Eagle will be part of Fusion360

[bgm370]

And here it comes. Fusion Jan 2020 update.

[macegr]

And here it comes. Fusion Jan 2020 update.

Yeah, this is where I said they were going when Sam Sattel posted his rant against exchange standards. They don't want someone to be able to take their design out of the Autodesk walled garden, they want you to be locked into their application forever.*

*access to your designs dependent on Autodesk not cancelling your product

[Jeroen3]

Did they drop the XML format yet? Or the user scripts?

[macegr]

Did they drop the XML format yet? Or the user scripts?

What will the next goalpost be after this one finally falls (in a long line of things they said they wouldn't do but eventually did)?

They're doing an integration with Fusion 360. It's not done yet, but when they consider it ready standalone Eagle is toast. And in the actual video linked above, they speak in a derogatory fashion about exchange formats and proudly claim they want their program to be the one source of truth for a design.

[technolomaniac]

Hi Folks!

Let me just be sure and set the record straight on a few items then Ill go back to building awesomeness (ie electronics design, mfg, sim, 3D modeling, surface modeling, thermal analysis, generative design).  What @macegr said doesnt accurately represent the opinions or views of Autodesk or our (read: my) overall product strategy or vision.  I just want to take the high road here and at the risk of feeding the trolls, ensure I clarify a few important questions that are coming from people's genuine uncertainty or concern...And @macegr I welcome your feedback anytime.  I just dont want to tip this in the direction of opinions == fact.

Firstly, we have gone to great lengths to ensure that the EAGLE XML files are actually still accessible however with any application that stores versions of files / data anywhere other than your desktop, we zip them.  The FBRD, FSCH, FLBR files that fusion uses internally and which can be saved locally are zip files (raw eagle XML files can be exported to your desktop using the File->Export command).  Rename them and unzip them and eagle XML is inside.  We do this for speed in transferring the files to the web.  Smaller file, smaller payload, faster performance.  That's all.  Nothing magical or sinister in there.  But it also enables us to bundle a thumbnail so they show on the web as they do on the desktop.

We are not going to do away with this as there is no performance benefit to obfuscating what's inside.  I would emphasize that virtually all other tools aside from EAGLE / Fusion360 electronics are indeed obfuscating the data (whether deliberately or not, I am not going to speculate) and we have taken- and continue to take a different path.  ULPs still work in the new environment.  SCR files (generally) continue to work but where they dont, we have plans to address these things in different ways (new menuing and display options in fusion mean changes to shortcuts and key bindings, etc will have to be mapped to a different UI/UX toolkit we use however one aspect of our test automation suite uses SCR files so it would make zero sense for us to scrap this).  What's more, Fusion uses Python for scripting and I can only say that it would be, in my view, a "miss" if at some point we didnt create python bindings for all of this.

WRT interexchange files, they are a disaster and anyone that has ever rebuilt 00's of joints in a real, meaningful mechanical design knows the value of have true, parametric timeline awareness with every geometry.  If you are not building commercial products or working across a team this may seem tolerable but having done this, I can tell you that creating a real binding between a sketch in a mechanical timeline and a boardshape in 2D PCB, and having spline curves that behave as spline curves and not approximations that fail to be editable...this is important to me.  As you start to explore the tools, Id expect you'll find this to be the case too.

WRT desktop eagle, killing the bird is not particularly useful (I was more about Excite Bike than Duck Hunt...long-time fan of modding, sorry) and the SW you have will continue to run from the new entitlement.  What we had done was to migrate your license to a Fusion license in a way that is transparent so that all EAGLE licenses (purchased from Autodesk) that are valid continue to enable EAGLE and will enable Fusion 360 as well.  The only exception will be free where there was only a login, and you will have to register for the Fusion Hobbyist Version however that will enable EAGLE free as well.

Hope that clarifies and if you have questions or concerns, Im happy to try and answer things I can!

Best regards

Matt Berggren
Director - Autodesk
Fusion360, Electronics, EAGLE, Tinkercad

[Cerebus]

I just want to take the high road here and at the risk of feeding the trolls, ensure I clarify a few important questions that are coming from people's genuine uncertainty or concern...

You might want to start from a different place than straight out insulting your critics and customers who have doubts on where you're going. It's exactly that kind of tone that gains Autocad a reputation for arrogance. People have concerns about whether they are being listened to and products being shaped so they they serve customers, or whether the products are being shaped merely to maximise customer lock-in and revenues.

Also there are concerns about whether any promises made will be kept as they conspicuously haven't been in the past - i.e. the whole "It isn't going subscription only" thing and then within 6 months it does.

If I were to follow your example in 'how not to phase things' this former statement would include something like: ".. at the risk of engaging with proven liars...". See, how do you like being talked to like that?

