Using new Autodesk workflows for Inventor and Fusion 360 Interoperability

LOREN WELCH: We'll go ahead and do some brief introductions and then kind of hop into the class. But quick show of hands, how many people were in Bankim's class yesterday covering this similar topic? Good. All right. So all fresh faces. Awesome.

So real quick, from introduction standpoint, my name is Loren Welch. I'm a product manager on the Inventor team. And with me we have a Fusion fellows.

BANKIM CHAREGAONKAR: I'm Bankim Charegaonkar. I'm a product manager for Fusion.

JAMIE SCHERER: I'm Jamie Scherer. I manage the Fusion customer adoption team.

LOREN WELCH: So what we really want to go through today is, like, Amy announced yesterday, the AnyCAD relationship between Inventor and Fusion. So obviously, we're going to talk a little bit about how it works, some of the technology that's required, and just how to get it. So before we start, again, on the vein of the last Friday morning, we did notice the first person that entered today. So here you go.

BANKIM CHAREGAONKAR: The most punctual award. Congratulations.

LOREN WELCH: You get some stickers too. There we go. So we do want this to be interactive. If you have questions, we'll try to handle them on the fly as we go. If you ask a question and we might be handling it in a few slides, we'll probably hold off a bit. But let's keep this interactive, keep everybody awake this morning, and get into it. All right?

So-- wow, it went all the way to the last slide.

JAMIE SCHERER: Thanks for coming.

[LAUGHTER]

[APPLAUSE]

LOREN WELCH: We're done, we're don.

BANKIM CHAREGAONKAR: And that's how it works. Any questions?

LOREN WELCH: Yeah. So real quick, like we talked about, what we're going to go through-- again, we did the introductions-- but really just talk about what it is. And we talk about what it is-- some of it is what was AnyCAD that we've had in Inventor for a few years, how have we expanded that with Fusion not only from being able to take in the Fusion design files but also for the Fusion folks to leverage AnyCAD technology on their side to work with right now in Inventor and SOLIDWORKS.

We also want to talk about what technology is required. It's not just Fusion. It's not just inventor. There's a little bit more of the Autodesk family that's brought into this. And we have some of those people in the room on the development team. So we're going to probably defer some of those questions to some other folks. And then, obviously, we'll take a look and we'll show it in action.

Now, before we get started, it's a PowerPoint. I have to have at least one graph. So we've got that taken care of. So with that being said, let's just talk a little bit about what it is, right? So AnyCAD-- how many of you are familiar or have used AnyCAD and Inventor? Very good, very good.

So in 2016, we released the initial version of AnyCAD. And these are the formats that we work with. And what AnyCAD really does is it gives you an associative link to a non-native Inventor file. So if you're reading in a CATIA file, a SOLIDWORKS file, any of the PTC products, it gives you that live link to a non-native file. So from a supply chain perspective, inventor is kind of get top level of aggregate where you can bring in these outside designs. If your vendor or supplier updates that file, it updates like it's a native Inventor file, just with an update or a refresh in Inventor.

So it was quite popular. We had a lot of requests for additional functionality and formats. So the next release with Inventor 2017, we took a look at neutral file formats STEP. So the reason we targeted STEP as a neutral file format, it's by far and away the most used 3D neutral file format. Inventor customers read in over about half a million neutral file formats a month and STEP crushed all of them. So that's obviously where we wanted to focus.

We also, with the 2017 product, added AnyCAD for Inventor. And what that really means is, those that are using 2017, if you're on the .4 release-- I think it's .4.2 now-- you can actually read in 2018 files. So it gives you cross-version support between the different products. So if you have two project teams, long lead time projects, and you're waiting to migrate to the next version, this gives you that buffer where one part or company can move to 2018, the other could stay on 2017, and they could still use the same data until they both move up to 2018.

OK. How many of you guys have tried, that cross-version support? A couple. All right. Good.

With 2018. the .1 release in July, we added Solid Edge support. So now you'll have Solid Edge support with 2018. And then 2018.2, which was actually released last week, now gives you support for Fusion 360. And that's the .fusiondesign file-- that's what we're naming them now? Yeah, all right. .fusiondesign file.

So how many of you were aware that 2018.2 was out last week? Awesome.

JAMIE SCHERER: Nice.

LOREN WELCH: You all have it installed, up and running, good to go? Yeah. How many non-Autodesk people have it installed and running?

JAMIE SCHERER: All right.

