Fusion 360 vs Onshape, Round 2
After using Autodesk Fusion 360 for a few weeks on the Luggable PC project, I'm getting more comfortable with it. Here are some thoughts and updates on a few items I mentioned in the "Round 1" post:
Constraints: Onshape has very good constraint notification and management. I know exactly when dimensions are fully constrained, and when things are over-constrained, I can see where the conflicts are. In the current default configuration for Autodesk Fusion 360, none of that is available.
However, if one goes into the Preferences menu and go to the feature preview section, there's an option to turn on the work-in-progress support for constraint notification. This feature, while far from parity with Onshape's excellent design, goes a long way to easing the pain.
The complaint about over-constrained situation still applies: an error box is still all we get without any further details. But at least we get a color change to notify us when a feature is fully constrained, even if it isn't completely reliable yet. Sometimes a feature's color changes even though it hasn't been fully constrained, and sometimes a color doesn't change even when fully constrained. I am still occasionally surprised by how features would move unexpectedly later on in the workflow. Still, it is far better than nothing.
Advantage: Still Onshape, but by a much thinner margin.
Sharing: I was unhappy with the complex access control system, making it difficult to just share a design to everybody. But they have since added (or I just noticed) an option on every design in the project navigation tab: "Share Public Link". It will generate a link to share publicly. This one is actually a step above Onshape, where I can choose whether the sharing link is a snapshot or a live link to the current state. Choose whether the design itself is downloadable.
And best of all, the design is visible without creating an Autodesk account. Unlike Onshape, where people have to have an Onshape account to access public documents.
Advantage: Fusion 360 takes the lead from Onshape because no account creation is required.
Offline: And now, a sour note. Since Fusion 360 is a native application, with an option to "Work Offline", I had fully expected it to continue functioning when my internet connection failed. Unfortunately this was not the case! It appears that one needs to be online to enable offline work. I guess they need to download some information before the application can function offline. This make sense when the scenario is to prepare in the office before taking a computer on the road. But when the internet connection is unexpectedly severed, such preparation stage is not possible and things grind to a halt.
Advantage: Nobody. Inopportune network outage renders both useless.