13 ms·

Changes to Fusion 360 for Personal Use

102 points by andyfleming 6y ago

sbuk 6y ago
No surprises. For all the arguments around FAANG and user hostility, Autodesk are the absolute pits. They have been price gouging for decades. They release buggy software and hold various industries hostage with their pricing. For an Architect with 100 users of Revit as an example, the fees are eye watering, and the support 'contract' is always with 3rd parties, which is invariably extremely limited. Horrible organisation.
- agumonkey 6y ago
  wait until blender eat their lunch
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - mediaman 6y ago
    Blender is not currently a parametric modeler. I think there is some effort to add some parametric functionality, but it is a loooooooong ways away from that as it's a complicated feature set. Though it would be wonderful if Blender was eventually able to add this. It is probably not currently a priority for their financial sponsors though - CGI/game industry doesn't use parametric much.
    - dheera 6y ago
      I use OpenSCAD for all parametric functionality.
      - sokoloff 6y ago
        I used OpenSCAD for several years of hobby-Level 3D printing modeling. I switched to Fusion360 during lockdown and it was night and day more productive, especially for modeled threads, fillets, and constraint-based models.
    - nraynaud 6y ago
      I think the modifier stack is a proto-modeling history, but good luck with advanced modelling operators like shell or sheet metal and assemblies
    - justinclift 6y ago
      Blender has some extremely limited and outdated internals for solid modelling (NURBS) which are what CAD/CAM could be based upon. Some work was done in Feb 2020 to start bringing them up to speed, and there is a patch set for review: https://developer.blender.org/D6807 https://developer.blender.org/D6807 It doesn't seem to have received the needed reviewing though. Until that's done, there's not much hope. :( :( :( Note - this is just my understanding of it, as I was wondering similar about the state of solid modelling in Blender last week.
    - agumonkey 6y ago
      Blender was barely a speckle on the map when it started it's now very capable. I'd bet 10$ it could grow a parametric whatever in 12 months
      - dotancohen 6y ago
        I'll take that bet. You've got $10 if stock Blender supports parametric modeling on 18 September, 2021. You are invited to email me at my HN username @ gmail.com
  - carabiner 6y ago
    Does Blender even have any CAM/CAE functionality? Parts tree, version management, integration with CNC? It seemed like Blender is to CAD as MS Word is to Visual Studio. Different worlds that are superficially alike.
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  Some of the changes make sense - IE they won't store your documents for free any more, and you can't use their server rendering farm for free. But others are just punitive, like not letting you export certain file types.
  - ajford 6y ago
    But they're the ones that took out local file system storage for your project files. If they didn't push you into using their cloud, they wouldn't have to store our documents. No, that was the gateway into being able to pull this whole load of bullshit to extract money from the hobbyist market.
    - oh_sigh 6y ago
      Oh wow, I didn't realize you couldn't save locally, I assumed that was a given. This is disappointing because I just started to pick up Fusion360 for woodworking projects. I guess it's good I haven't put more than a week or so into studying it.
      - 0x4a42 6y ago
        Last time I worked with F360 it was very possible to save files locally.
nickthegreek 6y ago
The export filetype and 2d drawing limitations are sad.
- jrockway 6y ago
  They have always been jerks about filetype export. I have tried and failed to export .obj files for other 3D software many times. They really want to use some cloud process, and it never works. I wrote a script that imports STLs into Blender and saves them as OBJs. No cloud required! Works every time! Wow!
  - marshray 6y ago
    Support for extensions (scripts) is one of the things banned by the hobbyist license.
    - jrockway 6y ago
      Oh, I mean I save the thing as an STL and then run a Python program on the commandline to do the conversion. I didn't even know that there was a provision for making that even easier. It is unfortunate when I read the list of things they are doing to make the life of a hobbyist harder, because Fusion 360 has been pretty useful to me. They should just make it something you buy for $50. Would instantly pay.
ironmagma 6y ago
This is a great example in how not to write an announcement to your customers. Start with positive language, deliver a huge blow, make no apology.
- coldelectrons 6y ago
  Introduce yourself. Establish a connection or rapport with the audience. Set expectations. "My name is Inigo Montoya..."
  - ironmagma 6y ago
    The expectations that the blog sets up are in the positive mood. It should really start off with, "This is going to really suck, everyone, and in fact it might be the worst thing you heard about this year. Just kidding, it's slightly better, but...". But instead it builds up positive expectations. Anyone sufficiently jaded just has to fight the urge to believe this fluff while desperately scanning to find the place where they tear it all down and tell you what is happening with the product, after needlessly building up for paragraphs at a time.
- floatingatoll 6y ago
  I think this announcement is fine. No language on earth would make free users happy, it gets right down to business, and it includes a clear and specific table showing what’s being changed. There isn’t really anything else to be done - an apology would just be decried as throwaway corporate speak or as mocking the helpless.
  - ironmagma 6y ago
    You can't make them happy, so at least be honest. The lede is buried, and user-blaming language like "We need to eliminate both the confusion and the misuse that exists within our offerings," implying that the users did something wrong, when it was in fact the company that got the pricing wrong. Not to mention the misleading infographic with the checkmarks (which displays the important information in a more dim, harder-to-notice color and displays old outdated information in bold black which goes top to bottom) or the interstitial with the dark pattern button that says "I don't want to save 40%" in order to dismiss.
eindiran 6y ago
Does anyone have a recommendation for a FOSS alternative to Fusion 360 that is (1) reasonably popular and (2) has a similar feature set?
- 013a 6y ago
  Fusion 360 is a huge beast that is really ten+ applications in one. I can't speak for all of its use-cases, but even then: I haven't found any 3D modeling software that is as easy to use & feature rich as Fusion. However, for 3D print slicing and compiling after the model has been made, Ultimaker Cura is really a gold standard in the space, and open source (AGPL3 I believe).