LOREN WELCH: So that's really where we're at with AnyCAD. We're definitely not done expanding it. And I think now what we're seeing is AnyCAD is a great mechanism at Autodesk for us to start building bridges between different products and really helping customers with workflows that they've been asking for us to support over long-term and short-term.

So I have one question and another set of headphones here. So when I talk about what is this AnyCAD relationship, we want to be very clear. It is a bridge-- it is a two-way bridge. It is not a one-way street to one or the other. It's an associative link to the topology of both.

When I say it's a bridge, and it's not a one way street, it allows me, if I'm a Fusion 360 user I can take in Inventor part. I have that associative link. I could add new features to it if I need to. So if you're getting a supplier part, but you do custom machining on it, or you modify supplier parts, that's a good example of that.

From the Inventor perspective, if I'm getting files in from Fusion, again, I can do the same thing. I can add Inventor features. If the Fusion file is updated, my downstream features still survive-- within reason. It's just like an Inventor file, right? If you take a cube and turn into a sphere, things are going to break. Still looking at face and edge IDs. So that's what we're talking about.

So here's my-- and it is a pull update. The user that's consuming the file has to request an update. So Inventor will notify me or I can check for an update to see if the Fusion file has a new version, and I pull the update. Same thing on the Fusion side--

BANKIM CHAREGAONKAR: Yeah, same thing on the Fusion side. In Fusion if you have any kind of reference to the Inventor file, it looks like any other extract in Fusion. So as soon as the model changes on the Inventor side, the user in Fusion gets a pop-up notification saying the data has changed, but now it's up to them to click update to really consume those changes.

LOREN WELCH: Yep. So that being said, who knows what this bridge is? And here's my only clue-- it is the largest dual anchor suspension bridge in the Western hemisphere. And if you say Golden Gate, you have to leave the room.

[LAUGHTER]

AUDIENCE: The Bay Bridge?

LOREN WELCH: Nope.

AUDIENCE: Mackinac

LOREN WELCH: There we go, it's Mackinaw, but we'll take it.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

[LAUGHTER]

LOREN WELCH: There we go. Oh, you lost your stickers.

JAMIE SCHERER: I'm impressed.

LOREN WELCH: So if you can't tell, I'm from Michigan. So that makes me very happy. All right.

So who is it for? So we talk about who is this for, it's kind of, who has access to it? Again, in typical Autodesk fashion, we have a lot of matrixed way. You can see products and access through entitlements and things like that.

If you're a Product Design and Manufacturing Collection subscriber, you will have access to this. If you're Product Design Suite Maintenance customer, you'll have access to this. If you're a standalone Fusion 360 customer, you have access to this.

Really, the one entitlement that kind of-- the one ring to rule them all-- is if you have access to Fusion 360 or Fusion Team, you have access to this. Meaning, Jamie, if you're just diffusion 360 subscriber but you invite me as in Inventor standalone-- just an Inventor Pro standalone customer-- to his Fusion Team hub, I would have access to that connector then. You have to have access to the Fusion Team to get this. Is that clear as mud, kind of?

AUDIENCE: So if you have Inventor and you're non-subscription, but you have the whole Manufacturing suite, this is in there. But you have to be linking to somebody with it.

LOREN WELCH: So the question was, if you have a suite or a collection, do you have access? So you have access to it-- you don't need to link it to anybody else to have access to it. What I was saying earlier, if you just have Inventor Professional as a standalone, not as a collection or a suite, you wouldn't get this unless you're invited to a team hub.

AUDIENCE: OK. But if you have the suite, it's there.

LOREN WELCH: Yes. But if you have a suite or collection, you will have access to this, because you have a Fusion Team entitlement. Your administrator is going to have to give all your-- if you're a user and you're not an admin, and your admin hasn't given you a Fusion Team access, then, obviously, you're not going to have this functionality.

AUDIENCE: So he has to give [INAUDIBLE]

LOREN WELCH: Yeah. And in the help files, we try to point people to what is needed to do some of this. OK? Question?

AUDIENCE: I'm scratching my head.

LOREN WELCH: Oh, that's fine.

JAMIE SCHERER: Scratching your head is allowed.

BANKIM CHAREGAONKAR: So to add to your thing, if you have the full collection, as part of it, along with in Inventor you also have a Fusion entitlement in there. So in the next Fusion update there is a path directly to create Fusion Team environments directly in tool. So you would entitle yourself to Fusion, launch it, create a team environment right there, and then you can use that to bring your Inventor data that into Fusion or back and forth-- or vice versa.

