This example is perfect to show the power of parametric CAD. You changes a couple of parameters and you have an infinite number of models. It could even be automated or driven by an external data source… imagine button shapes driven by the outside temperature!
But, as an example, if you need a draft angle of five degrees to have it properly un-mold. It’s easy to add this property in the features in Fusion, just a check box and a value. Much easier and faster than in Rhino. But with some combinations of values it will produce an error and the model won’t update. You won’t have no other choice than to make a compromise. It may be fine for you but in some circumstances that’s not acceptable, the parameters has to be followed to the letter and you have to get the geometry no matter what.
In Rhino any combination of parameter is possible. You can model stuff that is just impossible to get otherwise. It may take some efforts but it may be the only way.
Parametric is great for variations on a theme once the parametric structure is set up. The tradeoff can be the amount of time setting up the parametric structure, and whether it allows sufficient variation. For instance changing the grooves in NadaNix’s knobs from circular arcs to square notches, V’s or an arbitrary shape.
Rhino has Grasshopper available for free http://www.grasshopper3d.com/ which enables building models with elements linked together, and sliders, etc can be used to control dimensions, number of instances, etc.
Mechanical stuff and engine assemblies are one thing and not what I care about. I make organic designs and experiment with multiple iterations in the same file with Rhino. I also prefer to build my designs in whatever order I feel like. Parametrics is fantastic for engineers and manufacturing, and anyone else who doesn’t care much what things look like. That’s not me.
So, yeah, a revolved part might be quicker to do (or change) in Fusion, but that’s like saying I should learn the entire French language because they have “a few extra words that might save me time.” Rhino may not let me change my revolve as fast, but I want to focus on the bigger picture of being MORE creative and making GREAT art.
When I hear people talk about Fusion or SolidWORKS, the conversation never gets past speed. If you want to claim, “make it faster, but ugly” THEN we would be in total agreement.
Case in point:
The Bubble Ship from Oblivion, designed by Daniel Simon.
Modeled in Rhino.
Rendered with V-Ray.
Hey Dave,
Nice pic and I’m sure you’re a great designer, that said no need to say that fusion and solidworks designers do ugly work, I’ll say they do different things that’s all!
I just need a tool to make my guitar designs, no need to make such complex designs like in your pic, just very good and easy to use and manipulate guitar designs and being able to go back change a small shape here and there when an artist asks for it.
Rhino a great tool but I must admit that I’ll use solidmodeling a lot and a didn’t feel that Rhino was my thing that’s all, sorry. I learnt a lot with your lessons and tutorials and wish they had more of these for F360 but I prefer the way F360 works for my need for now, maybe later on I’ll use both, I don’t know.
Thanks for the understanding,
Hans
In this case it didn’t take any time at all to set up a parametric structure, I guess it just happens automatically. The modeling process was almost exactly the same as in Rhino. But you’re right - although I could change the shape of the elipse I used for the sweep, when I tried replacing it with a square, the change wouldn’t propagate through the circular pattern operation, probably because the number of faces changed. So there are some limitations to what the history can deal with.
Grasshopper is another story though, it’s really nothing at all like parametric cad software. At first I thought it was like that, that you could model something in Rhino and use Grasshopper to change its dimensions and so on. But it doesn’t work that way, from what I understand now. If you wanted to make that knob parametric, you’d have to model the whole thing by stringing together Grasshopper components for curves, revolve, sweep, etc., inside Grasshopper, rather than using the mouse and normal Rhino commands to model it. That’s why you see a lot of really cool abstract mathematical surfaces done in Grasshopper, but almost never “real world” objects like a guitar.
Daniel Simon modeled the Bubble Ship in Autodesk Alias, not Rhino. It took him more than 300 days of work!
I guess it’s also possible in Solidworks. This was done by Mahabub Rony from Bangladesh. He didn’t spend quite as much time as Daniel did on the original, but still it’s not too bad!
https://grabcad.com/library/oblivion-copter-1
The point is that also nice-looking things can be designed in parametric cad. Please understand that nobody is criticizing your choice of software. On the contrary - I’m a total beginner, even modeling that knob was a bit of a challenge for me. That’s why I’m here asking the experts, trying to learn. I’ve been doing tutorials, watching youtube videos, reading forums, trying experiments… so far Fusion 360 seems more flexible and straightforward for what I’d call “conceptual design” - trying things out, playing around with different variations of shapes, making changes, as in the examples I showed. I’m not a good enough designer to know what something should look like before I start, there’s a lot of trial and error. The direct/hybrid modeling way of working seems much better than what I remember of trying out Solidworks several years ago (and giving up on cad altogether!) But it could be that I’m making a mistake and choosing the wrong software in the beginning, because I don’t know enough about it.
