Explore the automatic updates and user preferences in Fusion 360, a cloud-based platform. From understanding software updates to editing user preferences including language settings, modeling orientation, tooltips, and more, this article provides a comprehensive guide to optimize your Fusion 360 usage.
Key Insights
- Fusion 360 is a cloud-based platform that auto-updates, meaning there are no downloadable updates. Users can see the update status via a green bar at the top of the screen and can learn about the updates through a redirected blog post.
- Preferences in Fusion 360 can be found under the user's login name in the upper right hand of the screen. These include language, graphics driver, modeling orientation, tooltips, command prompt, default measure, in command errors and warnings, Autodesk A360 notification, and more.
- The preferences also allow users to change the default units for design, cam, and simulation. Additionally, Fusion 360 has a preview section that essentially serves as a beta test for options in the software, and a restore defaults button to reset preferences to the default Fusion 360 setting.
Before we begin this video, I would like to talk about how Fusion 360 updates. Fusion 360 is a cloud-based platform and therefore has no downloadable updates.
Instead, Fusion 360 will automatically update without you prompting it to do so. Occasionally, Fusion 360 will update while you're working on it, but for me it updated overnight. At the top of my screen, you will see a green bar that says you are all set with the latest update.
If I click find out what's new, it will automatically redirect me to a blog post where Fusion 360 experts talk about the updates that they have performed. On this website, you will see all of the past and present updates for Fusion 360. Sometimes the updates can be large and sometimes they can be very minor.
It is always helpful to click that link and to check out what's new in Fusion 360. So let's get started. In this video, we will talk about editing user preferences in Fusion 360.
Preferences can be found under your login name in the upper right hand of the screen. I will go to this arrow, hit the drop down, and choose preferences. In this video, we will not cover all of the preferences in Fusion 360, but we will hit some key points.
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You will see that I have my Fusion 360 set to English. My graphics driver is set to auto select. You can change that if you'd like.
Default modeling orientation is set to Y up. Feel free to change this between Y up and Z up, depending on your modeling background. I will leave mine as the default Y up.
Beneath that, there is an option for show tooltips. I will leave this option checked. Fusion 360 has very helpful tooltips.
When you hover over a tool, it will tell you a description and sometimes an example of how that tool can be used. I will also leave show command prompt, default measure, in command errors and warnings, and Autodesk A360 notification turned on. The pan, zoom, orbit shortcuts option in Fusion 360 is especially interesting.
You can change this option depending on which program you came from. And Fusion will automatically update its settings to reflect how that program works. If you're coming from Alias, Inventor, or Solidworks, you can change this option to get a very similar feel in navigating and working in Fusion.
I will leave mine as the default. And I will leave my default orbit to constrained orbit. If I go over to design under the general tab, we can see some more preferences.
I will keep active component visibility on and set my design history to capture design history. If you are only working in direct modeling, you do not need to capture design history. But in this course and future Fusion 360 courses, we will want to capture our modeling.
I will also change my default workspace to the model workspace. For now, let's keep allow 3D sketching of lines and splines unchecked. This is a helpful option when working on advanced models.
But for basic models, it is sometimes discouraging if your sketches snap to 3D geometry. I will leave the rest of these options checked. And I will go down to default units.
You can see that default units has different options for design, cam, and simulation. This is helpful if you are designing in millimeters or inches and then changing your units when you are going to a cam or simulation. I will leave mine as millimeters, millimeters, and I will leave the default simulation set.
Finally, if we go over to preview, we can see the options for Fusion 360's previews. Preview is essentially a beta test for options in Fusion 360. These options are either options that the Fusion team has recently employed, or if we see branch and merge at the bottom, it says it's closing.
If these options are not exactly the same as the options you're seeing on your Fusion program, it is because they may have added or removed preview options. You can work with these previews on or off. Working with them on helps the Fusion team develop Fusion 360, but you do not need to feel pressured to do so.
I will turn all of mine on and hit apply. Finally, at the bottom left of your preferences window, you will see a restore defaults button. This will allow you to reset all of the preferences to the default Fusion 360 setting.
I will hit okay. In the next video, we will talk about the browser and timeline. I will see you in the next video.
