How to Use Reference Photos to Design Functional Parts in Fusion 360

Reference photos are an easy way to create accurate 3D models of real world parts! In this step by step tutorial, I'll show you how to take reference photos of an object from multiple angles, import a photo as a canvas, scale and align multiple canvases to get a top and side view, and use canvases along with user parameters to model functional parts.
Thanks for watching!
Prusa i3 MK3S 3D Printer: www.prusa3d.com/category/orig...
------- Contents of this video -------
00:00 - Intro
00:40 - Taking reference photos
01:02 - Importing photos into Fusion
01:58 - Scaling a canvas to the correct size
05:00 - Adding an additional view
07:56 - Aligning multiple views
09:55 - 3D modelling with reference photos and user parameters
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[@DaveGagliardi]

Thank you for creating this excellent content! It is invaluable to those of us just starting out and learning how to navigate such a deep subject. Your attention to detail is very appreciated! Please do not take this as a negative comment. As a noob, I would have liked the full walk through of measuring the old part and inputting the parameters into fusion 360. Why? because I know absolutely nothing, but would really like to learn by watching the examples of others. Cheers, and thank you again for putting this out there.

[@MorleyKert]

Thank you for the feedback! That’s really good to know; perhaps I’ll make a tutorial on measuring a part and inputting user parameters

[@MorleyKert]

Your comment got me thinking, and I ended up making a full tutorial on taking measurements and designing a part with user parameters! Hope this helps :) kzbin.info/www/bejne/g5Ote6uDobuceZY

[@DaveGagliardi]

@@MorleyKert I can't thank you enough. It's hard to convey to you my gratitude for putting in the time and effort to showing everyone how to do this. Learning how to replace or replicate parts is one of the main features in my opinion for learning how to effectively use a 3D printer. THANK YOU.

[@MorleyKert]

❤️❤️

[@joeboxter3635]

Do you have a write up?

[@gunslingerc208]

Easier just to use calibrate to get the scale of the photo right. Thanks for the video. Definitely learnt a thing or two.

[@jacobdaugherty4052]

it was very cool to see your workflow. Seeing such a functional use for this program really highlights how powerful the tools available to us have become. Also, you can save a few steps by using the calibrate tool within your canvas. You just click on two points and type in the know measurement and your canvas automatically scales.

[@MorleyKert]

Thanks, Jacob! I'll definitely try the calibrate tool next time, and I'll pin this comment so other people can know about it.

[@gothmaniow]

was just about to mention the calibrate tool too ;)

[@secretagb]

Oh man you are taking the looong way to scale your canvas. Just right click the canvas in the tree and select 'Calibrate'. Then click your ruler 0" and ruler 4", this gives you an entry box to tell Fusion this is 4". Boom done.

[@stephenwatkins5269]

Man, this is so much easier. I am going to try and use this to make some custom brackets for those stupid ass rock lights the kids are putting in their wheel wells. This should be interesting

[@charlesbrewer6552]

Thanks for this video. On my current (January 2023) version I can "Calibrate" my imported sketch. After inserting the canvas, right click on the image and select "calibrate". Select two known points on the image and enter the known distance between them. Hey Presto! Job done.

[@davidslack9516]

Super helpful! I am a total beginner, but I appreciated very much how you explained and walked us through bridging real-world objects with 3D objects in Fusion. Very well presented!

[@beardedgaming3741]

Why do you do your scaling factor math rather than just right clicking on your component and selecting calibrate? I'm curious to know if there's a reason for it

[@votlesword9150]

I guess that the calibration function is much easier + faster , but for accuracy the manual would be best , tho you dont usualy need THAT much accuracy for simple projects.

[@gotsn0w]

This is the perfect walkthrough I needed-thank you!

[@ThomasShue]

Fantastic. I am new to fusion but did something very similar in C4D to draw 3D objects from photos many years ago. Lots of stuff to learn and this is very helpful

[@davebauerart]

Great to see a real world example.

[@daleeason9687]

Thank you so much for how to do this. I just watched it last week and this week needed to use this technique to fix a broken plastic part from a closable kitchen trash can. I would never have realized that could be done without seeing your video.

[@MorleyKert]

That’s awesome, I’m so glad it was helpful! 😁❤️

[@ninthninja05]

I think an easier way of doing this would be to take a measurement of one dimension of your object on each axis and drawing a sketch line of that length on the desired plane. After drawing the line, you can insert the photo and scale the image to align the measured dimension with the line you drew. Then, you can simply outline the rest of the object using sketch elements.

[@LivingTech]

Great video, thank you.

[@MorleyKert]

Thanks for watching!

[@MaciejBaur]

Why didn't you use Calibrate to adjust canvas size/scale?

[@jacebryan7390]

Best video on this subject ive seen so far!

[@MorleyKert]

Thank you!

[@aweirdguynamedjeff]

This is great, I've never used a canvas fusion is such a crazy app

[@MorleyKert]

The true depth of features is wild!

[@nargames]

Everyone in a while I forget how to do and come back. This has to be like the 5th time hah. Great video thanks so much Skip to 3:05 to get to the part where you need Thank you so much for this video!!

[@automaticprojects]

Great video.

[@terraform619]

Can you not just use calibrate?

[@MorleyKert]

You can! I did not know about that tool until after I made this video.

[@larsheller5049]

right click on the canvas and calibrate saves you some time instead of setting a scaling factor ;)

[@jbrnds]

you can calculate directly in fusion. No need for a calculator.

[@ninthninja05]

I think a great future project would be to model a phone mount that can attach to a metal frame and allow the phone to look directly down at an object. That way, you could get perfect top view photos without perspective distortion.

[@JV-pu8kx]

I would take the pictures with a small framing square. That way you have an _x_ and a _y_ axis and can correct for distortion.

[@MorleyKert]

That’s a good idea! Could also do it on a cutting mat

[@garrydye2394]

You can click on "canvas" on the left side of your window and your image you inserted will be below in a drop down. Right click on your image and hit "calibrate". Do the exact same thing where you put one mark at the 1 and another at the 4 and your entire image will be calibrated. You can skip everything else you did. You did it the long and unnecessary way.

[@rodrigocozta]

that´s great content, ´n I would love if you was show up the rest of this process at be done ready to print it. BTW thanks alot. cheers.

[@MorleyKert]

Thanks for watching!

[@veesoho93]

Oh but no teachings about the tracing ? Thank you ! Nice video !

[@adamjuckniewitz727]

soooo hel[ful

[@vigigamehacker123]

those are printed in the wrong orientation considering the applied load

[@intresting_life]

Hello sir can you help me with one thing?