Fusion 360, snapping, aligning or assembling pipe or tube section challenges

[emil135k]

Hi,

I'm doing a test trial with Fusion 360 and cannot figure out how to align the different tube components in this rudimentary bicycle I am trying to model.  See picture below. Any suggestions?

Regards,

-Emil

[haughec]

Hi Emil,

Can I ask how you created the model?  Were the components created using primitives, or did you first create a sketch?

If your goal to precisely position the components to one another (specify distances & frame angles), the best way to do this is to start with a sketch (as in the attached image).  This will allow you to specify the frame geometry, and then you can build the components from the sketch - already in place.

Does this answer your question?

[emil135k]

Hi Charles,

Thank you so much for your prompt reply and suggestion.  As far as my workflow, I just created separate sections of tubes or pipes and eye balled them together, pretty much how someone would try to cut pipes and weld them together in real life.  This is probably naive in my part!  I am an electrical engineer by trade but with a strong interest in the cool modeling tools available today.  This is especially more so since the past two years I have been a mentor and sponsor for the First Robotics Competition where 3D modeling of the robot prototypes can be of great benefit which has peaked my interest and determination in learning and sharing these powerful tools with our youth.

All this being said, I am not from the CAD/CAM or mechanical engineering or drafter side of things.  I am not sure how I would be able to extrude these pipes out of the flat sketch layout you have shared with me.  I was hoping that I could stretch or change the tubes at will, change the angles between them but yet have them aligned within a flat plane like a bicycle frame would be.  Sort of like one would cut pipes to different lengths and affix them to a frame or jig to fix the relation between them and then weld them together.  Would I be able to use the tube sections and superimpose them on your sketch and use the sketch as a jig to change the relation between the tubes.  Is there a way to achieve this with constraints?

I have noticed as a novice that when one uses tube sections in 3D modeling things can get rather challenging because there are no edges to snap or align.  In this case I would intuitively think than then centerlines would do this function, but apparently they don't.  I am confused with the "construct category" which seem to work referentially but I cannot actually use them to "construct" the frame sections.  

Sorry for my lack of experience in this field of yours, I hope what I lack in industry experience maybe I can make it up to your team with my passion and interest in your empowering tools  

If there is a way I could openly share the bicycle model with you or the group please let me know.  This would be a nice way to collaborate and learn the ropes.  That is one contribution I could suggest your team could add to Fusion 360

"share the helm mode"

for passing the 3D modeling expertise between users and noticing modeling faux pas by novices like myself, since you would be able to see my model structure etc.  This would be like a shared white board on steroids where your Fusion 360 live environment is the white board.  This would be much more empowering than watching YouTube, pausing and replaying over and over...

I think a bicycle would be the most basic essence of a ubiquitous invention that makes an ideal and fun tutorial for newbies but yet has plenty of challenges with centering, tubing, spokes, chain, differing angles and potential for moving components and mechanisms.  At the end it gives one a good sense of accomplishment.

I'd like to thank Autodesk and your team for making this powerful tool available for Beta testing.

Regards,

-Emil

[Oceanconcepts · Accepted solution]

Emil,

Let me throw in a couple of thoughts from another user fairly new to Fusion.  The aligning of bodies seems to be a common point where we falter, as Fusion has a rather unique approach.   

It's best if you make independent parts into individual Components. If you, like me, are used to being able to select the center point of a torus like your wheels and just snap them to alignment, it's odd that you need to create that point in Fusion.  But there are some advantages.

If you activate the Component for a wheel in Fusion (the little circle/ radio button to the right of the component in the browser) then in the construction menu make a "Point at Center of Circle-Sphere- Torus" , and do the same for each wheel (activating the components in turn), you can then select these center points (after making the root component active) and use the align command (right click to bring it up) to put them together- you can then use the move tool to slide them along any axis you chose.  You could do the same for the cylindrical sections of the main frame.  The key is creating a construction element to relate to the component. 

The general principle is to make a reference construction point or plane(s) in each component that you can use as a kind of "handle" to align them. This can involve some creative thinking, but it can also be kind of powerful. If you make an axis for each wheel-component, for instance, and align those, the wheels will be side by side. 

Using the Joints command is another way to align parts, but in your case another approach is probably better.  There may be MUCH better ways of going about this, I only suggest things that have worked for me.

Thought to add that you must be sure to select the Move Components" option when you want to move the entire component and its associated construction elements. Fusion asks you to be aware of what elements are associated with a component, as opposed to being at root level.   

Cheers,

Ron

[emil135k]

Hi Ron,

I have been reviewing your instructions, and trying different iterations of it wih no success :-(.  BTW thanks for your feedback.  I am trying to bring up the align command after creating a point and I can't figure out how these are supposed to snap together.  

Regards,

-Emil 

[emil135k]

Ron, 

You ROCK!  I finally got it to work, by trying your instructions over and over until I finally saw the illusive ALIGN feature.  BOY, that is the toughest thing to figure out in 3d Modeling programs, these contextual functions that only appear if you click on the right portion of the component, with the correct shift-clicks, right sequence of events and BAM, then it works.  This ALIGN feature should be explicitly mentioned in the Fusion 360 document.  Thanks a million!