- Accujack 6y ago
  There really isn't anything. For at least a couple of years, Fusion 360 has been available for "free" (users had only community support, had to write their own POSTs for cam, etc) so as far as I know no one has been developing or considering writing anything else. One thing that's been needed for years in the open source space is a decent mechanical CAD program and integrated CAM system. The issue is that such things are still dark arts to write. There are open source projects that are out there, including BRLCAD, Blender, and other special purpose programs. Fusion 360 is head and shoulders above them in terms of usability and integration with the CAM system.
- Palomides 6y ago
  I've been using freecad, it's okay for the basic mechanical 3D stuff I make the "just use fusion 360, it's free" contingent have, imo, stifled interest and support for FOSS CAD (alternately, view it as a very successful market domination move by Autodesk)
  - dotancohen 6y ago
    That's an interesting point. "Free" as in beer means that we will rely, and grow dependent, upon them. If they had not been giving us fish, we would have learned to fish. Is there a word for this?
- 6y ago
chromaton 6y ago
This sucks. As I saw this news, I'm in the middle of writing up a tutorial involving exporting 2D files from Fusion 360.
- chromaton 6y ago
  Update from the FAQ: "You can still export DXFs, but only from a sketch. To do this, you’ll need to right click on the sketch in the browser and choose ‘Save as DXF. For more information, review How to Save Sketch as a DXF." Fortunately for me, this is exactly what I'm writing up.
raynr 6y ago
Wow, I did not expect this. I started looking at Fusion 360 a couple years back because it seemed very hobbyist friendly, and while I primarily use it for 3d printing, I've dabbled in laser cutting and CNC too. I always had the impression that Autodesk had positioned Fusion 360 as their gateway drug into AutoCAD or some other Autodesk software, but that it was remarkably full featured for that purpose. Last year (or was it the year before?), they added some restrictions to their free version. No biggie, I thought. Most of the cool hobbyist functionalities remained intact. Now, they have taken more away. The file export limitations in particular are crippling. No .step? .dxf? No extensions??? I can't even buy stress simulation credits? ...yikes. US$495 a year to subscribe to the "full" version (they have "generously" granted a 40% discount until Oct, hurry before it's too late!). No cheap versions for hobbyists like me who just like to dabble and for whom a yearly sub is out of the budget. Any suggestions for free/cheap and functional local-install alternatives to Fusion 360? Parametric modelling has really saved my butt, and motion joint functionality is very useful too.
- zokier 6y ago
  FreeCAD is the big name, but I'd check out SolveSpace too. Then there is of course OpenSCAD which works well for the things it happens to work well for, but I wouldn't call it full replacement for a CAD. To wrap up there is the oldie and honestly bit intimidating BRL-CAD, which I'm kinda trying to learn whenever I feel like I need to do mechanical design.
  - 0x4a42 6y ago
    SolveSpace looks like a dead project though. EDIT: was wrong, it's still under dev.
    - dotancohen 6y ago
      As mentioned in another thread, the last official release was 2.3 in late 2016. But the 3.0 prereleases can be easily built from the Github repo or you can get it from the Snap store. See the related Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/SolveSpace/comments/iun270/heads_up_about_solvespace_versions/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SolveSpace/comments/iun270/heads_up...
OJFord 6y ago
These restrictions seem fairly reasonable to me, most cause for concern would be further future restrictions I suppose. No generative design at all is a bit of a shame though, people do play with that ('needlessly') for hobby 3D prints. Odd that it doesn't mention small businesses though - wasn't it previously personal or <100k USD pa? But also.. why? If it's already personal use only, and someone has an automatic tool changer for their personal use CNC mill, why not let them use it? Get hooked on it? Continue to want to use it when they have a saleable product idea?
- marshray 6y ago
  Fair to assume the 'hobbyist' license was being used in large scale production in cultures where people are comfortable being dishonest about such things.
  - OJFord 6y ago
    But what does this really change in that regard? Some industries could no longer do that because they rely on generative modelling or ATC? But designers of small PCBs (whatever their worth) or people 3D printing can continue unimpeded? And I'm sure ATC can be added back in as a post-process, since it must at least stop for a manual tool change, or its CAM would be useless for even hobbyists.
    - masterj 6y ago
      > And I'm sure ATC can be added back in as a post-process, since it must at least stop for a manual tool change, or its CAM would be useless for even hobbyists I believe ATC moves are implemented as macros by the machine. So the code emitted looks like: M6 T2 and the ATC behavior is filled in with a macro for the specific machine. To nerf ATC users, Fusion is preventing toolpaths with multiple tools from being exported in the first place. So you have to generate individual toolpaths for each tool. The sad part is that hobby machines also make use of the "M6 T<tool number>" macros to move the machine to a place where it's easy to change tools and then do automatic touch-off before continuing. It's not only professional-class machines that will be affected. It should be theoretically possible to run the multiple generated files through a script to put them back together, but this is likely too much complexity for the vast majority of users.
GistNoesis 6y ago
I only use fusion as a slicer to generate the tool-path for my MPCNC. The high-speed machining is great to allow to mill some harder materials without breaking the drill bits. Removing the rapid movement seems like a petty move. Removing the simulation is fine for me if that's not the simulation of the manufacturing operations which is absolute necessity. Hopefully that move will help some slicer like Cura expand and do some CAM code, because up until now there was no need to develop because Fusion was really good and was free.
krschultz 6y ago
It's still significantly less expensive than OnShape, which seems like its closest competitor. Unfortunately it's hard to actually differentiate between "hobbyist" and "small company" without cutting some really critical features. Most people, even professionals, just don't use that much of the overall feature set.