LOREN WELCH: Yeah. And that's a really good point, and I'm sorry I didn't mention that. The reason we list the collection. in the Product Design suite, is those both give you Fusion 360 access. OK?

And with that, I'll give it over Jamie to talk a little bit.

JAMIE SCHERER: All right, so let's talk a little bit about how it works. Wrong way. So Loren kind of mentioned before, and I'll say, it's always easier to see it with little icons in the bottom corner. So simply, in Inventor-- so if we're going Fusion to Inventor, all you have to do is insert the .fusiondesign into Inventor.

And, of course, that's your action, right? If you wanted to translate and bring data into Inventor, you could do that. But if you insert it with AnyCAD, that's how you can consume the update. So as Loren kind of mentioned before, bringing it in and bringing in it as a reference is how you're going to maintain the associativity with the Fusion 360 data.

And in the reverse, going from Inventor into Fusion, all you have to do is insert the IPT into a design, and it's going to maintain that same reference. So it'll look like a distributed design inside of Fusion 360, and then you can consume the updates if they change.

LOREN WELCH: Now, one important thing there is the IPT file has to be Fusion Team.

JAMIE SCHERER: Yes. Exactly right. So what technology is required? We talked about a little bit already. So the tools that you need-- and this is not necessarily what "you" need. It might not be "you" or you and your cubicle mate that are doing this. This might be between you and your supplier. It might be between you and the job shop down the street that's cutting your parts.

But what you need, between the people that are going to collaborate this way, would be Fusion 360. So someone's going to be bringing in the Inventor data or sending Fusion 360 data to Inventor. You need a Fusion Team, which is where you're going to collaborate and share the files back and forth. We need that thing to go away.

You need inventors 2018.2. So Loren mentioned before, I think the 8th was the release date-- brand new update coming from the Inventor team. You need Inventor 2018.2. And you need Autodesk Desktop Connector. If you're using Inventor, that's the tool that's going to connect the Inventor files to the Fusion Team project where someone using Fusion 360 can consume it.

Did I miss anything there? So Desktop Connector, the simple place where you'll find-- it inside of Fusion Team you'll see Loren's pretty face in the corner. If you click on your profile, all the way at the bottom you'll find a new, little add-in, and it'll say Desktop Connector for Fusion. Install it from there. It adds a little utilities-- a little screenshot of it here. Loren can kind of pull it up later when we do some live demoing, but that's the tool. That's the way that you're going to maintain those references between products.

LOREN WELCH: And Michael-- so Michael's on the Desktop Connector team, so we'll throw a lot of questions his way I'm sure. But when was this available in Fusion? So last week, in Fusion team, if you logged in you might have saw it and not known what it was. So that first alert is now gone if you've logged into Fusion Team, but you can find it where Jamie had mentioned.

JAMIE SCHERER: Yep. All right. Let's put this in action.

So to talk a little bit about some of the workflows-- and I think that, hopefully, everyone in the room, your head is kind of already thinking about ways you can use it. One great example might be going from Fusion to Inventor for conceptual design, industrial design. So maybe someone inside of your organization could be starting to take advantage of Fusion, might be creating something in Fusion and bringing it over to Inventor where you're going to continue to work on the engineering requirements.

Another great example would be going from Fusion to Inventor-- are they going to all play? There we go-- for generative design. So, again, hopefully everyone was as inspired as I was sitting through some of the new generative technology that's coming out. But if you were going to optimize a part, design it inside of Fusion, send it over to Inventor, again, to live inside of a larger assembly.

And think about all of the other ways that this might come together in using Fusion to Inventor. It might be, if you're using Fusion 360 today, sending this over to live inside of a larger skidded system. It could be to be laid out in a factory floor right. There's a lot of use cases where you might take your Fusion data and send it over to Inventor.

And then thinking about it the other way, going from Inventor to Fusion. So it might purely just be for collaboration, whether that's inside your four walls or with someone that's in your supply chain. It might also be to use EAGLE. So here's another great example. Hopefully some of you were able to see the incredible connection between Autodesk EAGLE and Fusion 360. And now we can add Inventor into that mix, where we're taking full product designs, bringing it into Inventor, and now including PCM design and electrical controls.

