Webinar: STL File Editing is Finally Easy with Fusion 360’s New Parametric Mesh Workspace

[@jeanphilippepoirier6130]

Fusion 360 is where it is now because of the support from the hobbyists. Now that the product has sufficient momentum, access to the hobbyist is being progressively removed. Who is going to pay 500$/year if you're not selling any products??? Not me... I agree that we, hobbyist, have beneficiated from a great free product while it was in development. Thank you Autodesk! Autodesk has all the rights to turn away from free versions and the hobbyists. It just means it is time for us to look at another free solution for our personal endeavors. Hobbysist: Stay away from STLs. Share your great designs directly in STEP files or even better, their native parametric file!

[@gerritvisser]

The only thing we really lost was having dozens of files editable. Nothing else really impacts hobby users (speaking as someone who is using 3 axis + rotary tool paths on mill, plus STL output for 3D printing.) If I really really need the other stuff, I pay for a month of use and get it done.

[@Zeeflyboy]

@@gerritvisser I think he’s referring to the fact that this pretty useful looking new mesh stuff is not available to the free license… so combined with those earlier restrictions things are moving in the wrong direction for the hobby license. I agree the current limiitations aren’t a deal breaker, but it’s becoming clear that more and more new features or restrictions will be locked behind the paid license as time goes on.

[@gerritvisser]

@@Zeeflyboy Fair enough, I had to try this on my free version to see that. My eyes glazed over a few times during the video. However, as with some of the CAM restrictions such as rapids for milling, my solution to these 'hurdles' is to rent the features for a month, when I really need them and/or have a few things lined up. CA$80 is a lot more palatable than CA$700 per year. Would I prefer it to be free, of course. But CA$80 for a whole month is not too bad, even for a retiree. So not free, but not excessive price either.

[@karlosss1868]

WOW! So much better!. Thanks for showing these features. Thumbs up.

[@kawag2780]

Just found out about the Convert Mesh feature yesterday. The algorithm is guiding me.

[@Galaktican1]

Thank you so much for this video. I was trying to make a change to a .stl file and the workflows I found on youtube weren't working. After fumbling around for a bit I found this video and viola...I got my edit done and learned a ton about these new features in Fusion 360. Thanks again from a 3D printer printer!

[@easyriderj]

Glad we were able to help!

[@wrxsubaru02]

I import a mesh (STL file) but no exclamation shows saying there are holes. Then if I try to convert the mesh, it fails giving me an error saying compute failed and to generate face groups. If I generate face groups followed by converting mesh, it gives me a prismatic model with holes everywhere and weird bubbles sticking out of it. I tried remeshing it, I tried repairing it before convert, but no matter what I have tried for a week now, I cannot get a solid prismatic model. I tried accurate option in generate face groups, I tried fast option, I literally tried everything possible but it never works.

[@bobmvideos]

I've watched several of these tutorials and have been frustrated by not being able to see the color coded face groups as they appear at 26:48. I believe what happened was that something I had set in my preferences was inhibiting this. Going to Preferences again and "Restore Defaults" made them appear. Now I can effectively work with face groups.

[@pamberiwena]

If I wanted to follow along to the demo are the demo files available to the public/users of fusion 360 - if so where are they to be found? eg gearbox cover.obj ..3MF etc

[@rmp5s]

It's funny that you use the vector/raster analogy as I've thought about F360 as "Photoshop for things". lol It's true that it'd be more accurate to say "Illustrator for things". Hahaha Good vid. Thanks.

[@welbot]

I often bring models in from 3ds max to convert to t-splines and then solid bodies, but in the past 2 weeks, I've been having some weird issues in Fusion, especially in the mesh workspace. Trying to use any of the tools, where it asks you to select which body you want to apply it do, but it won't let me select any of the meshes I have brought in. Under Forms, some of the ones I was trying to convert to t-splines, were allowing me to select the mesh, but it failed to convert for whatever reason. I tried going back to the mesh workspace to try and see if I could run any of the repair things, rebuild, or something change to a parametric mesh, but none of the tools let me actually select the mesh I want to work on. Any idea what might be causing that and how to fix it? I've re-installed Fusion cos there was an issue with the auto update recently, so it's definitely not that...

[@OneLiterPeter]

OK so I decided to give this a try. I created an STL from an existing Fusion 360 model (A Z Axis mount for one of the legs on a Voron 2.4) Fusion failed to convert it to a solid. After a little investigating I found that the issue centered around the create mesh groups tool. On a number of fillets, the group spilled over onto the adjacent tangent surface. If only there was a way to remove a few faces from one group and switch it to another the problem could be easily remedied but... this ability is nonexistent and therefore pretty much puts the kibosh on converting parts where the creator used fillets to smooth things out. I'm beginning to understand why the part in the demonstration was selected...