...knows the value of have true, parametric timeline awareness with every geometry.

...creating a real binding between a sketch in a mechanical timeline and a boardshape in 2D PCB...

You might also want to try using English instead of a mix of technobabble and marketingese.

[Jeroen3]

Let's start with that I have first seen Autodesk Eagle today at work. My coworker showed it because he got the january update.
And it looks like you got some decent work done to get from an outdated but reliable application to something modern with more features.

Firstly, we have gone to great lengths to ensure that the EAGLE XML files are actually still accessible however with any application that stores versions of files / data anywhere other than your desktop, we zip them.  The FBRD, FSCH, FLBR files that fusion uses internally and which can be saved locally are zip files (raw eagle XML files can be exported to your desktop using the File->Export command).

Ah cool. One of the main benefits isn't specifically now, although it does work nice with git, but in the future when porting to other applications due to unforseen events.

UPs still work in the new environment. 
...
What's more, Fusion uses Python for scripting and I can only say that it would be, in my view, a "miss" if at some point we didnt create python bindings for all of this.

Well, that is an understandable path forward. Python is amazing for those duct tape and hotglue projects.

If only you could understand the sacrifice you ask people to make to get into a (lifetime) subscription to a tool. It is difficult to convince anyone to go from the older but infinite license model to a subscription. We have to do minor updates on board files 20 years old. Yes, products in some industries actually are in production for that long!
Maybe we're odd. But I cannot convince anyone to upgrade our software to any newer thing due to this unpredictable license fee a year problem.
Do you offer 10 year contracts?

...knows the value of have true, parametric timeline awareness with every geometry.

...creating a real binding between a sketch in a mechanical timeline and a boardshape in 2D PCB...

You might also want to try using English instead of a mix of technobabble and marketingese.

You are not aware of the capabilities of the sketches and timeline in Fusion 360?

[Cerebus]

...knows the value of have true, parametric timeline awareness with every geometry.

...creating a real binding between a sketch in a mechanical timeline and a boardshape in 2D PCB...

You might also want to try using English instead of a mix of technobabble and marketingese.

You are not aware of the capabilities of the sketches and timeline in Fusion 360?

It's bad enough having to try to decode a 63 word run-on sentence. Requiring an audience of Eagle users to also have to understand Fusion 360 terminology before they can comprehend it borders on deliberate cruelty (to both readers and the English language).

[macegr]

What @macegr said doesnt accurately represent the opinions or views of Autodesk or our (read: my) overall product strategy or vision.  I just want to take the high road here and at the risk of feeding the trolls, ensure I clarify a few important questions that are coming from people's genuine uncertainty or concern...And @macegr I welcome your feedback anytime.  I just dont want to tip this in the direction of opinions == fact.

To be frank, the things you've said don't accurately represent Autodesk's overall product strategy or vision either. That's not an opinion or trolling, it's observable and factual.

I'd like to get a straight answer about Linux support in the future. Will there be a professional, paid version of Eagle available on Linux a year from now? Five years?

[IanJ]

Hi,

I opened one of my Eagle Pcb designs in Fusion 360 (schematic & Pcb) and got the new ribbons etc.........I presume thats the January 2020 update.

In Eagle, if I DELETE a Pcb trace it resorts back to ratsnest. I can then re-lay that track. In Fusion 360 it deletes the trace ok, but no ratsnest, it's gone........so you HAVE to use the rip up tool.
In Fusion360 you have disabled CTRL-Z to undo, so you HAVE to use the UNDO button on the toolbar.
The GUI is quite slow, i.e. moving a dense Pcb around the screen (i7 8700K, 32gb ram, SSD).
I had two 5 minute sessions with Fusion360 Pcb editor and managed to crash the program both times.

If that's it, then it's not ready for prime time.......

Ian.

[KC0PPH]

Fusion 360 Plus Eagle Standard $100 USD annual price. Was told it would not go up in the future. Not sure if i can share this but i already took advantage of it so have at it.

https://store.autodesk.com/store?Action=DisplayPage&Env=BASE&Locale=en_US&SiteID=adskeren&id=QuickBuyCartPage

[H.O]

Was told it would not go up in the future.

I would not take their word on that - we were all told they had no intenetion to make it subscription based and look what happened.

[beanflying]

Fusion 360 Plus Eagle Standard $100 USD annual price. Was told it would not go up in the future. Not sure if i can share this but i already took advantage of it so have at it.

https://store.autodesk.com/store?Action=DisplayPage&Env=BASE&Locale=en_US&SiteID=adskeren&id=QuickBuyCartPage

As per the other thread you posted in this is not the case for all and NFW would I pay anyone $100 on the basis of your link alone !

