Ah, well, thanks for trying anyway.
I fail to see how offering a product for free over many years is âwrongingâ them. Instead of holding grudges, perhaps they should say âthank youâ.
I would pay for Fusion 360 if their asking price was not so stupid high. Between $60-$40 dollars a month at their Un-discounted rates. Because if they had a hobbyist subscription for $10.00 a month I might consider it.
Leading the community that the personal version would stay indicating only advanced features may go away, then doing a 180 to where not only the advanced features are gone but even simple necessities like the DXF export, is what is âwrongingâ here. It additionally takes away documents youâve already made since there is now a cap on 10.
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Profit does not equate to greed. Greed is bad, profit is good.
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It should have been understood that it could go away when businesses change. I believe you can still export what you have done before the change is complete.
I just donât think there is a rational basis for complaints. A little disappointment, perhaps but not complaints or anger.
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Itâs called a Bait and Switch and yes itâs considered a deceptive business tactic as a matter of standard perception.
They had a free version, they had a startup version, and they had a business version.
There was no reason to expect the free version to become as limited as it is being made; with these limitations itâs worse for most of the free users than the average free program, but by keeping the files up in the cloud users have to frantically get everything off before being locked in. Theyâre banking on people either not being able to do that, or that this change (with less than a monthâs notice for the critical feature list of whatâs dropped) will be too sudden for people to accommodate and theyâll be forced to pay.
The expected feature drops within the autodesk community were along the lines of CAM, simulation, etc. These were incredible that they were free as a commercial product, but we could see those going away.
Core features of any CAD software such as DXF exports no reasonable person would expect to disappear from the free version.
This takes time fore people, and not everyone is going to notice those emails which many believe to be marketing related.
Looking at the differences, I believe the free version, which will still be available, will have most of what a maker needs to design things outside of a professional occupation.
Simulation can be done by Simscale which gives 3000 core hours of use to anyone.
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except it wonât outside of 3d printing for most needs. It got rid of most standard file formats that tools makers use accept.
great, but it still wonât fix the core features like DXF for use by basically anything operating in 2d space.
The ten file limit doesnât go into effect until January 19. You can still have more than ten files - you just have to move them in and out of archive.
Iâm going to miss drawings more than anything else. Their âworkaroundâ isnât adequate, IMO. âPrint onlyâ suggests to me that you wonât be able to save/edit drawings.
As much as I donât want to, I will probably just suck it up and pay for Fusion because for $300 per year it isnât worth the months of time to learn something else.
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It seems you can always convert files to the format you want after downloading the them in another format. Sure, an extra step but it means you can still use 360 free and convert the output after downloading.
Also, Onshape could be used to import in one format and export in another.
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Actually the only formats left are 3d formats and Autodesk proprietary formats.
And as a note, many of those formats can only be converted in non-editable forms using utilities like what you have linked
What is their âworkaroundâ for drawing and why isnât it adequate?
I doubt that include Onshape. Itâs a full, professional CAD program so it should be usable to import and convert files.
Itâs the nature of the file format; too much information is lost in the export process. Even their own import documentation shows that it cannot edit the formats. This is before considering, again, that the exports in the free version only support 3d objects now and all the 2d formats such as DXF, basically anything laser/vinyl/basic routing/CNC thatâs not milling uses for dimensionally accurate drawings.
- STL (.stl) (view and reference meshes only, unable to edit a mesh)
- OBJ (.obj) (view and reference meshes only; unable to edit a mesh)
As an update, Solidworks is going to be sending us updated licensing for Solidworks 2020
This will move the 2017 version to 2020 on the jump server (Commercial).
As a reminder, Solidworks 2020 student editions are available by contacting @David_A_Tucker
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If you are saying there is no format you can export from the free 360 and import to Onshape and then edit or then export in any format Onshape supports, Iâm skeptical. It seems you honed in on two of the three formats that canât be manipulated once imported. So, use another.
iâm sorry, but do you even do CAD? You do realise the difference in using dimensionally accurate, editable formats for 2d drawings such as DXF versus formats designed for 3d (which are whatâs in the âfreeâ version now) and the limitations when dealing with proprietary export formats?
The point was your âsimpleâ solution has a ton of caveats, and it still doesnât even solve the fact that it only partially works for 3d. The export and drawing support in 2d are, in effect, gone.
Find me one import mode in Onshape that is for an editable 2d item that is a format the free version of Fusion will export.
And as for 3d, the only part item it can import in an editable form is the .ipt file format, which is the proprietary autodesk format which changes with versions and basically they try to break support for it every release.
This is before even considering the import/export process quirks. Many of these file formats have constraints and anomalies in import and export processes. I canât speak to the inventor file directly, but to consider the thought of needed to constantly convert a file format (one thatâs not even the native format of the CAD program, the interpreter like onshape, nor the destination resource) can be anything but troublesome.
And this, again, only even works at all for 3d. For 2d drawings youâre still SOL.
Although the FAQs has a little more info, It isnât fully explained, at least not that I can find.
All they say is, âSingle sheet, print onlyâ. I assume that if I can only print a drawing, I canât save it for future modification. Iâm making machining drawings from my models and I donât want to have to recreate everything each time I want to tweak something.
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For those of you thinking of migrating to Solidworks:
