Mesh to cam?

[Anonymous]

So, I've been playing around with fusion 360 for the weekend, and as powerfull as it is I think it's missing something. (or maybe I am 🙂 )

I'm able to import an obj file and postion it the way I need to and turn it to a meshbody. And then I'm stuck, When I go into the CAM module, I don't think Fusion is seeing the meshbody as anything but a projection? I can't convert the meshbody to t-splines or anthing else native to fusion because of the number of faces/quads/tris (different models, so some are tris and others quads) Some of the relief details that I am planning on doing are "easily" modeled in ZBrush, but finding a cam solution that is both affordable and can do organic shapes is hard to come by and I was hopefull that Fusion 360 was the answer. Am I missing a step when I enter the CAM module?

[dave.anderson]

The Mesh data would need to be converted to Vector/Surface/Solids before you will be able to apply Toolpath in the CAM module.

Some programs can export an .obj file as IGES or STL that you can import/upload to Fusion and work with.

[Anonymous]

This thread may help you out. 

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/design-validate-document/stl-file-import-for-sculpting-edit/td-p/59713...

Be warned mesh handling is a thing they are working on.

So work arounds are all we have. But I have found no suitable answer to it yet that works for me. I'm currently hoping that the intersect mash plug in for fusion will work for what I need. But that means I'm basically redrawing the model but using the mesh as a template. I hoping it will work. 

Edit . 

The iges format mentioned may need a bit of work to get anything useable. 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply Dave. I impoterd an STL created within ZBrush and as far as stl's go, it works well with Deskproto and I was able to create good GCode with it. The trial period has expired and that's why I'm playing with Fusion now. Anyways, here's what I get when I'm in the CAM workspace...

The box /origin points seem to be all bunched up.

Secondly, I'm not to sure what this icon means..

.

That no slash on the meshbody icon.

[Anonymous]

Interesting thread, thanks for the link. Will have to finish reading it, but whith what I've read so far (half way thru) it might not help. Some of the stuff I've got down the road has a high polygone count and cant really be simplified without actually loosing detail. Honeslty, I'm looking at Fusion as a CAM solution and not a modeling one.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, forgot to mention that yes, those are tri's on the model. Just took a screen shot of model I was working on at the time. But got the same results with stl files with quads.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Interesting thread, thanks for the link. Will have to finish reading it, but whith what I've read so far (half way thru) it might not help. Some of the stuff I've got down the road has a high polygone count and cant really be simplified without actually loosing detail. Honeslty, I'm looking at Fusion as a CAM solution and not a modeling one.

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I think you may be on the wrong path. The one thing fusion can't do at the moment is cam a stl file. 

You are limited to 10k faces in fusion. Your best bet is to maybe use the intersect mesh plunging and redraw the model. 

You need a surface or a solid for fusion cam to work. 

I feel your pain though. I had and have the same problem. Many of things I have customers enquire about come from their stl files. 

I spent a fortune to have some stl files I had made from piont clouds re drawn into surfaces that I could use. That wasn't done in fusion ether.

useing meshes in fusion is a hot topic. 

As of yet though I haven't herd of any one being able to cam from a mesh. 

Ok mesh cam can do it. So can Cambam but for true 3D work a mesh is horrible to cam from. Unless you have a good smoothing algorithm built into your cam. Cambam was the worst! A 32 bit program to start with. Not good! 

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I think you may be on the wrong path. The one thing fusion can't do at the moment is cam a stl file. 

You are limited to 10k faces in fusion. Your best bet is to maybe use the intersect mesh plunging and redraw the model. 

You need a surface or a solid for fusion cam to work. 

I feel your pain though. I had and have the same problem. Many of things I have customers enquire about come from their stl files. 

I spent a fortune to have some stl files I had made from piont clouds re drawn into surfaces that I could use. That wasn't done in fusion ether.

useing meshes in fusion is a hot topic. 

As of yet though I haven't herd of any one being able to cam from a mesh. 

Ok mesh cam can do it. So can Cambam but for true 3D work a mesh is horrible to cam from. Unless you have a good smoothing algorithm built into your cam. Cambam was the worst! A 32 bit program to start with. Not good! 

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Yeah. I know I'm pushing it with what I want to acomplish. Deskproto does a great job, but at a bit over$1K its currentl out of my price range of free.

The thing that I wonder about though is that Fusion see's the stl file correctly and I can navigate around it in the wokspace, why doesn't the cam see it? Even autodesk Maya can move around it's vertices from the obj version. I'm just not seeing why there's such a disconnect between between the software. That's a developer question I'm sure that they're tired of answering, but why not bring it up one more time?

[Anonymous]

Now that is the $1m question. 

Maybe a question they may answer is.

