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Back at tinkering with the new Isoparametric Curve tool in Fusion.

Scroll down to PICTURES LETS GO! If you want to skip this little walk through Autodesk Fusion memory lane, clearing up some of the UI conFusion. Why something so seemingly basic, is just being added today.

2009- Autodesk Inventor, hybrid modelling experiment, parametric and direct CAD in one hybrid system.

2011- Autodesk acquires T Splines Inc. an organic modeller still in fusion today, in the Purple Form Environment. Before this, it was a plugin for Rhino(and others)

After the acquisition, Autodesk pulled it entirely from Rhino. A central tool for many’s workflow.. fusion becoming the platform for those who wanted parametric and sculpting CAD in one platform.

2012- Autodesk acquires HSMWorks. High speed CAM system that ran inside SolidWorks. This is the Manufacturing workspace today.

2013- Autodesk Fusion360 launches.

Cloud Based, All in One Platform.

2016- Autodesk acquires CadSoft. Integrating EAGLE as the electronics / PCB design tool.

2017-2021- Integration of Autodesk 123D Slicer, Meshmixer tools, Netfabb Additive Manufacturing.

2018-2023… when they became more focused on engineering a situation to justify AI tools, than just engineering good tools to not need AI in the first place…

it’s pretty cool though… advanced simulation.. see how much stress your model can theoretically take, before even considering prototyping it IRL.

Why this matters…

You, like me, are probably wondering why something so seemingly basic like Isoparametric curves, are being added.. 13 years after release.. my scatterbrained understanding is that, it’s the Liger, being bread for its skills in magic(AI).

The hybrid design approach breaks the rules of a “pure” system and can easily stray away from clean feature trees with predictable parent-child dependencies. It can be messy, and impossible to clean if you’ve gone too far.

Why Now.

Fusions underlying Geometry Engine (NURBS), the math behind surfaces, has always supported things like control point manipulation. Though creating clean editable isoparametric curves required adding a UI and a Workflow Layer that allowed users to view, select, and manipulate those curves without breaking other features. Difficult because these touch everything.

For years, Autodesk just assumed we didn’t need them, and weighed out the complexity. Seriously.. the suggestion box is a trash bin over there.

Advanced Surface inspection is really only critical for high end surface modeling, industrial design, and automotive style workflows… (hey that’s us!)

Fusions user base has rapidly grown, became more advanced, brains gained a few wrinkle and the demand was met.. (we did it!)

It is resource heavy, your computer might hate you, and if it does, you will hate it back.

PICTURES, LETS GO.

This is a dirty attempt at solving the heel geometry using this new approach. I’m incredibly shocked at how good it turned out with so few manual inputs, no playing with the tangency weights.

Cheers!