Instructors: Teaching Fusion Just Got Easier

What instructors need to know about ASCENT’s latest Fusion Learning Guide 

Unlike most Autodesk products, the Autodesk Fusion software is updated frequently and these updates are delivered automatically, so users always have access to the latest version of the software. Although as content developers, we cannot update our guides at the same pace, I do track these software updates to determine when the changes are significant enough to warrant a guide update. We recently released an updated version of our Autodesk Fusion: Introduction to Parametric Model learning guide. For those of you that teach using this guide, I’ve summarized the edits by chapter to help you prepare. If you are a new user to Fusion, check out my other blog here.

Chapter 1: The first chapter now provides a more detailed introduction to help new users understand the key concepts in Fusion including hubs, projects, design type files, data panel, and workspaces, as well as more on how to use the Home Page.  

Chapter 2 – 6: These chapters cover sketching and creating features in a part design. While the content has changed very little, it now introduces how to create a new part design for the first time using the What do you want to design? dialog box (shown below). 

Chapter 7: This chapter does not introduce any new functionality. However, from this point forward, when users are asked to create a new part design, the guide provides only limited instructions for starting the file as users are expected to know the workflow by now. 

Chapter 8-13: There were no major workflow or functionality changes in these chapters. But like all of the other chapters, we replaced images and modified instructions as needed. 

Chapter 14: This chapter had the most significant updates, so you should certainly review it before teaching your first class. It begins by explaining the difference between Assembly & Hybrid design types and includes a new topic and exercise on using the new Constrain Components () option to create Align, Angle, Center, and Tangent constraints between components. 

Chapter 15: The tools discussed in this chapter are available for both Assembly and Hybrid design types, so content was updated to explain the command paths for each design type. 

Chapter 16-17: These two chapters focus on the Drawing workspace, which is used to document your part, assembly, and hybrid designs. The chapter begins by discussing the two methods for creating drawings: creating a new drawing type and creating a drawing from an existing design. What is really important to note here is that, if the design you are documenting is not open, you can only create a drawing template file. We also updated the Automated Drawing content (17.2) to explain how you can use the EDIT AUTO DIMENSIONS palette (shown below) to customize automated dimensioning. A related task has also been included in the practice for users to try it out. 

Chapter 18: The only change to Multi-Body design is that it must use the Hybrid design type. This has been updated in the guide. 

Chapter 19-20: The only change to the Form environment is with respect to editing form geometry. The guide now explains how the Cylindrify option can be used to smoothen T‑Spline geometry into more of a cylindrical shape. For example, the two images on the right show how the Cylindrify option has been used on the entire feature or select faces. 

One piece of feedback that we often get from Instructors is that this guide contains a lot of content to cover in class. With the changes to the Assembly material and addition of a new lengthy exercise, it became obvious that we had to remove some content. For this release of the guide and future versions, we have removed the Static Analysis content (previously Chapter 21). This content was originally included in the guide to support users preparing for Autodesk Certification; however, Autodesk no longer includes this content as a learning objective in their associate or professional CAM modeling exams. 

In addition to all of these changes, exercises in each chapter were updated to support these changes, images were updated throughout the guide, and command paths were reviewed for consistency to help provide users with a seamless learning experience. 

I hope this summary helps you prepare for your classes!

One final note: this guide was updated for the 2703.1.20 software release. Software updates made after this release may affect the content. We’ll continue to track these changes, but please send us your feedback if you have any questions.