DivisionSol 6y ago
Saw this come a mile away when they started jacking up the subscription cost for hobbyist licenses (~late 2019 according to my emails.) Instead of being an on-ramp for their serious offerings, it was just too good and needed to be hooked up to a milker.
solarkraft 6y ago
It's a great time to learn FreeCAD! It's a lot more user friendly than it used to be and still rapidly improving.
bitxbit 6y ago
Am I the only one who thought Autodesk was very generous with Fusion 360 for years? It was basically the best software for hobbyist and it was offered for FREE.
- marshray 6y ago
  'Generous' implies an act of benevolence. A bait-and-switch scheme is anything but.
  - jackhack 6y ago
    indeed. I'm sure the deer congregating at the corn feeder feel the same way, at least until opening day of hunting season. And the Turkey must think "The farmer must love me. He feeds me and tends to my needs. Why look at the calendar, with Thanksgiving day just around the corner..."
    - aequitas 6y ago
      The difference is the deer and turkey don't get to read and accept the ToS. Autodesk seems clear about what you sign up for[0] (1 year, non-commercial licence). You're choice to accept the terms and risk not being able to use this professional software for free. [0] https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/personal https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/personal
    - dotancohen 6y ago
      > I'm sure the deer congregating at the corn feeder > feel the same way > And the Turkey must think "The farmer must love me. Is there a word for this situation? I see so many analogies.
  - bitxbit 6y ago
    I take it you work for free all the time.
- aequitas 6y ago
  Agree, You can't expect a company like Autodesk to offer such a expensive tool for free forever. They seem to be preventing abuse with these changes, while still allowing hobbyists to continue to use it for small projects. And that's all you should use it for. Building a busines on a hobbyist license or trusting all your complex big designs to their cloud is asking for trouble.
superkuh 6y ago
This is what happens when you use desktop applications that live in other people's computer's instead of yours.
- gregschlom 6y ago
  That's silly, any desktop app can implement a license check mechanism and decide not to run anymore, even though it's 100% located on "your computer". The real lesson here is: that's what happens when you use software that's free as in beer.
  - superkuh 6y ago
    Sure, they can, but most don't because it's obviously a jerk move to require periodic (bi-weekly) internet access when your application doesn't require internet access in the first place.
    - bsder 6y ago
      You've never run FlexLM, have you?
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    I actually test software in a Virtual Machine with no internet access before I use it on my main machine. I'm sure a dedicated developer could trip up my test by only doing an online check after two weeks or something, but it seems to work.
megiddo 6y ago
Ugh. I literally just bought a second GPU for IOMMU for this application. Fuck it, FreeCAD!
lsllc 6y ago
Ugh. AutoDesk (sort-of) did this with Eagle (PCB design) when they acquired it -- in that case it drove me to learn KiCAD which in the end was what I needed to do! (and I think the AutoDesk acquisition of Eagle also invigorated interest and spurred development of KiCAD!). I recently got a 3D Printer and have been learning Fusion360 and designing my first parts. Guess I'll take another look at FreeCAD. In general, I'm happy to pay for things that "have value", but the pricing here ($495/year) is just too much to justify for a hobby.
- phkahler 6y ago
  >> I recently got a 3D Printer and have been learning Fusion360 and designing my first parts. Guess I'll take another look at FreeCAD. Also have a look at SolveSpace. Version 3.0 is nearing completion but if you can build from source or use the snap store you can use it now: http://solvespace.com/index.pl http://solvespace.com/index.pl https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace There are also a few great YouTube channels with tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEvJVXu3VfGMSOdpA0jrGRzoM7NlNOl5s https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEvJVXu3VfGMSOdpA0jrG...
codazoda 6y ago
I just uninstalled and wrote "fusion 360 hobby announcement" as the reason. I'm just a hobby user, so I don't have time to figure if/when I'll run into their new limitations. Just removed it and I'll go learn FreeCAD or something similar. I also use OpenSCAD where applicable.
qchris 6y ago
I've always found it a little surprising that companies haven't built/funded a open-source organization for parametric mechanical CAD, similar to Blender for games or KiCad for electronics/PCB design. The upside for a ROI seems like it would be enormous, and pretty easy to make happen. Industrial seat licensing for products like Solidworks, CATIA, Inventor, and (now) Fusion are enormously expensive. It's not just private organizations either--CAD proficiency is such a basic skill that every serious engineering school has an organizational license for their students too, which I'd imagine also costs a bundle. It's not as if the tools themselves are expanding functionality at some sort of rapid rate, either; I haven't done much CAD in the last two years (so maybe I somehow missed some sort of feature explosion), but while a regular user between 2013-2018, I saw basically no change in the vast majority of my most-used tools for several different CAD programs, with the exception of some improvement in out-of-the-box simulation capability. The existing FOSS alternatives just aren't at par. I've tried FreeCAD, OpenSCAD, etc., and most mechanical engineers/CAD specialists wouldn't touch a code-based editor. They're certainly better than before, but the rough edges exist and some of them appear in areas that need to Just Work (like assembly and drawings). From my understanding of their contribution graphs, private organizations putting even two or three full-time developers working on those projects could push them much, much closer to being a drop-in replacement for a lot work that gets done, and potentially even save those orgs some money in the short-term by reducing the total number of seat licenses they need in to function. Edit: Added mention of KiCad, bc that's kind of important too
- avhon1 6y ago
  m-labs sponsors SolveSpace development. https://m-labs.hk/software/solvespace/ https://m-labs.hk/software/solvespace/
- myself248 6y ago
