Exploring the Latest Updates in Fusion 360

So, what’s new?  

Perhaps you weren't aware, but Fusion 360 has frequent updates throughout the year, which really showcases Autodesk's dedication to making it a core solution for your business. As a cloud-based software, these updates seamlessly integrate into your workflow, allowing you to continue working without disruption. Behind the scenes, Fusion 360 constantly adds new features and functions, enhancing your experience without you even noticing. Unlike traditional software, you don't need to search for updates or endure lengthy installation processes. The beauty of utilising a cloud-based software is that everything happens automatically.

Fusion 360 conveniently provides subtle notifications in the top-right corner of the user interface, gently informing you about software updates. Additionally, you may come across helpful tips and occasional offers hidden within these menus.

If you are interested to learn and find out more about recent updates or added features, you can find all the information in the “what’s new” section from the dropdown menu.

Now that we're aware of the sources for update information, let's delve into some notable highlights from Fusion 360's recent enhancements. While it would be time-consuming to cover every upgrade and feature introduced in the past months due to their continuous efforts in improvement and addition of new functions, I must admit it's challenging to keep up with the pace of their advancements.

To give you a more precise number of changes in 2022, Fusion 360 has witnessed:

• 14 new releases
• 219 new features
• 10,163 new improvements

If this doesn’t tell you that Autodesk are investing heavily in making Fusion 360 a powerhouse of products, I don’t know what else to say.

Let’s just pick a few major additions that have become part of the Fusion 360 package.

Product Design Extension

This new extension was released in early 2022, it gives the user more capability to automate and simplify the design of features considering the manufacturing process. It enhances the performance and aesthetics of your products with an advanced toolset that helps easily create basic or complex geometry using intelligent feature settings. Save time with automation and produce better designs, faster.

Signal Integrity Extension

This extension was released late 2022, hopefully, we are all aware that we can create PCB boards, schematics, layouts, and routing traces within Fusion 360 as part of the base Fusion package. Well, if so, the Signal integrity extension will bring more tools to help produce and test reliability in a virtual world before manufacturing protypes to run test incurring heavy costs. It helps designers to check if their circuit board designs will work well without any problems, it checks how signals will travel through the circuit, how much noise or interference there will be and how well the power supply will work. This allows designers to fix any issues before they make the actual circuit board, which will save time and money.

Automated Modelling

This new function was added at the start of 2023, it is not part of any extension, meaning that it is available for all Fusion 360 subscribers and students. Automated modeling in Fusion 360 offers a plethora of editable design alternatives, even with minimal input on desired connections and avoidances. Each iteration presents additional variations that can be explored and previewed in real-time. Upon selecting the desired automated model, a new body or component becomes available, which can be further edited as a T-spline model. This allows for precise modifications tailored to your specific requirements.

Fusion 360 Home Tab

Finally, Fusion 360 has introduced a Home tab, providing users with a more intuitive method to navigate their data. This feature functions as a welcoming screen, offering various options to choose from. Users can either open an existing design, start a new project from scratch, or browse through multiple projects in search of a specific design. It's worth mentioning that this feature will be gradually enabled for all Fusion users in the coming months, as long as they are not utilising single-user storage.

Updates that happen unrecognised…

Outside of them few major updates, Fusion has done a huge amount more tweeks that we have all been asking for by submitting your requests using the community feature in the top right of your UI.

• New sign-in window when launching Fusion 360
• More functionality to the “parameters” dialog box
• More options while using the “inspect” tool
• 2D drawing environment new features and commands
• Much more post processers added and updated in manufacturing
• MAC OS Ventura is now supported for the Mac users.
• Many performance updates to name a few -
  • Editing a sketch - 20% faster
  • Generating sketch profiles - 33% faster
  • Window select - 57% faster.
  • Opening large design files – 51% faster

Fusion 360 is undergoing significant updates with a clear focus on continuous product improvement. The team is diligently addressing stability issues, defects, and crashes that are reported by users. However, it's crucial for us as users to actively contribute by reporting any issues, bugs, or problems we encounter, ultimately helping to enhance Fusion even further. Undeniably, Fusion 360 offers a delightful experience, seamlessly integrating CAD, CAM, CAE, and PCB functionalities within a single environment. The convenience of accessing all designs from anywhere in the world adds to its appeal. Plus, the simplicity of renewing just one license instead of multiple software licenses throughout the year alleviates the headache of keeping track.

Thank you for reading and I hope you found this information helpful.