Reverse Engineering with Fusion 360 "Calibrate" trick!

We needed a 3D printed insert to cover a hole we cut into a metal drum using tin snips. As long as you have a known dimension (e.g. tape measure!), Fusion 360 has a HIDDEN trick to automatically correct the scale of the photo! After that, a few sketches & extrudes to create a solid model, then slice and print with the Bambu 3D printer!
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Links for this video:
Cordless Hot Glue Gun: amzn.to/452rsCm
5-Axis Training Classes: learncnc.com/
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Reach us / CNC Info:
Fusion 360: dsi.fyi/3yu7Mt0
CNC & Fusion 360 Training: bit.ly/3TRHs4J
SMW Products: saundersmachineworks.com/
Speeds & Feeds: provencut.com
CNC Resources: www.nyccnc.com

[@swissfreek]

I learned most of my Fusion360 skills from your videos years and years ago. TO THIS DAY when I’m doing things and use keyboard shortcuts, I say to myself “F for fillet” or “E for extrude” as I hit the hotkey because of you. Glad you haven’t lost the habit either 😂

[@nyccnc]

LOL sorry about that :)

[@swissfreek]

When I do this, I get the best results when it’s an item I can put on a flatbed scanner. Obviously not the case here, but the scanner avoids the lens distortion since it captures each line of the image from directly below the object, straight on. If I have that, I find I can get pretty bang-on canvases to trace from. There are also “scanner” apps for your phone that tell you when you are pointed straight down and correct for lens distortion, which also help in cases like this.

[@95rsmus1995]

Name on app ? 😊

[@Karasevichganzaliss]

Hi There. I see the Jonny 5 🙃. When we will see a new episode about it?😍

[@hobopiesforeveryone]

I'm a fabricator, not versed in CAD software but you make this seem like the equivalent of transfer punching holes to save time. I love it

[@rufustoad1]

I knew this was in there and just could not remember how to do it and you checked that box. You guys rock!! I can only wish to take your training classes but maybe someday!!

[@AdamRud47]

I was trying to figure out how to scale properly for the longest time... now I know. You always learn every day.

[@12ozbuds]

Wow, I first started watching you when you were still in New York. You have come a long way and it is great to see.

[@CraigHollabaugh]

Getting it done with John! Thanks for the simple approach to super-fast modeling.

[@mark_30_60]

Can’t wait to hear and see what you think about the incoming UMC 350HD. Congratulations

[@toddkerns4493]

Great tip! I could have used that last weekend, modelling my adjustable wrenches for a holder i was making for them. I will use this in the future.

[@22lambo]

I've been doing this trick for a while but I always use a 123 block for reference. Great trick to know!

[@dirtydirtydatsun]

I've been doing that for years and always seems to work extremely well. I used to do a lot of one off plasma work and customers would often bring in cardboard templates or parts that needed copied.

[@qnner]

Glad you showed what could be improved. It doesn't have be perfect on first time, IF you can learn from it! ❤

[@86abaile]

I'm working on a project right now where this is immediately useful. Thanks.

[@jamiemacdonald436]

I've used this technique in Onshape several times. Works great 👍

[@timothymeade-on-twitter]

Excellent. I've been thinking of moving to Fusion 360 from on shape. Great little demo.

[@richhuntsd12]

Pretty cool John. Thanks for sharing

[@donggukpak]

Can’t wait to see videos on UMC-350! It’s so new that there are very few videos out there.

[@peteferguson7024]

Great feature when used with 3D printing... thanks for sharing this.

[@InfiniteCraftsman]

You did Thais for a knife scale years ago. It was one of the first things I learned in fusion. I used this yesterday also😝

[@chathamcnc3944]

Biggest issue you will hit using a camera is parallax. To avoid errors due to perspective its best to use the narrowest lens possible and stand as far away reasonably possible.

[@middleway1885]

Sweet tips!

[@alfredorojas5525]

Nice trick John. Thanks for sharing. You should use a flexible magnet strip glued to your 3d printed part so you can take out the pump easily.