 

[haughec]

Thanks for detailed instructions, Ron.

Emil, I'm glad that the Align Components command is working for you (now that you've found it).  I'll look into making it more discoverable.

[emil135k]

Hi Charles,

Excellent, not sure how viable it is, but since your are an Experience User Designer, one of the reasons that it is not readily apparent is that the change in color, glow, or highlighting that happens when multiple components are PROPERLY selected, is not readily visible.  Maybe a bolder fluorescent color glow or highlight when these are selected would help identify when the feature has been properly selected.  At present it is just too dim (maybe my aging eyes sight).  Maybe a magnifying glass effect (like a water droplet) might help get a better view of what is being selected and what mode it is in.

Now my next mission is dealing with constraints, within sketches and models, their utilization and within what contextual operations, etc.  It has not been readily intuitive or apparent to me yet.  I am working with a Macbook Air at present even though I can equally use a PC, and I read somewhere that in Inventor Fusion for PC you could toggle some function key to access constraints but that was not the case for Mac.  I am not that feature crosses over to Fusion 360 at present.

Regards,

-Emil

[Oceanconcepts]

Yep, Fusion's alignment options are not the most easily discoverable workflow- but once you get it, there is a certain logic. You can accomplish more or less the same thing with most objects using the Joints command- in that instance the snaps just appear, you don't need to create construction elements.

There should definitely be a tutorial that focuses on making clear the differences between Bodies and Components, selecting from the browser, vs. selecting from the drawing, and the associativity of construction elements created within a component vs. the same element created outside a component. The system hangs together and actually has a lot of power, but it's different from what those of us coming from other CAD packages expect. It leaves us initially looking for methods that don't exist in Fusion, and missing those that do.

Ron

[lure23]

I would ask Autodesk people to print the above Ron's entry (05-17-2013 06:44 PM) in BOLD and paste it onto their wall (until the issue is resolved).

This to me is the #1 issue in Fusion currently. It's a blocker. I can and will "learn the manners" but it's not worth getting more people to try Fusion until this problem is solved. One way of solving it may simply be to make those tutorial videos that Ron is asking for.

(It feels funny 'demanding' something when it's essentially a free trial we're using. Heh, we're your boss. :P)

[garin]

We have heard this from several people using Fusion 360 and agree we need to make it more discoverable as well as round out various workflows that are missing today. This is perfect timing for additional requests for align/snapping as we are meeting this week to focus on this topic for future enhancements. Feel free to add any additional feedback around this topic as we will be looking at it in our planning meetings.

[bbrown1951]

I think the answer to the problem can be found in 123d Design. Within 123 d Design is a "Snap function". This aligns the center of any two components selected. Now that same functionality should be brought into Fusion 360.

[TrippyLighting]

That stuff is already in Fusion 360. For my part I've discovered that the time witing posts complaining about what should be in Fusion is more often than not better spend watching tutorials and reading the documentation that can be found by clicking on the help icon in the very upper right corner of Fusion and selecting help from the menu. Or you can follow this link 😉

[Oceanconcepts]

It's in Fusion now, at the time the original post appeared the Align tool wasn't there, and aligning bodies or components was a pretty involved process. This is a great example of how the Fusion team responded to posts like this and actually implemented requests. I think many people would expect to find this kind of snapping and aligning in the Move tool, and miss seeing the Align tool.

For my part, I would still love to have these same snaps (center of cylinder, vertex, etc.) accessible in the Measure tool...

[TrippyLighting]

Yeah, true. Sorry, about that, I should not have used the plural.

In the last couple of days I have responded to three posts from users that post an idea in the idea forum (or make false claims elsewhere on the forum) that is already existing functionality in Fusion. I remember one specific case where the user submitted three "new ideas" in rapid succession with out much detail. One of them was that Fusion supposedly did not have a way to create a loft with multiple rails. Minutes later it was voted on. I made the comment that before posting this as a new idea and voting on it perhaps it would e a good on idea to ask in the general forum whether that woud already be possible.
Then another user posted screenshots explaining how this did not work even though directly to the right the website lists similar ideas and just clicking on it reveals a thread that shows that it is possible.
I had not worked with lofts/rails before and it took me about 15 minutes to find a good, almost fail safe repeatable way to do it and I created screencast.

I fully agree that the response of the Fusion team to new ideas is outstanding. We do them a disservice if we don't even read the available documentation and watch the tutorials that are already available. Also quite frankly any of us users can make a tutorial screencast if we find a nice solution for a problem that may be beneficial to others. We don't have to wait for the Fusion team to spoon feed the users with that.

[nileshlala]

That trial feature is what's been missing in Fusion, the only problem is that it doesn't work all the time?

eg, positioning a line to snap to the center of a circle to draw down to another circle's center.

It should be able to snap to the geometric center with simply hovering the mouse over the shape