  I think the tipping point for KiCad was when CERN realized how much they were spending on professional EDA licenses, and decided to pour those resources into improving KiCad instead. That's how I understood it, anyway. I suppose some large-ish entity that relies on CAD will need to take the same view. I have less faith in academia there, however -- I suspect many of those sitewide licenses are heavily discounted in order to cultivate the addiction, to profit from it later. That's just speculation, though. This is where we really need good software bounties. I'm sure a whole lot of scorned F360 users would throw a few bucks a month into a Patreon or something to advance the state of FreeCAD. I'm not even directly impacted by this; I have a F360 license through my employer, but I'm offended enough on principle to contribute if there's a place to do so.
darth_avocado 6y ago
There's only negative comments on the thread, but what most people missing here is software development takes resources. Heck, just keeping an online product alive costs money (check GCP/AWS pricing). A software engineer in the Bay Area costs $200k/year on an average. If you want to hire quality engineers, it takes a lot more. They're not blocking it behind a paywall. It's still free. I understand that for hobbyists, it can be expensive. But if you are using things beyond the free tier, that's more than just a hobby. And I know this is an unpopular opinion, but being a Software Engineer, I really hate it when anytime a software company tries to charge for things, it's unfair and it's price gouging. But people fail to acknowledge that it is the only industry where you can even pick things up as a hobby for free. Literally anything else you want to pick up as a hobby costs money upfront. If all of the 645,000 users were willing to put up with those upfront costs, they wouldn't have had the need to price their plans so high.
- MayeulC 6y ago
  I guess most hobbyist would be pretty content with 2006-era solidworks if it were readily available: look at how Eagle was used without updates for years, as a shareware. I expect that most of the new features cater to professionnals, except for basic maintenance and a few simple features. The workload necessary to match hobbyist expectations is nowhere near a single full-time dev. But these products are monstrously complicated for wat they are, in part due to the company looking for ways to extract value at every point it can (forcing cloud mechanisms: they cost money for sure, but are mostly used for locking customers in and as an excuse to require a permanent connection). And for every possible revenue stream, it seems... I'd say this is a good thing if it makes FLOSS alternatives a bit more attractive. Hobbyists are usually hard to switch to alternatives once they find something "good enough". In turn, they tend to produce lots of documentation, tutorials, and training material. Just look at the number of people you can ask for help with, say, plotting a graph in Microsoft Excel vs doing it in LaTeX.
- jfim 6y ago
  When reading through the comments, it's mentioned that one of the reasons for the license change is because of people abusing the free hobbyist license: > [...] as talked about in the announcement, we did not make these decisions lightly, but it is necessary in order for us to continue support Fusion 360 for Personal Use as a free offering, cut down on abuse of the license type, and continue to develop advanced capabilities. The issue of charging from the software is distinct from the issue of enforcing the requirement that the license is for non-commercial purposes. Even if they had a low cost hobbyist license with all the features unlocked, the people currently using the hobbyist license for commercial purposes would just use the inexpensive one as opposed to paying for the full commercial one. Autodesk could've taken the approach of sending sternly worded letters to commercial users using the hobbyist license, or even deactivating commercial users with the wrong license type, since their software is partly cloud-based and requires an Autodesk account and internet connection. Instead, they've taken the approach of changing the feature set, which is why some people are annoyed.
dazhbog 6y ago
On the path to solidworkification..
JeremyHerrman 6y ago
It's a shame that Autodesk is cutting back on features for free personal use, especially the removal of STEP export (an open interchange format) and multi-axis CAM (used to convert 3D models into instructions for milling machines & lathes). But - $495 for a CAD program as fully featured as Fusion 360 is a steal compared to $$$$ Solidworks & competitors. Plus it's cross platform which you don't typically find in the world of CAD. Is FreeCAD a viable alternative? Not even close. Should there be a usable FOSS CAD program? hell yes! Unfortunately the FOSS foundations required to build a real CAD program haven't materialized in cohesive way. There are so many pieces, with many requiring teams of PhDs to produce: CAD kernels, constraint solvers, file format interop, sketching tools, assembly support (mating), simulation, etc... There are some advanced projects out there like the OPENCASCADE kernel, but Parasolid is more reliable and has real support through Siemens.
adfm 6y ago
FreeCAD is pretty cool and there are plenty of other great FOSS CAD/CAM tools worthy of mention. Is there something similar to the Blender Foundation geared towards CAD/CAM? There are some great non-SaaS tools out there if you're willing to spend a little money. Rhino 3D is one stand-out in this space. And if you're looking for a decent CAM solution, check out Estlcam. It's a stand alone tool with a ton of great features at a reasonable price.
dekhn 6y ago
I spent enough time in FreeCAD to become really proficient. It's not as refined as F360, it lacks a number of features, but the latest version (0.19) is fairly mature. I've designed and built full assemblies with gears, and then printed or CNC'd it (FreeCAD has some support for CNC toolpathing). I've tried F360 a few times and each time dropped it thinking "this is designed to lock me in and make me pay for it".
dplgk 6y ago
So the only hobby competitor (barely) is SketchUp which was acquired and is just being squeezed for profit while adding no new features, lacking MANY needed features and being quite buggy with terrible UX. So Auto desk pretty much has their hobby users in a corner.
neetdeth 6y ago
I think they're deliberately trying to shed personal users because the hobbyist association is brand poison for Fusion in the professional space. The people Autodesk wants to sell subscriptions to sneer at the "hackerspace" types and scoff at Fusion 360.
GekkePrutser 6y ago
It's a shame they discontinued 123D design. I loved that for simple 3d printing projects and still use it. For more complex stuff I used inventor fusion which was a free beta but I think this is now part of 360. I still have to get into it as 123D is still sufficient for me :)