I appreciate the time everyone takes to comment. But when I hear that Solidworks is ugly and Rhino makes great art, or that in Rhino “any combination of parameter is possible”… it’s not that I don’t believe you, I just don’t understand. Probably I just need more experience. But it would be great to get some specific examples, commands, workflows, pointers to youtube videos, etc., that would help explain in detail to a designer who is just starting out, who wants to make nice-looking but not incredibly complex objects - like a guitar - when and why they would be best off working in Rhino.
If you are interested in Solidworks you can try something very similar except it’s free… http://www.onshape.com/product-tour
That’s good work, but the time spend modeling something that you know what the result should be, can’t be compared with the time spent creating something from scratch.
Parametric and/or history-based CAD software (M-CAD from now on) are the obvious choice in a lot of projects. To the point that using something else make no sense at all, and I often use SolidWorks or SolidEdge.
But you have to know the advantages and pitfalls of each species… Besides the obvious strengths of each, such as the ease of adding and editing fillets or shelling for one, and the creation and analysis of flowing surfaces in the other, in M-CAD you have to carefully plan projects of even the smallest complexity. You can try and predict what parameters or features you’ll most likely want to change in the future, and then modifications and iterations are a breeze. But sometimes it’s a change you did not anticipate and you won’t be able to modify your model (circular references for example, or features onto which most of the model is built but has to be drastically changed), the only way forward is to start over and than can mean several weeks of work.
Adam, OnShape is free - if you agree to make your designs public. Though you can still keep the copyright. Otherwise it’s $100/month, if you want more than five private designs.
I signed up for the beta. It’s online-only, seems to be a capable if bare-bones SolidWorks-style software that runs 100% in your web browser. That’s pretty cool - although kind of in the way a dog driving a car is cool… anyway it’s still very much in beta, and has a lot of catching up to do to Fusion 360. It doesn’t have anything like t-splines or other surfacing for example.
I found out yesterday that Fusion 360 Ultimate is actually free even for commercial work, as long as you make less than $100,000/year in sales. And there’s no time limit on that. That could make a big impact on small business…
Marc, absolutely, I didn’t mean to imply that SolidWorks was faster, or better, for that design. Only that it was not impossible to do.
You said “you have to know the advantages and pitfalls of each species” - that’s the problem, I don’t really. The strengths of each are not always obvious to me. I’m just learning this on my own, I don’t have any teachers to ask. I can follow along with the tutorials, but often I don’t really grasp the implications of the different ways of working. If I have an idea of something I want to design, it’s still many times not clear to me, which tool I should reach for.
I did find this video the other day that helped me understand some of the specific capabilities a bit more clearly:
It’s only a start though. I guess I’ll just keep plugging away with both Fusion 360 and Rhino, until it starts to make sense…
Is that strictly true? I just read the T’s and C’s and for small businesses the ‘free’ use of Ultimate is only for 12 months and only if you’re using it on a project below a certain value. Of course, if a small business decides to take the bait, Autodesk know that they’ve got you, as after the twelve months you’ll have a pile of legacy data that you’ll probably need to continue accessing. Ultimate then runs at $100/month, which is - surprise, surprise - the same as OnShape.
I’ve seen great work coming from just about every software package that’s out there. I think it comes down to a personal preference and the amount of time spent on learning the software and then learning how to exploit the strengths and mitigate the weaknesses of the software (always an ongoing process, for me).
It also depends on the type of work you intend to do. I’m 90% conceptual only and enjoy the freedom of not being tied to a parametric structure tree. Are there times where it would come in handy? Sure. Would I want to deal with a parametric tree every time I wanted to build a quick concept? Nope.
I have a parametric modeling tool at my disposal, SolidThinking Evolve, which is pretty cool, but I don’t use it too often. I prefer the tools and the way Rhino functions. I’ve used Evolve, and while I’m no expert with it (that’s part of the problem, right there), it’s nice at first having the parametrics, but when something breaks the tree, I find I’m no better off than having done the same model in Rhino.
We have a CAD group that uses SolidWorks. There are things that are easier for them to do and there are things that are easier for me to do in Rhino. It all depends. The one thing that I’ve never experienced in Rhino and I hear it often from those using SolidWorks, is the lag of updating the structure tree on large or complex models. On some of the dense and complex surfaces we sometimes deal with, it’s literally a “go have your lunch and come back” situation. Granted, that’s an extreme example, but it shows that there are pro and cons to having a parametric structure or not.