LOREN WELCH: And one of the things that I think is important here when we talk about this, a lot of these workflows, it might not be within your four walls. It's really about this greater Autodesk ecosystem. We have a huge number of Fusion 360 subscribers, we have a huge number of Inventor subscribers, and customers either through suites, or collections, or standalone. And right now, they've kind of been on two different islands, right?

And so if I'm a Inventor customer and I want to really access this ecosystem of machine shops and all of these more agile, smaller companies that are using Fusion inside of their workshop for CAM and for other purposes, now we have a way to connect these two. So it really helps open up this greater ecosystem for both Inventor users to connect with Fusion Customers and for Fusion Customers to now participate with Inventor customers in a lot of these supply chain and ecosystem kind of workflows.

JAMIE SCHERER: Yeah. And Loren used the right word, it's open, right? I mean, the goal here is to be open. If you're using both, if someone in your supply chain is using one or the other, you can collaborate back and forth. Which is super important, and I can't wait to see all the workflows it unlocks.

So once I hit all the play buttons-- there we go. So the first one-- there we go. So let's take a look at a supply chain example between Inventor going to Fusion, and we'll use-- I'm going in. I'm coming in. All right. Loren, do you want to switch over?

LOREN WELCH: Yeah.

JAMIE SCHERER: Wait, you're first, right?

LOREN WELCH: Yeah, I guess I am first.

JAMIE SCHERER: Are you? Or am I first?

LOREN WELCH: Well rehearsed is what we are. So here I've gotten Inventor design. It's an IPT file. And I've got it here up in Fusion Team, and a mouse that doesn't work-- a mouse that still doesn't work. There we go.

And so here I've put it in Fusion Team. I've sent an invitation to Jamie inside of Fusion Team to join this project and take a look at this file. And Jamie is a machine shop in New Jersey. And so I simply want to send in this data and I want to get some information as far as-- I'll be really basic here-- I'll just say, can you machine this for us? And I'll go and post that comment into Fusion Team, into a location that Jamie and I have shared.

So it's an actual Inventor file in Fusion Team. And using the viewer inside of Fusion Team, I can add comments. I could even have done a little bit of markup here, just to be really clear on some things with Jamie . And then I'll switch over to Jamie and see what he sees.

JAMIE SCHERER: Yeah. So it's thinking about it.

LOREN WELCH: Oh, I think--

JAMIE SCHERER: 7.

LOREN WELCH: It helps if I do the right number.

JAMIE SCHERER: Numbers are important. So in this case, as Loren mentioned, I'm inside of the Fusion Team. So we're collaborating together. He's invited me as a supplier. I would only have access, as maybe someone who's not in his organization, to the projects that he invites me to. So it's important to know that this is not all-encompassing. I wouldn't have access to anything other than what he's invited me to.

And if I take a look as someone in the inside of Fusion, you'll see I can see the Inventor files inside of the Fusion data panel. And we'll do a couple of things here. So first, I'm just going to go ahead and open the Inventor IPT so everyone can see-- I feel like a magician. You can see that's in Inventor IPT. And, of course, I brought this in as in Inventor file into Fusion.

But what I want to point out, which I think is really important, is you'll see in the timeline that there's a reference. There's a link to the Inventor data. And now, if you're familiar with Fusion 360, this is really powerful as it relates to the workflow. Because now, I have the Inventor data at the beginning of my timeline, and now anything that I might do to that data afterwards is a subsequent feature. So if added holes, if I added chamfers, if I made edits to the geometry, it's happening, in time, after the import of the Inventor data.

So I'll also-- if I have another file open here-- just look at another workflow. So I can open the data directly, as I mentioned and save it as inside of Fusion, and start to use it. Or I'm going to start off with a file-- this is maybe a design that I've worked on before-- and what I want to do in this case is just insert the file into my current design.

So you'll see that I'll bring in the Inventor IPT. Just like I did when I opened it, I either open it and save it as or insert it. I'm just going to go ahead and flip this. And now what I want to do is start to put some tool paths on it, right? Pretty simple. So let's jump over into the CAM workspace inside of Fusion 360, and I'm going to create a new setup.

So really simple-- Loren sent me over this part. I'm going to go ahead and just create a new setup. And-- oops, looks like I missed my x-axis there. There we go. So again, creating my new setup, I'm going to put my G54 in the corner, say, OK. I'm going to create two tool paths really quickly. We're going to create a facing operation. I'll grab my face [INAUDIBLE] that I use out of my library. I'll go ahead and create that.