Might be nice for those of you in the USA but here in Oz $590 (circa $400USD) is the going rate for the package. I will stick to my FREE sub $100k USD turnover version of Fusion.

Had a quick play with it last night over here too. https://www.eevblog.com/forum/eda/fusion-360-just-added-eagle-inside-it!-thoughts/msg2885728/#msg2885728

[MarkL]

...
Hope that clarifies and if you have questions or concerns, Im happy to try and answer things I can!

Best regards

Matt Berggren
Director - Autodesk
Fusion360, Electronics, EAGLE, Tinkercad

Matt: We still have not heard Autodesks's position on continuing Linux support for Eagle.  What is the roadmap.

[rx8pilot]

The current rollout in F360 is not even remotely close to ready. Thanks but no thanks, I am not going to be an Alpha tester.

I have so many mixed feelings about rolling up all the software that contributes to my living into a cloud based, no-roadmap, constantly changing solution. Overall, it seems to be going in a productive direction, but we now have no control over our data and no way to predict what will be happening in the future.

[latigid on]

I'm tempted to give it a go at the discounted price, unless someone can recommend a free or perpetually licensed MCAD package with similar capability?

[rx8pilot]

I'm tempted to give it a go at the discounted price, unless someone can recommend a free or perpetually licensed MCAD package with similar capability?

For the price, nothing is even remotely close in aggregate capabilities. Everytime I am tempted to complain about something, I think about the cost relative to Solidworks Premium, 3rd Party rendering, Altium Designer, and Mastercam which add up to about $35,000 plus $4,000/annual maintenance.

I use F360 to design and machine aerospace parts on 7 axis mill turn and 5 axis milling machines in addition to the EE design and integration that I have been doing with Eagle. Perfect? Nope. High value? Yep.

[Cerebus]

I'm tempted to give it a go at the discounted price, unless someone can recommend a free or perpetually licensed MCAD package with similar capability?

Please remember that the issue in this thread is Eagle in Autocad's hands, not Fusion 360 as a whole.

[SK_Caterpilar_SK]

I am a 17 year old student and since I have not spent any money at the program (students program thingy) I may have no right to say anything but still here is my opinion:

When I was first introduced to PCB design at all when I was 10 eagle caught my attention. Probably because it was the best I could get at the time being. I like the features and all, and as years went on I stuck to Eagle. After autodesk had their fun with eagle and added some nice miniscule features it was more fluent to use and the UI itself became way more intuitive than the old garbage so that was a legit improvement in my view (personal opinion).

It is not flawless tho and seeing how things are going is rather depressing. I think we all just want a piece of software that we can buy and done, use it as much as we want to. After all PCB design people dont really care about the mechanical design stuff and fusing the whole thing with Fusion is pointless. You can give us the option but dont force us. The conversion from PCB to Fusion is horrible because 9 times outta 10 you have to use the part that has no 3D package anyways and then you give the call to the mechanical design department to design an eclosure based on simple dimensions in X Y Z maybe with a sketch and thats all you need. (Oh and BTW we dont talk about autorouters, ever)

It would be also nice to see something new built from the ground up. Improving software that is already way too old fashioned wont really be appealing. No matter how thick the paint is the engine under the bonet is the same. Even tho I am stuck with eagle because simply I have been using it for too long I would like a change in a different better experience of doing my hobby and hopefully future job with more ease and comfort. After all eagle was meant to do one thing: design PCBs. No more. Force fusing it with Fusion wont make the ground-breaking difference, not feature wise neither cost wise. Just make something new and more interesting to look into (something that will work not something that something that already sort of works /cough-eagle-coughcough/) but I doubt Autodesk would be the one.
(this is all personal opinion, I dont really understand bussiness strategies.)
(apologies if I completely missed the point here. If nobody likes this post Ill make it disappear. Also I am not native speaking, sorry for the grammar)

[ehughes]

Told ya' so!

[johnboxall]

Even tho I am stuck with eagle because simply I have been using it for too long

You're not stuck. Download KiCAD, Diptrace, etc., and dedicate a day or so over the next few months on each one. You will soon find a decent alternative that you can work with.

[rx8pilot]

I spent more time going through Fusion360 Electronics and continue to be disappointed.

1. The initial release is beta, if I am being generous. Autodesk response is effectively "Calm down, this is the initial release"

2. The implementation is largely regular Eagle running inside an F360 window. But without key features like keyboard shortcuts and other key features hidden or obfuscated.

3. The Eagle cloud based library management system (library.io) is not compatible with F360. You can import a library, but you cannot push it back to standalone Eagle.

