Getting Started#

This section takes you from nothing to a working Fusion setup. It covers getting Fusion from your Autodesk account, comparing personal-use, trial, education and paid access, touring the window and its workspaces, and setting preferences, units and navigation.

It also explains how Fusion stores your work: hubs, projects, the Data Panel, versions and milestones, Autodesk Drive and cloud collaboration. It is written for complete beginners, and for anyone setting up a new machine or joining a team hub.

Pages in this section#

1. Installing Fusion (beginner): Getting Fusion from your Autodesk account, joining a hub.
2. Licenses and Plans (beginner): Personal use, trial, education, and paid Fusion access compared.
3. User Interface Tour (beginner): A guided tour of the Fusion window: application bar.
4. ViewCube and Navigation (beginner): Orbit, pan, zoom, the ViewCube, the Navigation bar.
5. Preferences (beginner): A tour of the Fusion Preferences dialog: General.
6. Units and Document Settings (beginner): How units work in Fusion: document units, default units in Preferences.
7. Data Panel Basics (beginner): Use the Data Panel to browse hubs, projects.
8. Hubs and Projects (beginner): How hubs, projects, folders, and members are organized in Fusion.
9. Versioning and Milestones (beginner): How Fusion records changes and versions, how to create versions.
10. Cloud Collaboration (intermediate): Work with others in Fusion: Design Reservation, avatars and badges.
11. Autodesk Drive (beginner): How Autodesk Drive relates to your Fusion hub.
12. Workspaces Overview (beginner): A map of Fusion's workspaces (Design, Render, Animation.

Before you start#

Fusion has been called "Fusion 360" and "Autodesk Fusion"; the guide says "Fusion". The web client is not included with personal-use or trial versions. If you have not used Fusion for a while, your projects may be "legacy" projects, and Autodesk has a support article on upgrading them to folder-level projects. If you upload a design made outside Fusion and want its file references kept, Autodesk recommends Autodesk Desktop Connector on a Windows device.

Confirmed vs not confirmed#

Not confirmed in Autodesk's documentation, and so not quoted: system requirements, update timing, the personal-use revenue limit and term, Autodesk Drive's storage and sharing details, hub quotas, behavior when two people save the same design without Design Reservation, and several ViewCube and Preferences options.