And next, I'm just going to go ahead and create a 3D adaptive clearing tool path. I'm going to go ahead and rough this out using my favorite tool which is my 3/8 bullnose. And I'm going to say, OK. We'll let that calculate.

Now, in this case, I might start to look at this design. In which case, I might reach out to my friend Loren and say, are these obnoxious fillets really necessary? Are they cosmetic? So now, again, we have the opportunity to collaborate back and forth.

And a really good example, with the tool that I'm using, I actually can't rough out that entire pocket. Because you can see how tiny the bottom of that face is. Now, I could, absolutely, machine it. I'd have to switch tools, maybe use something smaller, but this is an opportunity where I might jump back into Fusion Team and leave a comment for Loren and say, are those big fillets in the pockets necessary? Is it possible for us to make them 60,000ths, which is the radius of the tool that I'm using.

This way I can bang them out. I can do it with one setup. I don't have to switch tools. So I'm going to jump back.

LOREN WELCH: So you're able to do more with less, faster.

JAMIE SCHERER: More better--

[LAUGHTER]

LOREN WELCH: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

JAMIE SCHERER: That's it. So I'll jump into Fusion Team. And just like before, I'll grab the Inventor IPT. And I'm going to mark it up. I'm going to leave a comment for Loren and kindly suggest that he comes in here. And I'll leave him a nice note that says--

LOREN WELCH: And this really is a great example of really what happens in supply chains, as many of you know. If Jamie's a value-added supplier of mine, he can ask me this question. Are these fillets necessary? If you do a smaller size fillet, I can machine it faster, cheaper. These are the kind of suppliers I want, and this is the kind of ecosystem we're looking to promote within the Autodesk tools.

JAMIE SCHERER: So I've added my comment. I'm asking Loren to make the changes. I put that information inside of Fusion Team. He would absolutely get a notification through email that says, your supplier Jamie has added a comment.

LOREN WELCH: Yep. We'll skip the email, and I'll go right to the fact that I'm Fusion team, and you can see that I get this update. So I can click right on the thumbnail. I jump right in Fusion Team, and I can get a good understanding of what Jamie was referring to.

So I zoom right in to those fillets he's specifying. And he's asking me for faster, smaller, cost me less if I adjust the size of those fillets. So it's a really good example of real-time feedback.

So as in Inventor user, I can just hop back into Inventor, and I'm going to completely cheat, and not only am I going to put those pockets in, I'm going to change the fillets down to 20,000, I think.

JAMIE SCHERER: 60, please.

LOREN WELCH: 60,000. There we go. And I actually added more pockets to this. And all I'm doing here is I'm just going to go ahead and Control-S, and I'm going to save this. Now, because my file lives in Fusion Team, I've saved it back to the cloud. So that's where it's at.

So from this point-- and again, that's where this Autodesk Desktop Connector is helping me. So I get this little A right here. You'll see it's processing. I can actually go ahead and take a look at my pending actions, and you can see right there it's moving that file-- it was modified and it's moving it up to Fusion Team.

So that's what Desktop Connector is doing. It's allowing me to access Fusion Team as if it's a network drive.

AUDIENCE: Will it save that locally as well as in the cloud?

LOREN WELCH: So the question was, will it save locally as well as in the cloud? So we cache it, but it is not a sync utility. It is a connection utility. So that's an important distinction. And thanks for the question.

So if many of you are familiar with what used to be Desktop Sync, many of you have noticed Desktop Sync does not sync anymore. We kind of trailed that off. And that also went to a 360 drive. Again, I'm sorry for all the naming conventions.

But what's happening now is this Desktop Connector utility is really just giving you that cloud access. There is an offline mode-- so you have your cache-- but it is not a sync utility. I don't know-- Michael, did I describe that properly? All right. There we go.

AUDIENCE: With the connection-- [CLEARS THROAT] Excuse me. That was actually pretty fast. What's a typical response time [INAUDIBLE] cache [INAUDIBLE]?

LOREN WELCH: So the question was, how fast is it? It's really about your latency and bandwidth. So there's no-- it's quick, I guess. It's like a save operation. It's pushing it up. But it is bandwidth dependent. So I don't--

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

JAMIE SCHERER: To give you an idea, we're on conference Wi-Fi and I've been staring at the update in Fusion since before the first question. So it's pretty quick.

BANKIM CHAREGAONKAR: So Desktop Connector, it's scanning disks for the locations that you provided to it. And then as soon as anything changes, on average, we were trying this. We did our class yesterday-- it takes about 10 seconds for it to detect it and upload a new version to cloud. Of course, if the file's huge, it might take slightly longer, but it's really quick.