For me, the History in Rhino is just about right. When I also figure out the best way to model in Rhino, to emphasize its strengths, I find it great for what I need to do. If you throw in T-Splines (also using history) and the potential of Grasshopper for helping to create commonly modeled components, there is a huge potential. It isn’t necessarily right for everyone in every circumstance, but it’s pretty powerful.
Matt, yes it looks like it’s true. I got an answer to my question from Autodesk CEO Carl Bass himself: “Until someone makes more than $100K/year, Fusion 360 is free for them.” You can renew at the end of 12 months, indefinitely, as long as your business is still under $100k total sales/revenue per year.
Of course they could change that in the future, but that’s the way it is at the moment. It seems that the restriction that you must be “working on a project or product that is not yet commercially available” doesn’t apply anymore, and they’re working on updating the language on the website right now.
Mmmm. I think they need to get their message sorted out then. Top right of this page, it clearly says Startups can use Fusion 360 Ultimate free for one year. Scroll to the bottom of the same page to see the link to the details on education and startup entitlements.
I’m in no way a startup business (been trading for many years), but I think their choice of this word is poor as it’s not really what they mean - what they are really talking about is small businesses. That opens another Can of Worms. If I use it for free to do consultancy work for a client and earn less than $100k in the year, but the total value of the project I’m working on for that client is worth 10’s of millions to them, are AutoDesk really going to sit down and work out what value my part of the job was worth? What if that client cottons on to this and gets a legion of freelancers on board, all using their own free licenses of Fusion 360 to realise a project worth $20m?
Yes, Carl Bass acknowledged in his reply that they need to get their message sorted out, and said that they’re working on the language. They’ve promised to address it quickly. But that’s the way it is now - businesses under $100k revenue get a one year renewable subscription to Fusion Ultimate for free.
I think they did actually mean startups previously, because they had this language about the product being “not yet commercially available”. Perhaps a bit of a course correction now, which came out in a blog post by Carl Bass last month - a few weeks before OnShape’s freemium product came online. Could be a coincidence.
Good point about freelancers. It’s not clear to me if the existing licence terms would prevent a freelancer from doing contract design work on a new product, for a big company. I imagine they’ll say your business and any business that contracts you for design services has to be under $100k. That’s how Houdini’s “Indie” licence works. So, good for small businesses creating their own products, not so good for freelance designers with wealthy clients - as it should be, I think. No idea though - it will be interesting to see what the lawyers come up with in the final licence terms.
How is it reasonable to expect a contractor/freelancer will have information about a private company’s earnings? Do they need to ask all their clients for a copy of their tax return?
I downloaded Fusion to test it out. It took over 45 minutes to install (apparently some others also experienced slow installation). I played around with it a bit, and it seems to take some getting used to. Then I installed the Keyshot plugin to see how it works. That broke the app: the app simply would crash on start. That pretty much ended my experience with Fusion…uninstalled.
I’ve used many 3d packages, and solidworks used to be the primary tool for me (15 years ago.) But after a few years I found that I was often spending more time problem-solving parametric issues than actually building anything, and I found I was spending more & more time in Rhino for some shapes. Eventually, I switched to Rhino entirely. Most of my work was toys, and I’d get a request like, “can you just make that whole thing kinda puffy?” and Rhino could do it, Solidworks could not (well, everything is possible, but if my base feature needed to change from a box to a ‘puffy’ box, all of my other features were screwed.)
However, if I were designing guitars only, Solidworks would be a fine choice (if the price were better…)
Regarding the example of the tower that needed a draft change, I’d build that whole thing with the railrevolve tool in Rhino (maybe adding fillets later and saving a copy of my file before adding fillets.) Then changes are just done by changing the profile.
peter
Interesting to read about the origins of that Bubble Ship NadaNix, I’m not here to critic any software, and sorry for the very hot topic here on this 
Rhino is a really cool and maybe I’ll need it do work out more complex forms, but for now I just need a software (not too expensive either as I’m a musician too and I’m only working part time on graphics for companies) that can do simple and good layouts for nice presentations. For now the financial side of F360 and the basic tools seem to be ok for my needs, but I don’t know what I’ll do in future, maybe In a few months I’ll find it too limited, anyway, i really appreciate the input from everyone here and sorry for not staying with Rhino now 
Well Keyshot is just a plugin so judging a soft only by an unstable plugin is a little hard, I had the same issue but since last build the new plugin seems to work, but I’m going to use Simlab as render soft, inexpensive and build on the same source code as Keyshot, so from what I saw it’s very close and I may even prefer the way you can change things inside Simlab and hence it’s only 150$ vs 2000$ for keyshot 