102 points by andyfleming 6y ago

sbuk 6y ago

No surprises. For all the arguments around FAANG and user hostility, Autodesk are the absolute pits. They have been price gouging for decades. They release buggy software and hold various industries hostage with their pricing. For an Architect with 100 users of Revit as an example, the fees are eye watering, and the support 'contract' is always with 3rd parties, which is invariably extremely limited. Horrible organisation.

agumonkey 6y ago
wait until blender eat their lunch
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- mediaman 6y ago
  Blender is not currently a parametric modeler. I think there is some effort to add some parametric functionality, but it is a loooooooong ways away from that as it's a complicated feature set. Though it would be wonderful if Blender was eventually able to add this. It is probably not currently a priority for their financial sponsors though - CGI/game industry doesn't use parametric much.
  - dheera 6y ago
    I use OpenSCAD for all parametric functionality.
    - sokoloff 6y ago
      I used OpenSCAD for several years of hobby-Level 3D printing modeling. I switched to Fusion360 during lockdown and it was night and day more productive, especially for modeled threads, fillets, and constraint-based models.
  - nraynaud 6y ago
    I think the modifier stack is a proto-modeling history, but good luck with advanced modelling operators like shell or sheet metal and assemblies
  - justinclift 6y ago
    Blender has some extremely limited and outdated internals for solid modelling (NURBS) which are what CAD/CAM could be based upon. Some work was done in Feb 2020 to start bringing them up to speed, and there is a patch set for review: https://developer.blender.org/D6807 https://developer.blender.org/D6807 It doesn't seem to have received the needed reviewing though. Until that's done, there's not much hope. :( :( :( Note - this is just my understanding of it, as I was wondering similar about the state of solid modelling in Blender last week.
  - agumonkey 6y ago
    Blender was barely a speckle on the map when it started it's now very capable. I'd bet 10$ it could grow a parametric whatever in 12 months
    - dotancohen 6y ago
      I'll take that bet. You've got $10 if stock Blender supports parametric modeling on 18 September, 2021. You are invited to email me at my HN username @ gmail.com
- carabiner 6y ago
  Does Blender even have any CAM/CAE functionality? Parts tree, version management, integration with CNC? It seemed like Blender is to CAD as MS Word is to Visual Studio. Different worlds that are superficially alike.
oh_sigh 6y ago
Some of the changes make sense - IE they won't store your documents for free any more, and you can't use their server rendering farm for free. But others are just punitive, like not letting you export certain file types.
- ajford 6y ago
  But they're the ones that took out local file system storage for your project files. If they didn't push you into using their cloud, they wouldn't have to store our documents. No, that was the gateway into being able to pull this whole load of bullshit to extract money from the hobbyist market.
  - oh_sigh 6y ago
    Oh wow, I didn't realize you couldn't save locally, I assumed that was a given. This is disappointing because I just started to pick up Fusion360 for woodworking projects. I guess it's good I haven't put more than a week or so into studying it.
    - 0x4a42 6y ago
      Last time I worked with F360 it was very possible to save files locally.

nickthegreek 6y ago

The export filetype and 2d drawing limitations are sad.

jrockway 6y ago
They have always been jerks about filetype export. I have tried and failed to export .obj files for other 3D software many times. They really want to use some cloud process, and it never works. I wrote a script that imports STLs into Blender and saves them as OBJs. No cloud required! Works every time! Wow!
- marshray 6y ago
  Support for extensions (scripts) is one of the things banned by the hobbyist license.
  - jrockway 6y ago
    Oh, I mean I save the thing as an STL and then run a Python program on the commandline to do the conversion. I didn't even know that there was a provision for making that even easier. It is unfortunate when I read the list of things they are doing to make the life of a hobbyist harder, because Fusion 360 has been pretty useful to me. They should just make it something you buy for $50. Would instantly pay.

ironmagma 6y ago

This is a great example in how not to write an announcement to your customers. Start with positive language, deliver a huge blow, make no apology.

coldelectrons 6y ago
Introduce yourself. Establish a connection or rapport with the audience. Set expectations. "My name is Inigo Montoya..."
- ironmagma 6y ago
  The expectations that the blog sets up are in the positive mood. It should really start off with, "This is going to really suck, everyone, and in fact it might be the worst thing you heard about this year. Just kidding, it's slightly better, but...". But instead it builds up positive expectations. Anyone sufficiently jaded just has to fight the urge to believe this fluff while desperately scanning to find the place where they tear it all down and tell you what is happening with the product, after needlessly building up for paragraphs at a time.
floatingatoll 6y ago
I think this announcement is fine. No language on earth would make free users happy, it gets right down to business, and it includes a clear and specific table showing what’s being changed. There isn’t really anything else to be done - an apology would just be decried as throwaway corporate speak or as mocking the helpless.
- ironmagma 6y ago
  You can't make them happy, so at least be honest. The lede is buried, and user-blaming language like "We need to eliminate both the confusion and the misuse that exists within our offerings," implying that the users did something wrong, when it was in fact the company that got the pricing wrong. Not to mention the misleading infographic with the checkmarks (which displays the important information in a more dim, harder-to-notice color and displays old outdated information in bold black which goes top to bottom) or the interstitial with the dark pattern button that says "I don't want to save 40%" in order to dismiss.

eindiran 6y ago

Does anyone have a recommendation for a FOSS alternative to Fusion 360 that is (1) reasonably popular and (2) has a similar feature set?

