BEST PRACTICE: How to Loft

Tips and Tricks - Lofting
Lately there have been a few questions on the forums about lofting. How do you set them up? In what order do you click? Etc. I’ve also had a number of you ask me 1 on 1 too. I decided to make this week’s tip and tricks video a bit more in depth and focus on creating lofts to build some relatable examples. Lofting is a CAD term used to describe the creation of 3D shapes by using profiles, guide lines and rails. They are very commonly used in organically shaped parts that need to be precisely machined. Common examples that use lofts include: orthopedic implants, castings, airfoils and plastic enclosures. Fusion 360 has always had good lofting tools but the attention paid to them in the past perhaps played second fiddle to our sculpting tools. This wasn’t so much because they weren’t capable, but more so because our sculpting tools were so widely loved and adopted.
Lately there have been a few questions on the forums about lofting. How do you set them up? In what order do you click? Etc. This week’s tip and tricks video focuses on creating lofts by building a few relatable examples. In the video I show how to create a whiskey bottle, a ring, and a tent. Using the procedures shown in the video I hope you’ll be able to further your understanding of Fusion 360’s capabilities and add yet another tool into your tool chest to create your designs.
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[@rachelschutt2964]

Nice job, Mike! Linking sketches to planes is brilliant! Thanks for going over that!

[@jhanevich455]

I like your teaching style-- very well prepared, builds logic as you go to progressively more difficult stuff, & good tempo. Thanks for the tutorial.

[@adskFusion]

Thanks for the kind words!

[@pigeonfarmboy]

This is exactly what I needed to "unlock" the ideas I was trying to draw! Thanks!

[@adskFusion]

It's hard to know what you don't know...wish KZbin let you search by shape! Ha!

[@fernandoprieto1340]

The style and pace of this video is right on spot. The voice over is refreshing, fast and clear. Just one comment, I didn't quite get the constraints on the ring sketch, you went too fast and assumed we knew what you where doing. >Thanks

[@SamChaneyProductions]

Awesome content. I love the idea of using a single sketch to define all of the planes for the loft sketches! I would have just used parameters but the sketch gives you a much better visual representation and I could still use parameters within the master skeleton sketch.

[@bengttorstensson4386]

Hei, great video. Very educational. It's my 5th day using Fusion 360 (or any other for that matter) and already learned a ton of things thanks to you guys. Thanks!

[@rwz]

oh my god, i really should just watch all videos before doing anything, that is amazing!

[@jameskayten6563]

I found this very useful and well-paced. Thanks very much and I hope I can find more of your help.

Thanks! I learned a lot from this that will help me with streamlining my projects! 5/5 Easy to follow and informative!

[@waterfordrs22]

Very well thought out video. well done. It's just a matter of watching it a few times and working through the concepts, but that video really covers a lot of bases with ease. Thank you.

[@adskFusion]

Thanks for watching!

[@gower1973]

This video needs updating for the current version of fusion, The dialog box for loft looks nothing like this now, There is no option for the tangent, also how where the guide rails constructed for the tent, I could follow eveyything up to this point

[@russtuff]

Nice work, Mike. Very useful.

[@notam42]

Excellent video - now I finally understand how to use this powerful feature.

[@adskFusion]

That's the goal of any and all of our videos! Thanks for taking the time to let us know.

[@adskFusion]

Thanks sir. Glad it was helpful.

[@holdendp]

Super useful tutorial. Thanks!

[@WorldOfWoodcraft]

This is exactly what i was wanting to know how to do. thank you, you have just saved me a lot of time. :)

[@adskFusion]

Bennex: "at 19:07 after merging the faces, the down part of the ring is not tangent anymore. How come? and how to avoid?" I think the that edge is just "creased" Double click on the edge and select "uncrease" and it should look normal again (smooth and more inline with the initial profile). Try that.

[@davefribush5992]

Thanks! Agree that this needs to be updated with the latest version of Fusion, which has a very different interface on the loft command.

[@originalmianos]

Super useful. Thanks for this.

[@erikj7]

Great tutorial! Really helpful :)

[@LatteAl]

Just stumbled upon this, super helpful thank you!

[@TherapyFUNd]

good vid! It was still a bit speedy for me. could you maybe make a series of videos to cover each example from start to finish. I am more shaky on the preliminary sketching and constraints. Thanks! Mary

[@WanderlustWithT]

Awesome tips!

[@robajohnson]

That was extremly useful.Also it is good to see somone else has to wait awhile for things to happen! I just thought my computer sucks. If it does your sucks too! ;)

[@Acoustic_Theory]

My experience with lofting in Fusion 360 is that it is not as intuitive or flexible as lofting in SolidWorks, but on the other hand I can use Fusion 360 for free, and I can only use SolidWorks at work, or at home if I want to risk having to buy a full-price seat at some unknown point in the future when DS's lawyers get wind. SolidWorks remains the gold standard, but I need to come up with 4 grand before I can buy it. F360 is the winner by default for now.

[@immersedn3dllc715]

Amazing! Very helpful tutorial. Thank you!!