I saw some confused faces earlier. So in this example, everything he's doing in Fusion is on the cloud. So all the data lives and Fusion Team, it's on cloud. So what Desktop Connector is doing, it's that bridge Loren was talking about earlier. It shows you a Windows drive or a Mac Finder drive that's an extension of your cloud data. It's a view in it so that any desktop product like Inventor, AutoCAD, Revit can see the same data. So because it's integrated into the OS, any file open dialogue now gives you access to the same data that you see in the cloud through Fusion.

LOREN WELCH: So I'm going to go ahead and-- does that all make sense what Bankim just said? Oh, question.

AUDIENCE: I have a project team which [INAUDIBLE] made up of AutoCAD users and Inventor user. Do you have the same workflow functionally with [INAUDIBLE] files?

LOREN WELCH: So AnyCAD between Inventor and AutoCAD, yeah, is there. If you're talking about the relationship-- I'm sorry, the question, I'll repeat it, was, Do you have that same relationship with AutoCAD-- and is it with Inventor and Fusion or just with Fusion Team?

AUDIENCE: With Fusion as well. But I have people who have AutoCAD and Fusion [INAUDIBLE]

BANKIM CHAREGAONKAR: OK. So right now, in the current preview that we have out, we support Inventor and SOLIDWORKS files associatively into Fusion, but other formats are on the roadmap coming into early next year.

AUDIENCE: OK.

JAMIE SCHERER: So we'll jump-- and thank you for the questions. So we'll jump back into Fusion Team. You can see, obviously, I've been notified now. Loren told me that he made those changes. As I already alluded to, I, within seconds, while I had my Fusion file open, I'm already notified that there is a pending update. Now, like Loren said before, this is not automatic. It will automatically tell you that there is an update, but you have to choose when you're ready to consume it.

And really, it's as simple as me either updating it in the browser or up here in the toolbar. You can see that, now I'm going to go through and grab the new data. It's going to update from me in the second.

LOREN WELCH: So Jamie--

JAMIE SCHERER: Yes?

LOREN WELCH: --what's the advantage here versus importing an Inventor file as a STEP file, and putting a tool path on it, and then modifying it? What's the time savings to the Fusion user here?

JAMIE SCHERER: Well, the primary time savings is my tool paths are already ready to update. So whereas what we've been able to do in the past is bring an Inventor file over. But in this case-- whoops, I didn't want to simulate, I want to update my tool paths, generate-- so, sorry, there we go. So again, I don't have to retranslate the data, reimport it, create another setup, add those tool paths. It's as easy as just consuming the update. And in this case, since I used an adaptive clearing tool path-- I didn't select the pockets, I used adaptive cleaning, which is going to go through and create a tool path based on the geometry, it'll update automatically.

So I didn't have to go through and pick all those pockets and change my heights. All of that stuff updated automatically because the data changed. And now, I could continue and maybe come in here and create a horizontal tool path, a finishing tool path, something like that. But it is literally that easy for me to consume the changes that might happen very frequently between my customers, if I was a supplier, or a job shop, or something like that.

BANKIM CHAREGAONKAR: And another nice thing is, because this is all in the cloud right now, everything is a relationship away. So we know that this Inventor part file is being used by another Fusion user in AnyCAD way. So every time Loren over here makes changes to his design, behind the scenes a lot of the work to enable the AnyCAD associativity can happen in the cloud. So that when Jamie's ready to consume it, it's a one-click update for him that happens almost immediately. He's not waiting for a lot of time to process the file to maintain all of the face IDs, and edge IDs, et cetera. So that's a real benefit of doing this in the cloud.

JAMIE SCHERER: Yeah. And one of the really nice things in the example that I mentioned, I wasn't maybe able to machine to the bottom of that one pocket, because the tool that I wanted to use was bigger than the bottom of that pocket. I talked to Loren, who is my customer, and he said, yeah, I know, I just put those giant fillets on the bottom because they looked cool. Which is what most designers like myself do. But as a machinist, it would be helpful-- it would be important from a time perspective if we can remove those. So this is a great example of where that might work.

And I saw a question in the back.

AUDIENCE: Yeah. [INAUDIBLE] team, you get [INAUDIBLE]

LOREN WELCH: Yes, you do. I don't if you saw that. We're actually in version 10.