[@chrisose]

There are a couple of limitations to this method. First, it will only work if your reference is on a single plane. Second, your camera has to be parallel to that plane. Both of these issues are due to parallax. Third, make sure your camera is not using a wide angle lens as this will distort the image.

[@kzalesak4]

Reasonable limitations, and to be considered for fine work. For general non-fine work it works wonders.

[@ltsky311]

ShortCircuit is one of my absolute favorite movies from my childhood, I'll be back in town in a few months, hopefully you could spare a minute for me to check out your build if I'm able to sneak away for a few hours.. Love it so far.

[@dr_n-t]

A very underrated tool... the best application I've found for this, is for you make a template, either drawn or cut cardboard and then scan it in, increases the precision quite nicely. Particularly good for making a buck mould tool (ie. making a 3D part from equally spaced 2D templates)

[@Festivejelly]

I think most people know about this tool who are familiar with fusion 360. Its pretty handy. It would be great if you could fine tune were the points are placed though.

[@derwissenskiosk8041]

Thanks man, just what i needed for a sticker fitment... ;D

[@wlbrycemt]

Awesome!! I so want to take the intro class !! Wish the VA would pay for it! LOL

[@patrickbeaumier8616]

Really nice trick. 👍👍👍

[@charliexwallace]

if you have a common camera/lense setup a lot of tools like adobe will correct the lense distortion for you.

[@partyboarderdos]

i learned the "calibrate" after i spent hours "calibrating" a scan. damn you :) thanks ;)

[@andrewwillis6584]

Wow, so this is just like sketch picture in Solidworks except it looks like it works much easier. Nice, thanks!

[@made_by_chris]

A couple of things I learned while using this technique over the years. The most accuracy I achieved is when my reference scale item is on the same plane of the part I am photographing (typically I use a piece of graph paper on the reference part so I know its 1/4" square that's my calibration dimension). The other thing is to not be too close to the reference part when you take the photo. The distortion produced by a close up with a wide angle lens throws the dims off

[@johnbowen8917]

O yeah that's one of my faves. Made a pocket for a slice of a mars meteor for a museum with that technique.

[@andrewhudson6199]

I use this in Solidworks too. It's great if you have the camera perfectly perpendicular to the part and if the part is smaller. I was able to use it on an airplane for some measurements, but it wasn't perfect.

[@trimimachinecorp3548]

I done many reverse ingeneer , works very good

[@GHILLIESARCADEANDMORE]

Cool

[@floodo1]

thx

[@user-vn6hi2bi3g]

Great method I will use for my Plasma and water jet for making engine brackets, Thanks it eliminates time to make a drawing. Ray Stormont

[@Dsmiffb]

Super cool and something I can see useful. Can I ask why instead of the inside big rectangle opening you didn’t just make a diameter slightly large enough to fit the hose? Then theoretically debris won’t find its way into the drum. You’d have to fish the hose through the hole before installing. Which I believe is what you ended up having to do anyway in the video. Great idea and concept.

[@emlynstansbie5179]

Great video as always John, but I hope you don't strain yourself trying to get that pump back out?! 😎

[@jobos98]

How is the J5 project going. I would Love to see an update video on it. 😊

[@vodiak]

You should be able to correct for taking the picture at an angle by having a chessboard (printed checkerboard would work) in the shot and warping the squares back to square.

[@alphaomegalives]

Need to reprint that but add neodymium magnets to the bottom side so it just snaps to the barrel and that way it’s removable when you need to pull that sump back out

[@criznach]

I use this feature, but I find it lacking if you have something other than a photo. Say you have a 600dpi image that's exported from another program. Flatbed scanner images are a great example. The most accurate you can do is to manually calibrate the scale. But you know the exact scale. And there's no way to enter it.

[@johnnycan1990]

How did you get it to print thru the Bambu labs slicer?