[@scratchinjack608]

Boy, you created those objects fast! Your prowess is amazing! So...who is your You Tube audience? Certainly not for beginners.

[@adskFusion]

We have videos for all skill levels, sorry this particular lesson was too fast. See here for more beginners lessons: f360ap.autodesk.com/courses

[@codyabel4766]

really fantastic thank you

[@majdiqubabi]

very nice thx

[@BradleyBegent]

Really useful vid👍🏼

[@jasonyingling7805]

Is there a way to adjust you loft construction properties after your body has been created? I am trying to add a sketch to the loft after the loft was already created. Thank you.

[@mavigogun]

During the ring demo, while creating the bottom circle sketch loft profile, it was said "I want this guy to update well, I'm going to give this guy just a- call it a construction line -so that when it updates it will stay on top of this guy instead of going back below it." Could you clarify what is meant by "stay on top instead of going back below", and how the presence of the construction line achieves this?

[@juancarlossantilli6462]

At 11:00 how do you created the rails?? Thanks

[@RichardLourette]

When creating the planes for the bottle that are tied to the line segments in the "master" sketch, how do the planes stay with the line segments when the sketch line segments are moved? Look at 4:53. How to get the plane to move with the line segment?

[@ofiasdfnosdf]

I split the body to apply a different colored glass to the bottom half - to make it look like it has liquid in it. Your's seems to have a more realistic 'thickness' to the glass. How did you do that?

[@ishit95]

In the end , you welded the vertices. Even after that, you were able to change the shape. How to constraint the entire body in case of sculpting tool ,so that no change is possible?

[@bennex]

Hi, thanks for the video, very useful. But one question at 19:07 after merging the faces, the down part of the ring is not tangent anymore. How come? and how to avoid? Thanks! Ben

[@gptech2444]

Thanks Mike.

[@markgraves2216]

I'm trying to follow this step by step, but I'm having a problem when setting the midpoint of the rectangle. When I select the bottom line of the rectangle, then Midpoint from the palette, all is good until the click the small circle that indicate the intersect point on the top of the path. Rather than the rectangle fixing itself to than point, it stretches all the way down to the bottom of the path. Not sure what to do to make it stay at the top of the path.

[@kensdc]

Hi, in the whisky bottle sketch, when I clicked on profile at an angle, & selected a line I drew just like you did, the whole thing disappears, even the Home/View box at the top right corner of the screen; nothing brings it back, even if I did Undo. After that happens, it never shows anything in the screen (i.e., if I say New Sketch, it doesn't give me the origin planes anymore, even if it has the lightbulb on), so I have to close that Design tab & open a new window. It's like the whole program gets ruined after that happens, could it be performance bug issue?

[@kensdc]

Actually, you can always reopen the design if you saved it, or if there's a recovery backup, but still that shouldn't happen in th first place.

[@nicktrutman2760]

I used your work flow in this video to try and loft around an ellipse with no success. Does this only for with circles?

[@swamihuman9395]

Great. Thx.

[@adskFusion]

Lofts are can be challenging. Hope this helped!

[@michaelatencio9166]

MIke, I'm brand new so forgive me for silly questions. How do you create the square and circular profiles to get loft to work? I added offest plans on the x plane but I'm guessing I'm failing miserably. Thanks

[@douglaspettersson2624]

same problem

[@teknicron1080]

When you start the loft, it asks for the profiles or faces to link. You click on the beginning shape, then the ending shape, then it'll link them together.

[@edman2740]

Could anyone help me out, I've tried this but it sends the message error that "one or more rails intersect the profile more than once" please help

[@sharukh0369]

how to link those planes to sketch to modify the shape by moving the planes up and down.how to link plz rply.

[@SiD14091992]

Im too facing the same difficulty. Pls help us to sort it out I'm pretty new to F360

[@SiD14091992]

@Mohammed Just figured out. It works now disabling the timeline actually caused the issue for me, after reenabling the issue is sorted out.

[@nikolacosic993]

Nice and very useful video. I am currently looking for a way to twist a lofted body but from what I have seen there isn't a twist command. I found some useful tutorials on youtube where people just rotate one of the profiles and get a twisted body but that doesn't work for me. When I select profiles in the loft feature it says they are connected (G0), and there is also tangent (G1) and curvature (G2) available. In the tutorials where it works it says the profile is free. Could you tell me how to change it to that? Thanks in advance.

[@adskFusion]

So there IS a twist option in a sweep, but if you have a changing profile that's not going to work. I was testing creating a loft in the manner you mentioned, and struggled a little bit at first, but not because something was wrong...because I was selecting the wrong thing! Annoying. Try to select the profile, vs the sketch edge and let me know if it works better. If its not previewing, it might just be related to an overly aggressive amount of twist. Per the terminology used, I think the only reason you're seeing a difference is because it was changed a little while back to be more consistent between sketching, sculpting, and lofting. Hope that helps! If not, we'll see about getting a copy of your file to see if we can troubleshoot it.

