Lets talk balloons. Who doesn’t like a balloon? Balloons mean “party time!” Balloons can be folded into different animals! They can— oh, OH, balloons. As in drawing callouts. Of course.

Anyway, Bommer’s drawing integration is pretty great but it’s always had one big gap: the balloons that Fusion generates for your parts don’t always line up with the data in your Bommer tables. Well, have I got some good news for you. Bommer now supports custom balloons with Bommer data, so your 2D drawing callouts will now always match your Bommer tables.

And, we didn’t just stop at item numbers or part names. Have you ever wanted to make a callout with description, or finish, or a stock number? Well now you can! Bommer has responded to some frankly overwhelming user requests by adding in the ability to create balloons for any property and row in the Bommer BOM. Once again for the folks in the back: any property (yes, including that one you’re thinking about now), for any row. Your Autodesk Fusion drawings just got a lot more powerful, and that’s not a load of hot air. Read on to learn more.

What are balloons in Fusion drawings?

In Fusion drawings (as in most technical drawings), balloons are visual elements used to identify and label specific components or features on the drawing sheet. They typically appear as circles or ovals with a leader line pointing to the referenced item. Historically, these balloons were limited to the number identifiers that were assigned by Fusion; this limitation, for many users, is more than a little deflating.

What did Bommer bring to the party?

Well, if you're familiar with using our tables in the drawing space, you already know you can build custom parts lists to include any property Bommer manages for any row that is in your design. Up until now, however, we relied on the default balloon functionality provided by Fusion to identify components, with a mechanism within Bommer to manually record the balloon numbers for each row in the table.

With the latest Bommer update, we now have a better way. You can click a button inside a cell when editing a drawing table to add that value to a balloon that you then attach to a part. You can also access a new Add Balloons command that lets you add balloons without needing to first create a table. You can also add multiple balloons containing data from the same component, or mix and match components as you desire. The sky’s the limit.

You might wonder, "Doesn't this mean more data to edit whenever I make changes to the design?" Actually, it's quite the opposite! These balloons behave like the Bommer tables: they stay in sync with your data, even as your data updates. This means if your balloons include materials and instructions linked to the Bommer BOM, they will automatically update whenever you update your drawing. And yes, this includes your computed formula results, too.

This party sounds awesome. How do I get an invite?

The good news is the party is open to everyone: the new feature is now available in Bommer, so if you're already a Bommer user, update to the latest version to start exploring this feature!

For those new to Bommer, you can download it directly from the Fusion App Store or visit www.getbommer.com to see more of what we offer.

If you would like to talk to us directly or would like a hands on demo of what our BOM software can do for you, feel free to contact us and we would be happy to assist you in whatever way we can! For now, have an awesome day!