Fusion 360 CAD/CAM Autodesk - Parametric Modeling with Autodesk Fusion 360 (Rating: 3)

This is a well written introduction to Fusion 360, and it can be very helpful if Fusion 360 available on your PC as book is written as tutorial.

The text starts, and repeats on occasion, with how to navigate the setup, log into Fusion 360, and how to use history tools. At first this seems a little redundant but, at least for me, it was worth the repetition as the history tools are different from anything I have used before and in Fusion 360 these tools are extremely helpful.

There are many examples of methods to create 3D models from very simplistic to very complicated, creating 2D prints, and some chapters on 3D printing but no CAM for machining. I found it disturbing that the text has incorrect or missing dimensions versus what has been tutored on the screen example. An intentional teaching tool or are just errors in publication? The beginning the exercises require input that are not obvious or may not be available until later chapters. As this book will probably be used by students this may lead to confusion as there is no listing of errors that a reader may find.

At times the book appears to have come from two different sources as, while being well written, some of the exercises look like the were printed on dot matrix printer with barely readable text and broken line drawings.

This one book is just the very tip of the Fusion 360 capability and fortunately there are many other books and virtually more videos that focus on learning Fusion 360. Additionally Fusion 360 has a number of "built in" tutorials that are extremely helpful and there are YouTube videos that make use of the tutorials to help get started.

The following is an unabashed commercial for Autodesk and Fusion 360

Fusion 360 is probably one of the best CAD/CAM applications and keeps growing with greater functionality so any given book cannot cover anything but the basics.

I bought the softcover book because I did not want to switch between and ebook screen and the Fusion 360 screen. I would suggest to start the built in tutorials or the videos showing these tutorials, YouTube videos, and a Fusion 360 book on the selected area of interest, from Autodesk.

The following is a portion of my CAD/CAM background.

I have been using CAD since the early 1970's with the Calma System and migrated through those iterations until GE sold Calma in 1988. Many other CAD programs have come and gone by my mouse. In 1995 I was introduced to Solid Designer and extensively trained with in house classes. In 2002 Creo| released a reduced feature set of what was Solid Designer and in 2002 called Creo Elements/Direct Modeling Express that I have been using since that time. But now my focus is on Fusion 360 as it does have everything I need and much more.