While it’s not quite up to the standard of more reverse engineering focused tools, there’s plenty to go at. There’s also a tool to help divide up that mesh into sensible portions by colouring each section and automatically finding changes of curvature (edges etc.), which assists with selection for further operations. Whether that’s smoothing out that mesh, repairing any holes or remeshing the geometry. Now you can not only set the unit but also automatically snap that geometry to the origin, correct the orientation and generally get it in the correct position for your task at hand.Īlongside this, the system includes a number of pretty well developed tools for repairing, remeshing and repurposing that data into a form that’s useful. This gets around Fusion 360’s insistence on assuming all non-unit specific geometry is held in centimetres. While the system allows you to view and upload data directly from the mobile app, a more useful method is to use the Insert/Mesh command. There’s the ability to upload data directly to the underlying A360 platform, then insert that geometry into your current product. To start, you can import the data in a number of ways. The Mesh workspace changes this and introduces tools that allow you to do more with those increasingly common forms. While Fusion 360 has always allowed you to import and display mesh forms (from OBJ or STL, for instance), the usefulness of that data hasn’t been much beyond pure display. In the last couple of monthly releases, Autodesk has been introducing a ‘Mesh’ workspace. Fusion 360 – Mesh repair and repurposing tools It’s also worth noting that the selection fi lters have been updated and it’s now possible to set not only specific filters (to help select edges, faces, bodies etc.), but also to define a priority during selection, which is particularly useful in more complex models. In more recent updates (and if you’ve not tried out the system for a while) you’ll notice that there’s been some core work done to make the cross body features more intuitive and controllable (you can now select which bodies an operation effects).
Both the Model and Patch workspaces allow you to work with both solid and surface geometry respectively. The prismatic modelling tools in Fusion 360 are pretty well advanced and have been for some time.
It’s also worth noting that the system, as you’d expect for a cloud-based system, stores a complete version history of your model, so you can step back to it if you get stuck. Of course, if you switch off history half way through a design, you’ll lose work to date and vice versa if you switch history on in a direct edit part, you’ll only capture operations after the switch. The good news is that your parts can be switched between the two.
Your choice between the two depends entirely on the type of job you’re working on and the results required.
Let’s look at the core modelling tools, namely, the ability to create both history and direct modelling based product definitions.įusion 360 has, in its current guise, included the ability to model with both a full history tracking switched on or to switch it off and go full direct editing. It had also embarked on expanding the system’s ability to work with referenced data and manage inter part or assembly model links. So where are we at with Fusion? The last time we looked at the system Autodesk had just introduced simulation tools and had started to introduce CAM functionality (predominately 2.5 and 3 axis operations). However, at present, this doesn’t really support the inclusion of non-critical partners - it’ll need more rigorous access controls over and above the Read/Write/View locks already in place.