4. To import an existing project into F360, I have to create a new empty project and then sync a separate schematic and separate board file to that empty project file. So, you end up with 3 files that need to be opened for a single project. Just like standalone Eagle - if you open a Schematic or Board file alone - you are likely to damage the sync between them. This is among the most baffling concept in Eagle that has apparently become even more baffling in Fusion360.

It appears that Autodesk is posturing to eliminate Eagle sooner rather than later - which has me very nervous. They will not address that particular concern in a meaningful way. At the moment Eagle still works and appears to be capable to pushing to F360 - but Autodesk has the ability to flip the switch at any moment. On the customer side, it feels like I have a gun pointed at me.

Perhaps over time, Autodesk will shed some of the silly Eagle legacy ankle shackles - but this initial rollout is not promising at all. It is all the same dumb things I have painfully learned to workaround along with another round of dumb things layered on top.

[alexwhittemore]

2. The implementation is largely regular Eagle running inside an F360 window. But without key features like keyboard shortcuts and other key features hidden or obfuscated.

I was literally just having a conversation with a friend about how utterly useless and dumb Eagle's default keyboard shortcuts are, compared to basically any other package (certainly KiCad and Altium). But the "regular eagle running inside F360" I tend to agree with. A few things are noticeably better - the button UI is an improvement (I think) and the 3D<>PCB interaction is WILDLY faster and more useful. The thing that most annoys me is that both the schematic and PCB windows still render like crusty garbage on high res displays. Can't wait for a new rendering engine.

3. The Eagle cloud based library management system (library.io) is not compatible with F360. You can import a library, but you cannot push it back to standalone Eagle.

I'm not quite sure what you mean here. I've been using managed libraries for a couple designs now (since it was the only way to get 3D models), and all the managed libraries I use in standalone eagle are right there in Fusion360 already, exactly as I expected. If for some reason you want to export managed>unmanaged, I know you can from the standalone library editor in Eagle. Not sure if Fusion360 or library.io on the web have interfaces to export, but you can certainly make an unmanaged copy with Eagle standalone. Now, I have no intention of doing so, now that data management/permissions/sharing is sane and workable on a team. It was much more requisite on the last project when I had to "hand over" the finished goods to the client, but not my Autodesk account password.

4. To import an existing project into F360, I have to create a new empty project and then sync a separate schematic and separate board file to that empty project file. So, you end up with 3 files that need to be opened for a single project. Just like standalone Eagle - if you open a Schematic or Board file alone - you are likely to damage the sync between them. This is among the most baffling concept in Eagle that has apparently become even more baffling in Fusion360.

I haven't personally tried it, but my buddy when we were playing on the phone just now didn't seem to run into anything odd here - pretty sure he just uploaded his .pcb and .sch and opened them right up.

[rx8pilot]

I was literally just having a conversation with a friend about how utterly useless and dumb Eagle's default keyboard shortcuts are, compared to basically any other package (certainly KiCad and Altium).

I don't use the defaults - I have mapped my own and created various SCR and ULP's that give me the functionality I wanted. Fusion 360 does not support those keyboard bindings yet. Cuts my speed in half since I need to mouse around and click through menus.

I'm not quite sure what you mean here. I've been using managed libraries for a couple designs now ......

Fusion 360 can download managed libraries but it CANNOT push them back. As soon as a library is in Fusion 360, the edits and additions cannot be pushed back to libraryIO system for use in Eagle.
This means the the two parallel systems cannot interact with each other - it's one or the other in a practical sense.

I haven't personally tried it, but my buddy when we were playing on the phone just now didn't seem to run into anything odd here - pretty sure he just uploaded his .pcb and .sch and opened them right up.

Yes - you can simply open an SCH or BRD file, no problem. The problem is that those files are not linked anymore. You have to jump through hoops to keep the files linked.
Considering that all projects need to have the schematic data robustly linked to the PCB layout data - there should never be two files and there should be nothing the user can do to disrupt the consistency of the data used in schematics and PCB layout. In F360 - we now have 3 files per project. 1 file to hold the other two files. Messing with any one of them individually will damage your project. Is this 1988 again?

[rx8pilot]

My disappointment with the Autodesk Eagle team continues to grow.

I am just baffled at how they are going about this transition to the Fusion 360 platform which is haphazard if I am being generous. The bigger problem is the outward facing people are either silent or elusive when asked direct questions. When I asked why it is so difficult to import an existing Eagle project into Fusion - the response was effectively "We don't really care about that.....this is the new era".

I have dozens of active projects comprised of about 40 PCB designs, but Autodesk thinks it is ok to create a convoluted process to migration. It is literally easier to migrate an Eagle project to Altium Designer than it is to Fusion 360. 

What?