013a 6y ago
Fusion 360 is a huge beast that is really ten+ applications in one. I can't speak for all of its use-cases, but even then: I haven't found any 3D modeling software that is as easy to use & feature rich as Fusion. However, for 3D print slicing and compiling after the model has been made, Ultimaker Cura is really a gold standard in the space, and open source (AGPL3 I believe).
Accujack 6y ago
There really isn't anything. For at least a couple of years, Fusion 360 has been available for "free" (users had only community support, had to write their own POSTs for cam, etc) so as far as I know no one has been developing or considering writing anything else. One thing that's been needed for years in the open source space is a decent mechanical CAD program and integrated CAM system. The issue is that such things are still dark arts to write. There are open source projects that are out there, including BRLCAD, Blender, and other special purpose programs. Fusion 360 is head and shoulders above them in terms of usability and integration with the CAM system.
Palomides 6y ago
I've been using freecad, it's okay for the basic mechanical 3D stuff I make the "just use fusion 360, it's free" contingent have, imo, stifled interest and support for FOSS CAD (alternately, view it as a very successful market domination move by Autodesk)
- dotancohen 6y ago
  That's an interesting point. "Free" as in beer means that we will rely, and grow dependent, upon them. If they had not been giving us fish, we would have learned to fish. Is there a word for this?
6y ago

chromaton 6y ago

This sucks. As I saw this news, I'm in the middle of writing up a tutorial involving exporting 2D files from Fusion 360.

chromaton 6y ago
Update from the FAQ: "You can still export DXFs, but only from a sketch. To do this, you’ll need to right click on the sketch in the browser and choose ‘Save as DXF. For more information, review How to Save Sketch as a DXF." Fortunately for me, this is exactly what I'm writing up.

raynr 6y ago

Wow, I did not expect this. I started looking at Fusion 360 a couple years back because it seemed very hobbyist friendly, and while I primarily use it for 3d printing, I've dabbled in laser cutting and CNC too. I always had the impression that Autodesk had positioned Fusion 360 as their gateway drug into AutoCAD or some other Autodesk software, but that it was remarkably full featured for that purpose. Last year (or was it the year before?), they added some restrictions to their free version. No biggie, I thought. Most of the cool hobbyist functionalities remained intact. Now, they have taken more away. The file export limitations in particular are crippling. No .step? .dxf? No extensions??? I can't even buy stress simulation credits? ...yikes. US$495 a year to subscribe to the "full" version (they have "generously" granted a 40% discount until Oct, hurry before it's too late!). No cheap versions for hobbyists like me who just like to dabble and for whom a yearly sub is out of the budget. Any suggestions for free/cheap and functional local-install alternatives to Fusion 360? Parametric modelling has really saved my butt, and motion joint functionality is very useful too.

zokier 6y ago
FreeCAD is the big name, but I'd check out SolveSpace too. Then there is of course OpenSCAD which works well for the things it happens to work well for, but I wouldn't call it full replacement for a CAD. To wrap up there is the oldie and honestly bit intimidating BRL-CAD, which I'm kinda trying to learn whenever I feel like I need to do mechanical design.
- 0x4a42 6y ago
  SolveSpace looks like a dead project though. EDIT: was wrong, it's still under dev.
  - dotancohen 6y ago
    As mentioned in another thread, the last official release was 2.3 in late 2016. But the 3.0 prereleases can be easily built from the Github repo or you can get it from the Snap store. See the related Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/SolveSpace/comments/iun270/heads_up_about_solvespace_versions/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SolveSpace/comments/iun270/heads_up...

OJFord 6y ago

These restrictions seem fairly reasonable to me, most cause for concern would be further future restrictions I suppose. No generative design at all is a bit of a shame though, people do play with that ('needlessly') for hobby 3D prints. Odd that it doesn't mention small businesses though - wasn't it previously personal or <100k USD pa? But also.. why? If it's already personal use only, and someone has an automatic tool changer for their personal use CNC mill, why not let them use it? Get hooked on it? Continue to want to use it when they have a saleable product idea?

marshray 6y ago
Fair to assume the 'hobbyist' license was being used in large scale production in cultures where people are comfortable being dishonest about such things.
- OJFord 6y ago
  But what does this really change in that regard? Some industries could no longer do that because they rely on generative modelling or ATC? But designers of small PCBs (whatever their worth) or people 3D printing can continue unimpeded? And I'm sure ATC can be added back in as a post-process, since it must at least stop for a manual tool change, or its CAM would be useless for even hobbyists.
  - masterj 6y ago
    > And I'm sure ATC can be added back in as a post-process, since it must at least stop for a manual tool change, or its CAM would be useless for even hobbyists I believe ATC moves are implemented as macros by the machine. So the code emitted looks like: M6 T2 and the ATC behavior is filled in with a macro for the specific machine. To nerf ATC users, Fusion is preventing toolpaths with multiple tools from being exported in the first place. So you have to generate individual toolpaths for each tool. The sad part is that hobby machines also make use of the "M6 T<tool number>" macros to move the machine to a place where it's easy to change tools and then do automatic touch-off before continuing. It's not only professional-class machines that will be affected. It should be theoretically possible to run the multiple generated files through a script to put them back together, but this is likely too much complexity for the vast majority of users.

GistNoesis 6y ago

I only use fusion as a slicer to generate the tool-path for my MPCNC. The high-speed machining is great to allow to mill some harder materials without breaking the drill bits. Removing the rapid movement seems like a petty move. Removing the simulation is fine for me if that's not the simulation of the manufacturing operations which is absolute necessity. Hopefully that move will help some slicer like Cura expand and do some CAM code, because up until now there was no need to develop because Fusion was really good and was free.

krschultz 6y ago

It's still significantly less expensive than OnShape, which seems like its closest competitor. Unfortunately it's hard to actually differentiate between "hobbyist" and "small company" without cutting some really critical features. Most people, even professionals, just don't use that much of the overall feature set.