Do cad designers still regard reverse engineering as a hush hush subject?

fusion is a cad /cam package. 

But a job shop like mine or maybe yours will see the mesh format a lot. 

This is not just a AD issue though. Solidworks has the same blinkered ideas. 

To be a true game changer that fusion that wants to be. Embracing reverse engineering is a must. At the fusion price piont there would be no other product out there! 

For or me personally it would mean £3k of scans would be useful again! Also 70% of the enquires I get would be doable! 

[Anonymous]

Oh, this is a disappointing thread.

I too am on a quest to make my ZBrushery a real world object.

In wood, using the PocketNC I just bought.

I only need Fusion360 for tool paths and GCode.

As this thread is a few months old, has there been any progress on mesh importing?

I get a one year subscription to Fusion with my PocketNC purchase, so I was hoping I would get that time to really evaluate it.

I want to import mesh geometry from ZBrush only. That is where I work and make my stuff.

I'll do whatever I have to do to the mesh in ZBrush to get it imported properly. I can get my geometry down to under 10K polys for the time being (please raise that limit).

I've been playing with that for two days, and I can get the geometry In (Insert Mesh), and convert it to T-Spline, but I cant get the mesh or the T-Spline converted to Brep.

(I have been told that it needs to be a Brep to generate tool paths in CAM).

But if it cant get that imported geometry into the CAM section of the app, then there is nothing here for me at all.

Thanx for pointing me to Deskproto. I can find 1K for software that does what I need.

[HughesTooling]

@Anonymous Have you thought about making a thread in the design forum to ask for advice on converting your OBJ file. @PhilProcarioJr and @TrippyLighting will probably be able to help you. Also have you got an example OBJ file you can upload.

Mark

[TrippyLighting]

I agree with @HughesTooling that you should make a new thread.

The 10,000 polygon limit only applies when a mesh is converted directly into a BRep.

Since the introduction of the mesh workspace a few weeks ago that limit has been raised but is has not been publicly announced what the new limit is. My guess, based on forum posts is that it's  somewhere in the neighborhood of 15,000.

If you have a quad mesh e,g, from Z-Brush it can be turned it into a T-Spine and that limit does not exist. I've converted a 19k+ face quad mesh into a T-Spline.

Since the introduction of the mesh workspace, which addresses triangulated meshes only, a preference setting "triangulate mesh polygons" exists with the default being turned on.

When working with quad meshes you need to turn this off:

 

You say that you have been able to convert your meshes into T-Spline, but not from a T-SPline into a BRep. Fusion 360 should have presented you with some form of error, or warning. Would you have a screenshot of that ?

In general, a very common workflow for sculpted, high poly meshes is to re-topologize the mesh, with the aim to substantially reduce the polygon count, while retaining features and editability.

While it requires additional work, it might be what you want to do.

The problem with hight polygon count T-Splines it that they are not editable in Fusion 360, meaning that you cannot enter Sculpt mode in Fusion 360 and add organic T-SPline features such as you would wth Z-Brush. Once the T-Spline is converted into a solid or open surface body you can perform solid modeling operation and surface operations with it in Fusion 360.

I am sure you've discovered already that what is called Sculpt mode in Fusion 360 has little to do with the sculpting you do in Z-Brush.

[HughesTooling]

Hi Trippy, thanks for taking the time to post here. Here's a link that has a few pictures of what @Anonymous is working with.

Mark

[PhilProcarioJr]

@Anonymous

Can you share your file with me, I know I can show you how or get a working model to you.

[Anonymous]

Quote"You say that you have been able to convert your meshes into T-Spline, but not from a T-SPline into a BRep. Fusion 360 should have presented you with some form of error, or warning. Would you have a screenshot of that ?"

I dont get an error message.

The Convert window opens, but nothing is listed in the Select button (as when I converted from OBJ to T-spline).

I select the Brep filter button and attempt to select the T-spline object, but nothing happens.

If I select the T-splne geometry directly, one of the T-spline shape will become distorted and the select button will say "1 Selected".

[PhilProcarioJr]

@Anonymous

I didn't realize your thread was hijacked, my apologies.

@Anonymous

You really need to start your own threads for this stuff.

Ok your going about this the wrong way, I will make a video later showing you how. I emailed you the Converted obj so you can get your work done.

[curtis.chan]

Hi there...

Here's a video I did around going from a STL to Machining it.  I used Autodesk Remake to convert the mesh over to quads, then was able to move over to CAM.  

Hope this helps!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjrdAOGgG6E

[marcus]

With the April 2017 update Fusion360 can now do CAM on meshes. However I couldn't get it to work yet. While the CAM setup accepts the mesh, all 3D CAM strategies fail with it and obviously only the very few operations that don't need contours have any chance of ever working.