[@sergeybob3224]

High klass work ! Many Thanks ! Good luck !...

[@easyriderj]

Thank you!

[@hfcandrew]

How did the 2nd Question about what is your primary CAD software, one of the options for Mesh Editors said Blender etc, but not Meshmixer, which is an Autodesk product....?

[@easyriderj]

Meshmixer IS an Autodesk product. A great choice I must add. The poll questions were based primarily on popularity and how many characters Zoom Webinar poll questions allow

[@lostmanamiga38]

That first question got my mind racing...conversion of organic scanned data. Would it be nice to have a selectable or face group mesh to T-Spline option?!

[@easyriderj]

Please be patient. Lots of improvements are on the way!

[@FilmFactry]

I have found issues with the 3DMF going into Cura. The same STL is fine. The 3DMF often imports off three bed,and brelow the bed. Making it a pain to get it to a normal printing position. I went back to exporting STLs instead. I have not experimented with Prusa Slicer yet.It must be a default coordinates thing..May be nice in the Mesh Export dialog to be able to set which side prints down.

[@deeeeeds]

Right click the part and choose the "center on build plate" option.

[@homanuni]

whether you have a video about working with your extensive Fusion 360 program, when entering a PCB file from Target and creating the final gerber file.

[@easyriderj]

We do. Here is a link to the full electronics playlist. There are many videos there that cover what you are asking for: kzbin.info/www/bejne/n5KYfIOOfLiIZ68

[@SaurabhKumar-lg8gv]

Where can attend these things live???

[@Mike_Papa]

I'd love too as well. If anyone has the answer...

[@easyriderj]

These events are always posted on the Autodesk website here: fusion360.events-autodesk.com/ They are also often posted on KZbin as live events or sent to customers via email.

[@Mike_Papa]

@@easyriderj thank you.

[@broderp]

The title of this video is misleading. STL files in Fusion is only easy on the paid version. Hobbiest who cant afford the paid version are left with a crippled converter that will require manual tweaking of every triangle on and STL to try and make the surface a single more easily editable solid. What average person can afford your quotes $500 a year (likely an outdated price) to have this feature as a hobbiest? Autodesk is blinded at the market they are losing with this expe sive feature. Why dont they remove other parts of the program they most hobbyist dont use...like the metal stuff? Or even the electrical stuff? Or since you can strip out features how about a business model that would allow users to add such features a la cart for a REASONABLE fee. Restoring this feature would be worth a fee of $50 -$75 a year. Think of those who would be willing to pay that over the $500 a year fee. Your not getting thier $500. But at least would get thier $75. Fusion is a great program, but you are not user friendly with your pricing and we both lose out because of this.

[@twinshouse70]

Great demonstration and very precise explanations. Thank you for this very instructive webinar. I am using fusion360 for my Business and may ask you about the way to turn a surface scan of an object to a 4 mm thick model for 3d printing? How can we geht in contact about That?

[@adskFusion]

Around the 58 minute mark, Jason showed a slide that contains contact info for our global sales team. Please reach out to the team in your region and we would be happy to set up a meeting with you.

[@twinshouse70]

@@adskFusion Well, these are the sales contacts who don't have that much knowledge of what has been shown here. Nevertheless I get additional contact about training from this lady . . let's see where this leads to. I know you don't want to overwhelm your specialists, but that topic may require specific knowledge to help me and others who have been enlighted by this webinar ;-)

[@cristianopersi7953]

Hi I asked already once: Where is the bottle neck? Processor, Ram, GPU?

[@adskFusion]

Cristiano, that depends on what you are trying to do. Fusion 360 uses different resources for different things. I can safely say, however, that your CPU is incredibly important.

[@cristianopersi7953]

@@adskFusion I was talking about the direct transforming of the meshes, prismatic option. I have a lot of errors.

[@kawag2780]

​@@cristianopersi7953 Try generating faces first and then do the conversion. Sometimes the original mesh may be too complex for fusion to decipher the correct face groups so some editing may be necessary.

[@cristianopersi7953]

Kenta alteady done, it‘s not working.

[@通りすがりの仮面ライダー-u8l]

厉害厉害

[@Loopychannel]

yeah and it costs a fortune, for a hobbyist.

[@gennadyyakubovich4076]

IMHO , you can skip first 20 minutes - waste of time unfortunately.

