Autodesk this week made several announcements of new features to its innovative Autodesk Fusion 360 mechanical CAD, CAM and CAE product that runs on Mac, Windows and iOS devices.
About Hardware Startups
Autodesk has told Architosh in the past that Fusion 360 is incredibly popular with smaller startups in the manufacturing space, folks that are inventing the next gadget. This crowd is looking to disrupt their respective markets and Fusion 360 helps break down the barriers to entry and forge innovative pathways to success by helping smaller firms, startup teams and most importantly, distributed teams, work collaboratively together.
Here’s What’s New
Distributed Design
This new release helps geographically dispersed teams work together and lays the foundation for more enhancements in the future. This update allows you to insert reference geometry from one part of a project to another. Team members can then work on separate parts of a larger assembly while keeping tabs on each other’s work progress so larger projects stay synced. The short video below shows the tech in detail.
https://youtu.be/C9LI4Ea1vOM
Sketching Enhancements
Sketching is improved with new visibility of sketch lines, access to sketch controls and new sketching preview features that allows you to turn on/off sketching line coloring when your sketches are fully constrained.
2D Drawings Enhancements
This update includes new dimensional updates and 2D drawings are now associated with distributed designs, so users are alerted when changes are made to an externally referenced part and they can automatically update their drawings.
Autodesk Print Studio
Fusion 360 now includes Autodesk’s new 3D print utility powered by Spark. With direct integration with Autodesk’s Ember printer, Type A Machines, and Dremel Printers, Makerbot, and Ultimaker printers, it allows users to orient and modify digital models to fit pre-defined printer volumes without affecting the source model.
Partner Integrations
Integrations with BriteHub and CADENAS’s parts4cad have been completed, and new integration with Proto Labs is coming soon.
- Britehub is a service that lets you request a quote for manufacturing the part you designed, compare quotes against other suppliers, gain supply chain management support, and get your product made with a seamless step-by-step process.
- CADENAS’ parts4cad gives you access to millions of designed-to-spec 3D models and assemblies from more than 400 certified manufacturers’ catalogs, ready for you to browse through and insert right into a new or existing design within Fusion 360.
- Proto Labs’ rapid injection molding and CNC machining quoting capabilities will soon be integrated into Fusion 360 (3D printing quoting to come at a later date). This enhancement will allow Fusion 360 users to request a free manufacturing quote with the push of a button. The quotes include design for manufacturability analysis so necessary modifications can be made early.
Much more detail on all of these updates is available on the Fusion 360 “Design Differently” blog.