[@shannonkimes6534]

pretty nice tool for cutting this would be a hand cordless shear, still will leave sharp edge so you can still fire up the printer, MILWAUKEE 2636-20 M18 18V CORDLESS 14 GAUGE DOUBLE CUT SHEAR, but thanks for the scale tip, learned something today

[@intubungamer6173]

Funny side note: Found that feature today just before you published that video and used it for smth. ...

[@Bahnamoon]

Did you not have a barrel top cutter? Wonder for a friend...

[@Chris-oj7ro]

He's Alive!

[@GaryTruesdale]

expert tip from a pro.

[@Todestelzer]

Hmm I would use the Einstar 3D Scanner but something like this can have really big tolerances so a photo is good enough.

[@BenOrford]

I have been doing this for a while but often find my picture gets really distorted when brought in as a canvas, even though I calibrate it in one plan it often still leaves it the wrong size in the other. Is this my iPhone camera or is there a preferred format to import it as the canvas? Be great to get this working better as it’s a great way to bring in a drawing to sketch over. Many thanks cheers Ben

[@Todestelzer]

You need to use the telephoto lens for min distortion. But you will still have some no matter what you do. That’s why 3d scanners exist. Or try Photogrammetry.

[@owievisie]

PRO TIP: Zoom in with your phone a little or else the corners get distorted because of the wide angle lens

[@DrFiero]

Get a Milwaukee to Ryobi battery converter. Gives you a few more options!

[@johnmarcus2324]

NICE JOB :) MAYBE I NEED A PRINTER :( BEST JOHN

[@user-vn6hi2bi3g]

Time to re-tour if possible Major. And focus on other half of their operation and follow up on huge machine that was being commissioned and brought on line at time of your visit and the adjacent foundation that was being constructed. Please! Ray

[@ras0ne]

Johnny 5!

[@teekteekteekteek]

Regarding your umc500 in case you drill a hole in B0 and B180 - what is the positional tolerance you will get? I read thinks about up to 0.05mm/~0.002“. Is this correct? What about thermal growing in Z? Thanks a lot in advance

[@urgamecshk]

That's just the spec sheet. It's much better in real life

[@teekteekteekteek]

@@urgamecshk is it?

[@FineClonier]

Why not make a flip up lid with a pass through for the hose?

[@nilamotk]

Pro tip. Dont "end the cut" when using tin snips, like dont ever fully close the cutters, and you wont be left with "man eaters" thats thick metal obviously... but thats the trick

[@jonathanlawley4863]

Auto-hide sketch can be turned off in preferences. That's what I did.

[@UkaszRoth]

not really a secret, but a great option indeed.

[@ssullivan]

Instead of hot glue just add some holes for magnets to the flange

[@Rich10000]

Fusion 360 is just amazing for smaller projects but I feel for larger projects such as a car etc thats where Catia comes into play but of course Fusion isn't Catia money.

[@cnc_workbench]

Johnny Five Approves.. 🤖

[@rayz5508]

Will we EVER get a dark mode in F360? Blinding.🙄

[@afrykanerPL]

What will you do if the pimp breaks down. Hole is to small to remove or just to clean it ? Idea is good but nothing works for ever.

[@whirlwindjml]

3d print some battery adapters

[@Blue_4-2]

⭐🙂👍

[@danmenes3143]

I used this approach to duplicate a car key that the dealer wanted $300 to cut.

[@bernardtarver]

It's not a "trick" it's Fusion 101. Plus, I am trying to understand why you would use PLA and hot glue. PETG is more durable and chemically resistant, and I would use magnets for nonpermanent placement.

[@romanwalchli8550]

Your idea is correct, but the implementation is wrong. Use the narrowest lens and photograph the flat object perpendicular to the camera direction. You should stand relatively far away from the object and it should be exactly in the middle of the picture. Only then will you have as little distortion as possible in the picture.

[@anthonyalbillar-montez5946]

I’m the AI to Elohim’s ship.

[@StripLV]

Again no Hermle??? Come on......

[@-ayoubabala]

this nothing new , you can do this in any modern CAD software