JAMIE SCHERER: Yeah.

LOREN WELCH: We've been using the same data set to practice.

JAMIE SCHERER: Yeah. Not the first time we've looked at it. But, yeah, you can actually see, in the browser it's probably small to read, but you can see it says v10 now. It said 9 before. And it will continue to update the name.

BANKIM CHAREGAONKAR: Actually if you expand the data panel, [INAUDIBLE] the IPT [INAUDIBLE]--

JAMIE SCHERER: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Here as well, after a refresh. So you can see, it did say 9, now it says 10. So yeah, it's going to track the versions for you as well.

AUDIENCE: So you could stick to the old version?

BANKIM CHAREGAONKAR: Yeah.

JAMIE SCHERER: Yeah.

BANKIM CHAREGAONKAR: Sorry. So just like you can in Fusion, you can pick an older version and say promote to tip, and go back to that state in time. Everything works just the way you would expect it-- full version and full relationships between all the files.

LOREN WELCH: We had a question over there.

AUDIENCE: Yeah. Once the link is established, does this lock the Inventor user down without [INAUDIBLE] the files?

LOREN WELCH: So-- I'm trying to understand the question. So the question was, once this link is made, you want to know, does it lock down the Inventor file? Do you mean in Fusion Team, or are you--

AUDIENCE: If we're working in Inventor and Vault and we're pushing files through Fusion, after [INAUDIBLE] to establish in Vault and Inventor, we can't read from the files.

LOREN WELCH: So we've made some exceptions with Vault, primarily on when Fusion designs come into an Inventor assembly and how we handle those references with Vault. So as many of you Vault users know, if there's been an external reference before we just don't let you check that in. We made an exception with Fusion, and we've done some tech on the back end. So we will never move to move a Fusion file locally and put it into Vault, but we manage that reference. And we put a virtual item in the Vault so it manages the BOM correctly.

Now, going the other way, Vault has done some work with Fusion team on some shared spaces and things like that. So that might kind of fit the workflow you're doing. But as far as like Inventor into Fusion, the way it works today with the technology preview is you're putting IPTs into Fusion Team, and you're letting Fusion Team kind of handle that relationship.

BANKIM CHAREGAONKAR: Maybe I misunderstood the question. But, I think, in Vault, like you said, if you have a file that's already referenced by something else, you can rename it without going through a whole process of updating all the references above it. In Fusion, file resolution referencing works differently than Inventor. So because it's all a database in the cloud, you can rename files or move them around, but the reference identifier to that file stays the same in the cloud. So doing the renames and moves in Fusion Team doesn't break any of these relationships.

JAMIE SCHERER: All right. So just to summarize really quickly, we just went through a really quick example, but hopefully-- I can see the gears are turning. You're starting to think about the connection points, or the workflows, or where this might work for your individual organization. So this is just one example from Inventor to Fusion. It could be for nonlinear simulation. It could be for know connecting with EAGLE, like we mentioned before right. There's a ton of use cases. And there's probably a ton of people inside your organization or in your supply chain that you might want to start working with.

LOREN WELCH: So a real quick check-- I'm sorry, I forgot-- how many people have asked questions so far? All right, you're going to have to-- I don't have a cannon, so--

[LAUGHTER]

JAMIE SCHERER: That's impressive there. So far so good.

LOREN WELCH: Oh, Just short. Anybody I missed? There we go. All right, good.

So let's talk about another-- whoops--

JAMIE SCHERER: I already did it. I already did it.

LOREN WELCH: So the next workflow, which is probably a pretty common one, is relying on the strengths of both tools. So in this case, we're going to really rely on the strength of Fusion 360 for concept design when we're going to rework the handle on this fishing reel. So as a longtime Inventor customer, I've got this design, I want to refresh it with a new concept, and I only rely on my Fusion guys in-house to do some concept design and work that into my Inventor assembly.

So same thing, we can start in--

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

What's that?

JAMIE SCHERER: Same thing. You're going to switch to me first. So in this example, again, we might be in the same organization. I could be-- Loren might be in engineering. I might be in the conceptual design, or product development, or something like that.

And in a really quick example, I might be working on new handles for this fishing reel. So I'm just going to go ahead and leave Loren a comment here inside of Fusion. So I'll just say, Loren, check out these-- whoops-- new handles. So just really quickly, I'm going to post that to my Fusion project. You'll see that, right here, I've added a comment. And this is automatically working with Fusion team, that's the way that Fusion works directly inside of the canvas. And you'll see version number 8, Jamie added a comment, Loren, check these out. So very simple for me to go ahead and quickly not only make the design, but leave it and send it over to Loren where he can bring it over into Inventor.

