Create Patterns in 3D, not 2D. Watch To Find Out Why | Autodesk Fusion

The pattern tool is available in both the solid 3D, and 2D sketching environments. This video explains the 3 reasons you should create your patterns in the 3D environment, instead of in your sketch. Our instructor, Ollie, explains how patterning in the solid environment will save you time, improve the performance of Fusion on your computer & enable improved design iteration, helping to optimize your designs and help you do your best work!
Want to learn more about how to use the Pattern tool? Check out our product documentation:
help.autodesk.com/view/fusion...
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CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
00:13 Options for creating patterns
00:54 Saving clicks & saving time by patterning in 3D
03:44 How patterning in 3D improves computer performance
05:03 Enabling improved design iteration through 3D patterns
07:58 Applying a Rule Fillet to a previous pattern
09:11 A 3D vs 2D summary
10:07 Thanks for watching!

[@danmenes3143]

Same with mirrors. Mirrors in sketches cause no end of problems, often breaking recalculation. Mirrors in 3D work much better.

[@ProductDesignOnline]

Glad to see more videos finally sharing this! 😀

[@Jajaho2]

Great one! Really needed this 2 months earlier, would have saved me so much work.

[@viliusr6974]

I've been using professionally f360 for over six years now. And with every update it seems like the f360 is going backwards. Five years ago I could make a block with a hundred patterned holes, add it to a large component assembly and have no issues. Now, doing the same, everything goes to the halt. Yes, nowadays f360 has more UI nice features, but performance wise it is going very backwards. Hence there are definitely changes in the background nobody is admitting, which never were an issue in the past. Surprisingly fusion tutorials more and more frequently adding "performance improvements" into their tutorials.

[@Te4mUp]

Yup. Fusion was never that great but with every update it just gets slower and buggier. No question about it.

[@stephengittins6116]

Great video, learned a little bit more. Everyday is a school day. Thanks and keep the video's coming. 🙂

[@adskFusion]

More to come!

[@adambergendorff2702]

Excellent explanation of why, with very clear applications.

[@rixward5475]

This video just hit me , i would often get lost in my timeline with all my 2D sketches & when id go back & make changes to them it would cause other problems in my timeline, coming from Autodesk inventor. but now knowing fusion is more set up for 3D ill now apply it . thanks for the information

[@saw2k720]

Solid* video, thank you. More videos on optimising workflow please, this was immediately helpful. * I see what I did.

[@ImolaS3]

So useful!! Thanks. I have spent ages modifying 2D patterned features ;(

[@musicbyerland]

Such a great video - I had to learn some of these concepts the hard way, and this is honestly the most useful fusion tutorial I have ever seen. Pay attention, fellow noobs!

[@adskFusion]

Glad it was helpful!

[@PiefacePete46]

Thanks for this one... I have changed my thinking! 😜 I tended to want my sketches to show all the features and dimensions, so this does require a shift at a fundamental level. It means less sketching time, and less cluttered sketches. That it also makes more efficient use of computing resources would not be apparent to an end user, but now I know, that's another plus. Keep 'em coming. 👍

[@adskFusion]

Glad it was helpful!

[@bwilliams1815]

Great tip!

[@RoboCNCnl]

very nice one.. !

[@rixward5475]

do you have any video tutorials about constraining new design features to a body or a component, when you go back in your timeline & make big dimension changes, it all changes with no glitches ( feature not locked or constrained to body/component) or yellow & red warnings everywhere? Its easy with 2D with constraints , but 3d?

[@paulbarton6659]

In 3D circular pattern mode, is it possible to have a Z axis parameter to allow a solid to be copied vertically while also rotating? Imagine the steps on a spiral staircase.

[@noahkatz9616]

@Autodesk Fusion At 5:00, can you elaborate on the difference between Optimized and Identical, and what you mean by "enables changes to go through" for Adjust?