[@jimbarchuk]

Jump to 'The Live Demo' 20:12 The intro is good for people who don't know CAD or Fusion 360 at all, or who don't understand *why* this is all very rocket-science-difficult. Where vector meets raster, is where digital meets analog. Analog is measurable/'discernable' down to microscopic and molecular levels. Digital is finer than that, down to absolute zero in a perfect theoretical sense. But the real world is dirty, ratty, ragged and filled with backlash , dust on the lens and inaccuracy. Thus the turbulence where the two world meet, especially as regards conversion between them. Vector screams for precision and raster responds with, yeah, good enough.

[@superalpha]

Using the male threads to combine and make female threads isn't the same as an actual female thread because it does not include the clearance for the threads.

[@easyriderj]

I agree with you. I showed it this way for simplification purposes. I would recommend adjusting the male threads before doing the combine cut operation. Note: for 3D Printing, most people adjust thread sizes no matter what so that they 3D print accurately

[@frankrowland63]

Don't was to sounds stupid when did fusion 360 free stop working i cant edit anything.

[@easyriderj]

The free license is valid for one year at a time. Your account is likely expired. All you have to do is renew your free account for another year.

[@Sicktrickintuner]

so here is the problem, just dowloading stl files, without spending many hundreds a year I cant bring in anything like vices into fustion to just play around with, which is bull crap. I don't have the knowledge of doing this as a buisness but need a buisness to afford it to do it and learn. keep pulling features out and people keep leaving.

[@hanspijpers2100]

Paying every month is NOT buying, that is called a subscription. And for someone with a small pension I'd have to give up my phone and tv anf internet prescription So thank you but NO THANKS>

[@thenewmodelworkshop5743]

Probably the worst piece of software design I have seen in 40 Years, they can't even get the mousewheel to zoom in the right direction. The UI & UX on this piece of garbage is apalling, whoever desiged it should be shot, taken to hospital, healed, and then shot again.

[@Daaell]

Let's remind our selfs that your phone can probably render millions of polygons in 60 fps, but Fusion 360 STRUGGLES to rotate a couple of thousands of polygons. Ridiculous and embarrassing for a company that also owns Maya and Max.

[@easyriderj]

Daaell, as mentioned in the video, Maya and Max are polygon editors. They are designed specifically to handle polygons. Fusion 360 is focused primarily on B-rep models although it can handle other types as well. But, it is not specifically designed for polygons. So, the performance will not be as good as in Maya or Max. But, that should be expected and is not embarrassing at all. If you buy a knife from Gerber Tools, you can use it as a flat head screwdriver. But, it won't be a great screwdriver, even if Gerber makes great screwdrivers as other products. It will, however, be a great knife. After all, it was designed to be a knife. I hope this makes sense. Not trying to be rude. I just think analogies are useful.

[@Daaell]

@@easyriderj I'm aware of everything you just said, but here is my take on it: I don't care, it's on the MENU, so i expect it to work. Fusion's excuse is this, imagine Fusion as a fancy Steakhouse that - for whatever reason - has pasta on the menu beside steaks. So i order a pasta, but turns out that pasta is pretty shit. So you ask for the waiter, and tell them that the pasta taste like shit. In return they tell you that, "Well, we are a Steakhouse, why do you expect that the pasta will be good?" Then"Why it is on the menu?". That is a stupid statement. When you have a dedicated Mesh TAB in your app, i expect it to be semi-decent. But Fusion is absolutely horrible. Should i be grateful that they half-assed a feature? Well, at least we have something, great?! How can you defend Fusion when i DARE to convert an obj into a Mesh and i get this warning: Warning: This mesh has more than 10,000 Triangles. 10K polygons, what year is this? Now i have to open blender, have to shave off like 150k polygons so i can finally feed that

[@LeBearCNC]

Your phone does not render polygons, but pixels.

[@TheRealFrankWizza]

I gotta be honest, this software has become so bad over the last couple of years I have totally stopped using it. Every little aspect has become a subscription. I used to recommend it to people because it was so great, but stopped a long time ago.

[@easyriderj]

Serious question: If you stopped using it and stopped recommending it because it has gotten so bad, why bother watching any of the new videos about it? No judgement. I truly would love to know.

[@TheRealFrankWizza]

@@easyriderj I didn't seek it out, and don't remember clicking on it. If I had to guess it came up in my autoplay. I didn't watch the video though.

[@davechua7867]

what alternatives are there at the moment? I haven't used solidworks for maybe a decade, is it comparable?

[@customerservice2902]

What a huge waste of time. I was hoping this video would show me how to EDIT A MESH ... not convert it into faces. I want to move ONE STUPID NODE from point A to point B. Is that so hard for your team to implement?