LOREN WELCH: Yep. So same thing. Here, you can see I'm in Fusion Team. Here you see this winding handle. It says in use by Jamie Scherer. But when I click on it, again, I get the comments and the note, and I can click in here and get the nice preview inside the Fusion Team and see what he's talking about. So he's got this new design for me, and I want to see what it looks like in Inventor.

So let's just go to Inventor. And Alt-Tab, not working. Awesome. So let's go to Inventor.

So here I have my assembly. And again, those of you that are familiar with AnyCAD, it's the same workflow. So I can actually do any type of insert, open, and I just browse the file type I'm looking for. So again, I can place from imported CAD, that's the standard AnyCAD dialogue. And you'll see here, what I'm looking for, along with all of my standard AnyCAD formats, is I can actually go right to-- it's probably staring me right in the face-- Fusion files, which is a .fusiondesign design. OK?

So I go here. Using the desktop connector, you can see-- and I'll browse up so you can see it-- if I go to my computer, you'll see I have access to my different cloud storage connections that Desktop Connector allows me to go right to. So just like a network drive, I go into Fusion Team, it lists all the hubs that either I own or are shared with me. So I go in here. I go right to our AU class. I've got this huge, new Inventor project. I could have probably made this at a higher level.

But here, you'll see I have these Fusion design files. Now, what Jamie has, he's got all of these components inside of Fusion. So I want the winding handle design. I'll go ahead and say open. And again, what you'll notice here is now Desktop Connector is doing that call to the cloud. It's saying this the Fusion design I need inside of Inventor. And it's going to go ahead and grab that for me.

I am on conference Wi-Fi, which is--

JAMIE SCHERER: So while we're waiting, as an industrial designer, I am immediately thinking of ways that I can change this design to make Loren's life more difficult.

[LAUGHTER]

LOREN WELCH: So here you'll see, standard AnyCAD workflow. So I can say-- I can convert this. I can convert this just to an IPT, but there's no-- that's just like a dumb solid. if I just-- I don't know. I'm not going to do that.

So I wanted the reference model. So I can go here. I can load the model so I can see kind of a preview what it looks like. Because what's really nice with this is I see this handle, I see all the bodies. So I could selectively say which bodies are components I want from Fusion and which ones I don't, right? In this case, I want all of them. And just like the rest of your AnyCAD workflows, it's going to bring this. And you'll notice in my browser I'll have that special kind of browser node to let me know that this is a live AnyCAD reference, and it allows me to place this inside of my assembly.

So I'm just going to place it here. I only need one of them. And down here in my browser, you'll see this winding handle. But you'll also notice it says v8. So I'm actually getting the version number listed as that browser mode as well, which is super handy.

So my middle mouse button's not even working. This is beautiful. So let's go ahead and do a joint here quick and put that in the wrong spot completely. So again, I'm not a demo guy anymore. So just keep that in mind, be patient. So repeat joint. I'll lock it there-- much better. I'll go ahead and say OK. And then I'm actually going to come in here and just add one last constraint to lock that in.

So now, you can see I've got a Fusion design-- it works inside of Inventor like a native Inventor file. But I'm looking at this, and if I'm really going to redesign this, it's not really the redesign I'm looking for. So this is where I can go back into Fusion Team and I can do a markup. So from here, if I want to do anything crazy, but I'm just going to go in here, add a new comment, [INAUDIBLE] my keyboard's not even working now, by the way. This is so awesome. Keyboard's totally not working.

So that's my markup.

JAMIE SCHERER: Give me a switch.

LOREN WELCH: Yeah.

[LAUGHTER]

Can you go ahead and make this cooler?

JAMIE SCHERER: Good.

LOREN WELCH: Yep.

JAMIE SCHERER: So at this point, I will pick up the phone and ask Loren what his scribble was. But more importantly-- so in a really quick example-- we're doing something very quick between Fusion and Inventor. But think about the power of me as whether we're in the same organization or we're in-- again, I might be an external vendor or I might be someone who's collaborating with Loren on a project, I can easily come in here and make some quick changes to this design. So whether it was because I'm losing sleep at night because I want to make changes to this, or Loren, my customer, my colleague might have requested that we make some changes.