[@adskFusion]

Hi noahkatz, absolutely, it's good to dive into this a bit more! The three options essentially compute the change in different ways so they all have slightly different capabilities. 1. Optimized is the fastest. It essentially just patterns the faces of the feature. But there are also a number of instances that it doesn't work. The feature faces have to all land on the same face, and there are some cases. The most common is patterning cuts around a cylinder which often doesn't work with the optimized types. 2. Identical is next fastest. This method makes a tool body from the features, patterns that tool body, then joins the results at the end. It can handle cases like the cutouts around a cylinder and will result in an exact replica of the original shape (no matter where it is patterned too) hence the name ... identical. 3. Adjust is the slowest. This method recomputes each instance of the feature almost as if it were a separate feature. This allows you to do things like pattern a feature with a To-Object extent type, and have each instance of the pattern could be a different extent length, eg if you are patterning across a shape that is not of uniform thickness. Hope this helps!

[@nlkatz]

@@adskFusion These details are very useful to know, thanks very much!

[@danieldc8841]

This is all well and good until the 3D features fail. Try using a coil to sweep a profile up a cylinder, join it and circular pattern that feature. It’ll fail often. I’ve had to make them as seperate bodies and then join. Then any parametric number of pattern count requires changes down the line This could be fixed by allowing join to work with features too, but currently it only works with bodies

[@tairanliu2210]

Asking for a pattern new component option that can create a pattern with new component that not referencing the origin one

[@michaelhoffmann2949]

Yes creating independent copies of components would be really helpful sometimes. (or as alternative a "Make individual" feature for instances of a selected component) For instance at the moment I'm planning a bit more complex design for something similar to a wooden deck. There are about 30 similar profiled battens with the same distance to each other. So a 3d rectangular pattern works. However since the area of the wooden deck is not a rectangle (more something like a triangle) all battens need to have different length. (And 30x copy, paste into new, and than move to the right direction is really annoying)

[@MirageDU]

Great video with good information. But I have a question to that. Is it possible to make a heaxogon pattern in the 3D space? In 2D I draw two construction lines from the middle of the polygon to the middlepoints of two adjecent sides and use these to as the axis for the rectengular pattern. That leaves a nice honeycomb pattern. But as you showed in this video that process has some flaws. But when I try this in the 3D space, I can only choose one axis and the second one is automaticaly in a 90 degree angle to the selected. Is there an option I have missed or is that just not possible to do at the moment?

[@adskFusion]

Hi Mirage, GREAT question! Selecting multiple directions (or 'axis' as they are called in the 3D tool) is still possible! To do so, you need to press and hold CTRL (or Cmd on a Mac). In the sketch environment, you don't have to do this, but in 3D, pressing and holding Ctrl when selecting your axis will allow you to select multiple axis directions and override the automatic 90-degree value. Let us know if this works!

[@MirageDU]

@@adskFusion Thank you. I will try that.

[@MirageDU]

@@adskFusion Just found the time to test it. It works perfectly fine the way you described it. That will save me a lot of work in the future. Thank you very much!

[@StephenBoyd21]

Bravo

[@Te4mUp]

I turned anti aliasing off stop turning it on FFS

[@nobocks]

Would be cool to have a simple texture system to handle displacement mapping or normal mapping, instead of going on blender just for that.

[@talonosi]

Patterning holes or mirroring holes doesn’t work for me. Threaded holes don’t transfer properly.

[@adskFusion]

Hi Talonosi, sorry to hear it hasn't been working for you. I would recommend trying to use a different compute type at the bottom of the pattern tool box to see if this changes anything. If not feel free to post a topic on the Autodesk Community to figure out what is going on as you should definitely be able to pattern holes and threads :)

[@alejandroperez5368]

The problem with using 3D tools instead of making more complex sketches is that sometimes you can't easily see or control the end result.

[@gkoornhof]

Day 153 of asking for proper Dark Mode in Fusion

[@Te4mUp]

They couldn’t even change the top toolbar to be black without it somehow causing issues in the sketch environment. So they reverted back. That was like 4 years ago. Literally just changing the color of the toolbar was too much lol

[@viliusr6974]

Don't understand the need for the dark mode. Use a good monitor. It is not eighties anymore.

