Fusion as a useful tool?

[bobgaggle]

I downloaded the free version of Fusion to mess around and see if its useful. I find we're often making little steel widgets with hinges and hooks and magnets and fusion seemed like a good application for making little bits like this. I know this and Inventor are all parametric modelling, so there's a learning curve when coming over from AutoCAD, but it seems like if you know AutoCAD, there's not much benefit to switching over, even for the little doodads that are very helpful to look at in 3d. IMO if they put the HOLE command into AutoCAD, the program will do just about everything. Its a huge application and is a little clunky, but it does almost whatever you want it to. Whats the benefit of these other programs? (other than the cost...)

 

[CrazyTechie]

Fusion 360 is very popular among the 3D printing community. The great thing about parametric modeling is, if you do it right, it makes design iterations really easy. Basically, it's all about referencing the various steps of creating your part on the previous steps you've done. That way if you decide your part is a little to big, you can go back to where you gave the initial dimensions and modify them which will then update everything that referenced the original dimensions.

I'll see if I can explain this well enough through text... If you create a rectangle that is 100mm x 50mm and then place a circle in a corner that is 10mm away from both sides of a corner, Fusion will remember that the placement of the circle is based on the outside edges of your rectangle. You can then go backwards at anytime to where you dimensioned the rectangle and change it. You could make it 50mm x 50mm and Fusion will be sure to keep that circle 10mm away from the two edges you initially referenced it's location off of.

You can also use variable names as dimensions and then change the value the variable is and Fusion will auto-update everything that references that variable. So, let's say that you build a part that wraps around a 2x4. You can create two variables, say boardWidth and boardHeight and set them to their respective values. Then you can say that your part's height is the value of boardHeight. Later you decide that you really want this part to wrap around a 2x6. Instead of redrawing everything you can just modify boardHeight to be 6" and then Fusion will automagically redraw the part for you at that new dimension.

As far as the cost, Fusion is only free for home (hobbyist) and educational use. If you're using it commercially you're supposed to purchase a license, but I think it's not terribly priced (as far as Autodesk products go).

 

[Michael K]

All of what CrazyTechie said is sport on and much better then what I could say, the only minor detail I'd like to adjust is that fusion is free for small business and startups under 100k total revenue (in addition to hobbyists).

Also worth noting is that parametric CAD usually spit out various types of solid bodied model formats required for 3D printing, CNC, and other manufacturing processes. While other types of modeling software can also produce the right file formats, it common for them to leave defects, which may be unnoticeable in when rendered, that can cause the machine programs do some strange things to your model.