[@nikolacosic993]

The twisting option in sweep fixed my problem since the profile doesn't change in my case. kzbin.info/www/bejne/a6m3Y4t6fL6DidU This is the video I was following when trying to get the twisted body so I tried with normal extrusion and lofting and whatever I selected it didn't let me twist it like I wanted to. There was always atleast one fixed point even after deleteing all the coincidents so I struggled with it. It would be nice if there were separate twisting and bending commands like in SolidWorks that work on any type of body and not just like an option under the sweep command. Thanks for your help :)

[@ggeerrsskk]

Hi =) great Tutorial! Is there an extra Tutorial or Video out there where the Ring is created? Would love to model that =D

[@adskFusion]

We have this...but its REAL old: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fnzVqq17oJydd5Y

[@ggeerrsskk]

@@adskFusion Thanks for the info! Any chance you have the ring model itself?

[@teknicron1080]

Ok, I'm having an issue trying to 3D print a lofted object. It's being treated as hollow. How do I get the program to make it solid (like an extrusion)?

[@teknicron1080]

I found the problem. I was using sculpt loft and not the standard drawing loft. Problem fixed. Sculpt loft makes it a hollow object.

[@fernandoprieto1340]

If you want to print a sculpted object you need to give it a thickness or a shell

[@teknicron1080]

Yeah, I was trying to do that in sculpt only, but it kept failing. Found I had to do it in standard 3D modeling. Thanks for the help though,

[@21area21]

What you're doing at 12:10 where you're using multiple centerlines doesn't work with version 2.0.5350. I don't know if I'm doing anything wrong, but I have all the same settings as you and same geometry.

[@adskFusion]

Does it give you an error? Can you share with our support team via our forum? We need to get some more eyes on this if that's true! forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-design-validate/bd-p/124

[@21area21]

@@adskFusion gotcha. I'll check on it when I get home.

[@서정훈-f8y]

고마워 좋은 공부가 되었다

[@adskFusion]

천만에요!

[@sw1tch013]

how do you loft and make the object like hollow

[@adskFusion]

For that I would do a surface loft and thicken. I THOUGHT we had an option in solid loft to do this, but I seem to be mistaken. Also, you could do a solid loft and shell as an alternative.

[@sw1tch013]

@@adskFusion oh ok thank you im new to 3d printing and im learning it in school so i thought there was was an option for hollow lofting but thank you for the shelling feature thing

[@chrissekely]

"I've got myself a nice looking, sculpted body." :-)

[@ioanaimd_at4]

can you do the same in Revit?

[@adskFusion]

Probably. BUT, if you're making a bottle Fusion 360 is a MUCH better tool.

[@mutasemCarD]

9:51 updating the radius does NOT WORK WITH ME. What have I done wrong? The circle changes on its own and the loft remains the same size.

[@mutasemCarD]

plus, I can no longer add filets to an unextruded sketch. ! How can I solve this?

[@mutasemCarD]

I have a newer ver. of Fusion 360

[@fernandoprieto1340]

You need to give a link to a video or send some jpegs, otherwise it's impossible to know what your problem is

[@fernandoprieto1340]

Try uploading your question on fusion 360 community forum add if you know how to a screencast video and send me a link here

[@raulp.becerra3878]

AJA..... SURELY YOU ARE THE BLENDER´S GURU.... RIGHT??

[@raulp.becerra3878]

THANKS FOR ALL.... THANK TO YOU I CAN MAKE A TRAIN SIMULATION, BUT I LIKE TO LEARN HOW I CAN DO A MOVIE IN BLENER..... CAN YOU HELP ME.

[@venko3211]

How to loft the text sir

[@adskFusion]

Loft text? But why? Check this, it might help: knowledge.autodesk.com/support/fusion-360/learn-explore/caas/screencast/Main/Details/85afc59e-b656-4b25-92c8-8ebf64751f13.html

[@kakavdedatakavunuk8516]

This is relatively simple loft, and it works. My experience with more complex lofting in Fusion is terrible. I lost 3 days trying to loft some cylindrical objects with rails, and it didn't work. At the end I read that it is flaw in program. So if You can, better avoid lofting, or avoid Fusion as a CAD-CAM software for complex and precision work.

[@LiveMusicOntario]

This was too far along the learning curve for me. Is there a lesson that comes before this one? I need to learn to place a series of profile sketches at specific Z distances from each other. Vertically like the bottle example is fine. One difficulty is that the profiles I have are not symmetrical. They don't stack with a common center point because the part I'm reproducing has different curves on the "left" and "right" edges as it grows along the Z axis. And the rotation about the Z axis changes too because the part was a subtle twist as it progresses.

[@maksturk763]

Update. Please.

[@adskFusion]

Update? For UI? Content? Not sure what you're referring to. Most of whats shown here should still work. Changes made to this command will only act to supplement with new abilities.

[@TomEVP]

not my favorite f360 evangelist, please be less verbose, clearer, explain more and be less jittery with your mouse.

[@adskFusion]

Thanks for the feedback, Tom!

[@janeromnicki6598]

Thousands of lifetime projects with woodglut plans.