DivisionSol 6y ago

Saw this come a mile away when they started jacking up the subscription cost for hobbyist licenses (~late 2019 according to my emails.) Instead of being an on-ramp for their serious offerings, it was just too good and needed to be hooked up to a milker.

solarkraft 6y ago

It's a great time to learn FreeCAD! It's a lot more user friendly than it used to be and still rapidly improving.

bitxbit 6y ago

Am I the only one who thought Autodesk was very generous with Fusion 360 for years? It was basically the best software for hobbyist and it was offered for FREE.

marshray 6y ago
'Generous' implies an act of benevolence. A bait-and-switch scheme is anything but.
- jackhack 6y ago
  indeed. I'm sure the deer congregating at the corn feeder feel the same way, at least until opening day of hunting season. And the Turkey must think "The farmer must love me. He feeds me and tends to my needs. Why look at the calendar, with Thanksgiving day just around the corner..."
  - aequitas 6y ago
    The difference is the deer and turkey don't get to read and accept the ToS. Autodesk seems clear about what you sign up for[0] (1 year, non-commercial licence). You're choice to accept the terms and risk not being able to use this professional software for free. [0] https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/personal https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/personal
  - dotancohen 6y ago
    > I'm sure the deer congregating at the corn feeder > feel the same way > And the Turkey must think "The farmer must love me. Is there a word for this situation? I see so many analogies.
- bitxbit 6y ago
  I take it you work for free all the time.
aequitas 6y ago
Agree, You can't expect a company like Autodesk to offer such a expensive tool for free forever. They seem to be preventing abuse with these changes, while still allowing hobbyists to continue to use it for small projects. And that's all you should use it for. Building a busines on a hobbyist license or trusting all your complex big designs to their cloud is asking for trouble.

superkuh 6y ago

This is what happens when you use desktop applications that live in other people's computer's instead of yours.

gregschlom 6y ago
That's silly, any desktop app can implement a license check mechanism and decide not to run anymore, even though it's 100% located on "your computer". The real lesson here is: that's what happens when you use software that's free as in beer.
- superkuh 6y ago
  Sure, they can, but most don't because it's obviously a jerk move to require periodic (bi-weekly) internet access when your application doesn't require internet access in the first place.
  - bsder 6y ago
    You've never run FlexLM, have you?
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  I actually test software in a Virtual Machine with no internet access before I use it on my main machine. I'm sure a dedicated developer could trip up my test by only doing an online check after two weeks or something, but it seems to work.

megiddo 6y ago

Ugh. I literally just bought a second GPU for IOMMU for this application. Fuck it, FreeCAD!

lsllc 6y ago

Ugh. AutoDesk (sort-of) did this with Eagle (PCB design) when they acquired it -- in that case it drove me to learn KiCAD which in the end was what I needed to do! (and I think the AutoDesk acquisition of Eagle also invigorated interest and spurred development of KiCAD!). I recently got a 3D Printer and have been learning Fusion360 and designing my first parts. Guess I'll take another look at FreeCAD. In general, I'm happy to pay for things that "have value", but the pricing here ($495/year) is just too much to justify for a hobby.

phkahler 6y ago
>> I recently got a 3D Printer and have been learning Fusion360 and designing my first parts. Guess I'll take another look at FreeCAD. Also have a look at SolveSpace. Version 3.0 is nearing completion but if you can build from source or use the snap store you can use it now: http://solvespace.com/index.pl http://solvespace.com/index.pl https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace There are also a few great YouTube channels with tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEvJVXu3VfGMSOdpA0jrGRzoM7NlNOl5s https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEvJVXu3VfGMSOdpA0jrG...

codazoda 6y ago

I just uninstalled and wrote "fusion 360 hobby announcement" as the reason. I'm just a hobby user, so I don't have time to figure if/when I'll run into their new limitations. Just removed it and I'll go learn FreeCAD or something similar. I also use OpenSCAD where applicable.

qchris 6y ago

I've always found it a little surprising that companies haven't built/funded a open-source organization for parametric mechanical CAD, similar to Blender for games or KiCad for electronics/PCB design. The upside for a ROI seems like it would be enormous, and pretty easy to make happen. Industrial seat licensing for products like Solidworks, CATIA, Inventor, and (now) Fusion are enormously expensive. It's not just private organizations either--CAD proficiency is such a basic skill that every serious engineering school has an organizational license for their students too, which I'd imagine also costs a bundle. It's not as if the tools themselves are expanding functionality at some sort of rapid rate, either; I haven't done much CAD in the last two years (so maybe I somehow missed some sort of feature explosion), but while a regular user between 2013-2018, I saw basically no change in the vast majority of my most-used tools for several different CAD programs, with the exception of some improvement in out-of-the-box simulation capability. The existing FOSS alternatives just aren't at par. I've tried FreeCAD, OpenSCAD, etc., and most mechanical engineers/CAD specialists wouldn't touch a code-based editor. They're certainly better than before, but the rough edges exist and some of them appear in areas that need to Just Work (like assembly and drawings). From my understanding of their contribution graphs, private organizations putting even two or three full-time developers working on those projects could push them much, much closer to being a drop-in replacement for a lot work that gets done, and potentially even save those orgs some money in the short-term by reducing the total number of seat licenses they need in to function. Edit: Added mention of KiCad, bc that's kind of important too

avhon1 6y ago
m-labs sponsors SolveSpace development. https://m-labs.hk/software/solvespace/ https://m-labs.hk/software/solvespace/
myself248 6y ago
I think the tipping point for KiCad was when CERN realized how much they were spending on professional EDA licenses, and decided to pour those resources into improving KiCad instead. That's how I understood it, anyway. I suppose some large-ish entity that relies on CAD will need to take the same view. I have less faith in academia there, however -- I suspect many of those sitewide licenses are heavily discounted in order to cultivate the addiction, to profit from it later. That's just speculation, though. This is where we really need good software bounties. I'm sure a whole lot of scorned F360 users would throw a few bucks a month into a Patreon or something to advance the state of FreeCAD. I'm not even directly impacted by this; I have a F360 license through my employer, but I'm offended enough on principle to contribute if there's a place to do so.

