with your coolant system.

This one has-- it looks like a mist type of coolant system on it. And I have actually bumped a misting system or just my fluid cooling system before. There was a few times it didn't cause any damage because it was a flexible hose. But if it was a rigid hose, it could hit the side of my rotary. But if I have it completely modeled, accurate to the actual machine, Fusion would have a warning saying, hey, possible collision in this motion.

So fantastic thing to be able to know that, to be able to see that coming, maybe change your offsets at the programming level so it doesn't have to be sent to your machine. Looking at the G-code, it's like, nope, that's going to hit. Send it back to Fusion, change it, post it again. So being able to see that there at the programming level, amazing.

So definite great things to consider-- I just want to summarize everything we went over here just to wrap things up, where similarities and differences or contrasts here. Both are parametric modeling programs. They both have modeling hierarchy. Tools relatively work the same. Navigation is the same, at least with some settings, especially that zoom direction. I don't know. That zoom direction gets me every time.

Workflows that we need to consider is definitely the Desktop Connector to get them to talk together, to one another, model in Inventor, and then send into Fusion for things like generative design or manufacturing. And then, when we're considering embracing change, we can look into not only those generative design aspects, but electromechanical design. We can look at those drawing automations, even if it's just for internal use, especially if you just want to save time so you don't have to spend hours for something that might just be internal.

And then, CAM with machine simulation, that is an amazing thing, worth every penny. It's kind of like one of those things, when you first get a tool changer, you don't want to go back. It's a quality of life, makes things very nice.

But that's everything we have that I have for you today. This is usually a great time for questions. My colleague, Ed, and I will be able to answer questions. He'll be able to answer the Inventor questions. I can answer Fusion questions because if you remember that upfront contract there, I'm more experienced with Fusion.

So if you ever want to get a hold of us or just connect with us, here is a link for our LinkedIn pages. Feel free to connect with us there. And for those of you watching the recording, we also do have a booth this year at AU.

So feel free to scan this to come to our booth. But for the recordings, don't worry. So you don't have to worry about this slide, here. But for those of you who do want to, this will also be available to scan, as well.

So thank you very much. And thank you for attending my session here.