Dabbling in Fusion 360

Hi Andy, creating files for 3D printing purely in SketchUp (the free 'Make 2017') has for me rarely created hollow, or rather incomplete files that cannot be printed, often it can occur if it gets confused during an edit around where a 3rd party plug-in had created curves, bevels etc, in which case the issue can be fairly quickly homed in on and fixed.

However trying to import an STL file into SketchUp has rarely been successful, SU takes a long time to digest and process an imported STL and generally results in an almost impenetrable mesh of triangles, sometimes only the slicer has repaired it properly.

To find a missing triangular surface in such a mesh can be almost impossible so you will end up with a 'hollow' due to an incomplete outer surface.

Downloading 3rd party STL files from online imto SU is almost pointless, it is a universal format to present to a slicer which I think creators also use to impede unauthorised replication, development and selling of design variants.

Having just started to try F360 (free) for surface height mapping I find that although F360 can export in SketchUp format the files are somehow incomplete as although SU will open them directly they are are not quite displayed right in the editor, however if they are imported into SU all is good.

It sounds a though F360 is more able to import an STL file, however free F360 does, as you already know have significant restrictions, but at this time if I can achieve the height mapping I want then I will just use it for that.

Once the concept of modelling directly in 3D with SU was lodged in my brain it has prooved to be a very quick way of producing 3D models to the dimensions I want, F360 makes it hard work IMO to do the same, but let's face it these tools are made for much more complex industrial products built by teams and followed up by dynamic modeling and CAM.

Jim

 

Hi Paul, I tend to replicate this in two stages with my CAD modelling approach.

1) adding a suffix like step1, 2 etc with 'save as'
2) frequent backups of the working directory into .zip files which are moved to a USB stick, safer than leaving them on a hard drive.

Yes, we have all been there, when a design breaks horribly that reverting is the quickest way out of the quicksand, I use this approach when developing software too.

Jim

 

Mossy, would exporting them back to your local machine as a download help?

 

Hi Paul I am finally making progress using the Image2Surface add-in with F360 having given up on Blender whose UI confuses the hell out of me.

Blender 2.79 on Windows 7 is just so disorganised IMO, Blender 4 on Win 11 is very much better, but still difficult to find an up to date tutorial or information online, the Blender documentation makes it feel like learning a human foreign language with only a dictionary to go by.

The only limitation I can see so far is that the add-in to F360 only works for flat surfaces, which admittaedly is all I need at this time whereas Blender can wrap the textured around multiple surfaces, trouble is my curiosity is aroused ...

Jim

 

Hi Andy

The F360 add-in Image2Surface adds printable textures to at least a flat surface, not sure if it can be applied anywhere as in Blender:-



Jim

 

Paul

Canvas logic noted, but that's what I assumed would be the case anyway equally active component visibility (which I didn't know about) noted.

Do you know if a sketch in the root can be used in the components? Alternately if a 'master sketch' could be copied into a component, then all but the required bits could be delete. I have tried copy sketches into other sketches without success. Any ideas.

What I did for the low arcs is I created a sketch with every body variation in a horizontal line for obvious reasons. Drew up the first body (the dgm 52A compo) and when happy saved it. It's a ^%$££ remembering which is which when there is so little difference, what would be great is the ability to label sections of a sketch. Copied the design as the dgm 53 and again as the dgm 104. All the stuff not needed was parked in a scrap folder and then stared creating the required bodies. The big problem with this approach is it carries all the parametric data across and with more data from the second build the design ends up huge with all the attendant problems that causes.

Mossy

 

Paul,

I have found a way to do what I wanted to do not a nice solution but very workable. When I first drew the low arc bodies, in a line I created as a single sketch, the dgm53 guards body and 2 5' l/2" third bodies (a middle and a right end) along with brake end and emergency stop ends. A right faff and a pain in the ....., but it ensured all the horizontal lines of the bodies were on the same parrel line so there was only the verticals to get consistent, I later added to it a 7' 4" middle First body and 3 x 6' 5 1/2" Third bodies (left, middle and right). With a bit of hindsight the 3 third bodies could easily have been a single panel. All these were used to create the various body panels, but it wouldn't be possible to use such a sketch on multiple components if stored under the root as they work like canvases. But if I store the project as a separate locked project, then use the 'insert derived' function to pull it into a component of a new project, breaking the link I should be able to edit it if necessary. It can then be imported into the next component, rinse and repeat for each component. Working like this I think all three coaches could easily be created in one project without all the ...... about. Slow to set up and care would be needed, as you found in your turntable project, but a bit of discipline wouldn't go amiss in my projects.

All t

 

Thanks prof, pounding my way through beginners tutorials at this time, the useful video I found on using Image2Surface was all very well until I tried to attach the created surface to a 'base', so back to basics to work that one out ...

Jim

 

Hi Rob, yes, understood from my software engineering background, proprietary format of high value tools are well protected, luckily I have found that importing a SketchUp file formatted by F360 works much better than opening directly with SU.

For 3D printing STL is still just a universal transport medium between a CAD tool and a slicer, trying to import it into a modelling tool is always going to be messy because even a simple cube will be divided up into triangles.

Apart from that STL is also used by creators to impede unauthorised modification and selling on of the designs they make available for download from public sites.

Jim