darth_avocado 6y ago

There's only negative comments on the thread, but what most people missing here is software development takes resources. Heck, just keeping an online product alive costs money (check GCP/AWS pricing). A software engineer in the Bay Area costs $200k/year on an average. If you want to hire quality engineers, it takes a lot more. They're not blocking it behind a paywall. It's still free. I understand that for hobbyists, it can be expensive. But if you are using things beyond the free tier, that's more than just a hobby. And I know this is an unpopular opinion, but being a Software Engineer, I really hate it when anytime a software company tries to charge for things, it's unfair and it's price gouging. But people fail to acknowledge that it is the only industry where you can even pick things up as a hobby for free. Literally anything else you want to pick up as a hobby costs money upfront. If all of the 645,000 users were willing to put up with those upfront costs, they wouldn't have had the need to price their plans so high.

MayeulC 6y ago
I guess most hobbyist would be pretty content with 2006-era solidworks if it were readily available: look at how Eagle was used without updates for years, as a shareware. I expect that most of the new features cater to professionnals, except for basic maintenance and a few simple features. The workload necessary to match hobbyist expectations is nowhere near a single full-time dev. But these products are monstrously complicated for wat they are, in part due to the company looking for ways to extract value at every point it can (forcing cloud mechanisms: they cost money for sure, but are mostly used for locking customers in and as an excuse to require a permanent connection). And for every possible revenue stream, it seems... I'd say this is a good thing if it makes FLOSS alternatives a bit more attractive. Hobbyists are usually hard to switch to alternatives once they find something "good enough". In turn, they tend to produce lots of documentation, tutorials, and training material. Just look at the number of people you can ask for help with, say, plotting a graph in Microsoft Excel vs doing it in LaTeX.
jfim 6y ago
When reading through the comments, it's mentioned that one of the reasons for the license change is because of people abusing the free hobbyist license: > [...] as talked about in the announcement, we did not make these decisions lightly, but it is necessary in order for us to continue support Fusion 360 for Personal Use as a free offering, cut down on abuse of the license type, and continue to develop advanced capabilities. The issue of charging from the software is distinct from the issue of enforcing the requirement that the license is for non-commercial purposes. Even if they had a low cost hobbyist license with all the features unlocked, the people currently using the hobbyist license for commercial purposes would just use the inexpensive one as opposed to paying for the full commercial one. Autodesk could've taken the approach of sending sternly worded letters to commercial users using the hobbyist license, or even deactivating commercial users with the wrong license type, since their software is partly cloud-based and requires an Autodesk account and internet connection. Instead, they've taken the approach of changing the feature set, which is why some people are annoyed.

dazhbog 6y ago

On the path to solidworkification..

JeremyHerrman 6y ago

It's a shame that Autodesk is cutting back on features for free personal use, especially the removal of STEP export (an open interchange format) and multi-axis CAM (used to convert 3D models into instructions for milling machines & lathes). But - $495 for a CAD program as fully featured as Fusion 360 is a steal compared to $$$$ Solidworks & competitors. Plus it's cross platform which you don't typically find in the world of CAD. Is FreeCAD a viable alternative? Not even close. Should there be a usable FOSS CAD program? hell yes! Unfortunately the FOSS foundations required to build a real CAD program haven't materialized in cohesive way. There are so many pieces, with many requiring teams of PhDs to produce: CAD kernels, constraint solvers, file format interop, sketching tools, assembly support (mating), simulation, etc... There are some advanced projects out there like the OPENCASCADE kernel, but Parasolid is more reliable and has real support through Siemens.

adfm 6y ago

FreeCAD is pretty cool and there are plenty of other great FOSS CAD/CAM tools worthy of mention. Is there something similar to the Blender Foundation geared towards CAD/CAM? There are some great non-SaaS tools out there if you're willing to spend a little money. Rhino 3D is one stand-out in this space. And if you're looking for a decent CAM solution, check out Estlcam. It's a stand alone tool with a ton of great features at a reasonable price.

dekhn 6y ago

I spent enough time in FreeCAD to become really proficient. It's not as refined as F360, it lacks a number of features, but the latest version (0.19) is fairly mature. I've designed and built full assemblies with gears, and then printed or CNC'd it (FreeCAD has some support for CNC toolpathing). I've tried F360 a few times and each time dropped it thinking "this is designed to lock me in and make me pay for it".

dplgk 6y ago

So the only hobby competitor (barely) is SketchUp which was acquired and is just being squeezed for profit while adding no new features, lacking MANY needed features and being quite buggy with terrible UX. So Auto desk pretty much has their hobby users in a corner.

neetdeth 6y ago

I think they're deliberately trying to shed personal users because the hobbyist association is brand poison for Fusion in the professional space. The people Autodesk wants to sell subscriptions to sneer at the "hackerspace" types and scoff at Fusion 360.

GekkePrutser 6y ago

It's a shame they discontinued 123D design. I loved that for simple 3d printing projects and still use it. For more complex stuff I used inventor fusion which was a free beta but I think this is now part of 360. I still have to get into it as 123D is still sufficient for me :)