[@gkoornhof]

@@viliusr6974 haha

[@Te4mUp]

@@viliusr6974 It looks cool and some people work before they go to bed. It’s not needed. No one said it was.

[@jamy6431]

Because it's bright and ridiculous when ever app is getting a dark mode and it's been an overwhelmingly good reception. It's the same thing as saying, no one needs a bright mode, get a good monitor, it's not the eighties anymore.

[@PaulColeVFX]

YES But WHEN will we get the ability to select a patterin in a sketch that keeps history . !!! so you can use formulas to make the number you need based on space and dynamically change it.. also when doing extrudes on a pattern you cant select the feature ( so you get all teh resulting objects as a selection for the next step dynamically for like example boolean them all together or subtract the resurlt of the pattern parts as one set of bodies instead of STILL having to select all the pieces one at a time ) basically your vido is only valid in one situation, making holes , but what if you wanta a pattern of an arc and then boolean them together because they overlap .. or you use parametric formual voalues to change a value liek how many instances in the pattern .. i need this feature often !!! and it makes no sense to keep design history but sketches do not keep design history .. (* sketches should ahve history in the undoo buffer.. make it editable.. that keeps history .. including the pattern feature.. and then you can select the result of the pattern feature to select resulting profiles based on a location (that you wkno will always be there ) and do one extrude or combine or whatever.. with those resulting features.

[@Robinlarsson83]

In the 3D pattern function you can very easily add a parameter for the number of instances in the pattern, that is not an issue in any way? I think you can do the same with sketch pattern, but I rarely use it so havent tried. It still wont propagate to the 3D environment the way you want though, so it's kind of useless. Not sure what you mean with sketches not having history? They dont have a timeline, but they are also not meant to be an object that needs it. You shouldnt make highly complex sketches, it's just a bad design workflow, in any professional 3D CAD package. Just make simple sketches, do as much work as possible in the 3D environment and use more sketches when you need them. There really arent many (if any) good reasons to try to include "everything" in one sketch, the way I see many people do. Sketches should only be as complex as they absolutely need to, they should be created in the correct component (almost always the one you'll create the body in later).

[@PaulColeVFX]

@@Robinlarsson83 It’s less calculating to do one extrude on a pattered sketch. Than. 1000 extrudes plus a Boolean on a patterned feature. The latter is how it currently needs to be done. But the former is more efficient And the former however doesn’t allow parameters in a pattern that you can change later ( once applied a pattern in a sketch it becomes static not parametric)

[@ronsone8373]

If fusion want to save me clicks DONT AUTO HIDE MY FREAKING SKETCH when im done.... So irritating

[@supergiantbubbles]

You can disable that in the settings. Select the profile icon in the top right corner of Fusion 360. Select Preferences. Go to General > Design. Disable or enable "Auto hide sketch on feature creation".

[@BlackSmokeDMax]

That has been an option you can change in your preferences for more than 5 years now. Just go into: preferences --> design, then uncheck the box next to "Auto hide sketch on feature creation"

[@StephenBoyd21]

It’s a feature that you can turn on and off.

[@BlackSmokeDMax]

@@supergiantbubbles oops, sorry I didn't refresh before posting! Didn't even see that you had already explained that. I had started the video earlier and walked away for a while, then came back and watched it. Apparently the comments were still only loaded from when I started the video. I'll have to watch that in the future.

[@adskFusion]

Having too many amazing community members willing to answer questions is never a bad thing! 🎉

[@Te4mUp]

Buggiest program I have ever used and it just gets worse with every update........

[@emanggitulah4319]

Nah... It's not perfect but no cad program is . Try freecad if you feel adventurous

[@chuzhastik]

А какую программу Вы используете?

[@Te4mUp]

@@chuzhastik Fusion 360 on MacOS

[@idcwstk]

​@@Te4mUp Use windows version , воркс мачт беттер

[@gerritvisser]

@@Te4mUp chances are it's MacOS causing your problems, never had a problem with Fusion on Windows.

[@kodakgold5968]

We need a dark mode