Creating a "Ring" using "Sculpt" with exact Circumference

[kingson138]

The Fusion 360 "Sculpt" workspace provides the "Lifestyle" product designers a means to sculpture "Rings" into different forms. However, If a ring band is created using the "Create Cylinder" tool at the "Sculpt" workspace and then thickened by the "Thicken" tool. There is a difference between using "Sharp" and "Soft" Thicken type option. Using the "Soft" Thicken Type requires less work, and the designer can use Edit Form to sculpt the surfaces and then convert the T-Splines into  Brep bodies. The circumference can be measured because the resulting band is quite round. However sometimes it is desirable to use the "Sharp" Thicken type to form the band but the resulting T-Spline will not form a round ring band. Some workflow is needed. At the end of this "Sharing activity" I will provide two screen shoots of the same dimension Ring formed by both types.

"Using Sharp Thicken Type" in the "Sculpt" workspace.

First create a cylinder then thicken the cylinder with "No Edge" thicken type option:

Why I have to do that? It is because I want to create a round inner band within an outer band. More screen shots will demonstrate this effect later on.

Then I will thicken the outer band with an inward direction to the original intended thickness, in this case "2mm".

Then Using Edit Form Tool I extruded the surfaces to form a ring structure:

You will notice by the above screen shot "4" that the resulting Ring Band is not "round" after the Edit Form Extrusion. You will also notice that the inner band that was created originally is round.

Now I will thicken the inner band with an outwards direction to about "1mm" and the inner band will form a round inside ring band:

This is the result:

I had just created two T-Splines. I will use the "Convert" tool to convert the two T-Splines into two Brep bodies.

To finish this creation, the Boolean "Combine" Tool at the "Model" workspace is needed to combine the two Brep bodies into one single body. This is needed to eliminate the edges that might prevent effective "fillet" action later on. It is advisable to select "Join and form a new component" options in the "Combine" Tool.

After the "Combine" operations, the "Fillet" tool is used on some outside and inside edges of this New Body at the same time:

The final result is a beautiful Ring. The circumference of the ring should be measured at a mid point between the two outer edges. I will offset a plane to the mid position, then project the cut edges. The circumference can then be measured on the projected sketch:

Yes there are differences between the same size ring formed by using "Sharp" and "Soft" thicken type. Depending on how the designer wanted the final product to be:

Using Sharp: (I think the designer can have more options using the "Model" workspace on the ring.)

Using "Soft" (The designer can use more options provided by the "Sculpt" workspace, eg.. Bridge tool can form "tunnels" and "bridges".)

I intended to do this illustration without too many engineering terms. I myself is a Chemist and a Commercial Designer and I am happy with this new Fusion 360.  I had designed more than 100 products using this program for my own stores in Singapore and Europe.

My English is not perfect so please do not be alarmed!

Enjoy!

[kingson138]

Other devices can be constructed using this same method. A device had been formed by first using the "No edge" then "Sharp"  Thicken Type options. This is a finished product. As you can see if I did not thickened the Outer ring to the original designated thickness I can maintain a center ring with the correct diameter and circumference. This ring will be stabilized in the middle of this structure. This ring is not connected to the structure at all!

Just another way to make devices with the ring centered exactly the way you wanted!

[kingson138]

Please note that when thickening the inner original band the newly form edges should be above the old ones. That is the reason for the "1mm" chosen thickness. If the edges overlapping each other you cannot perform effective "Fillet" operations even after you combined the Brep bodies. Most important thing here is to use "Combined" operations after you converted the T-Splines to Breps. Otherwise this construction will not work effectively.

[lure23]

Nice walkthrough, Kingson, thanks.

Do you think the product is ideal, as it is, or can Autodesk change something to make the process less elaborate (and/or easier to discover)?

Also, aren't some of the dialogs taking up waaaay too much screen space:

Which could be:

Someone at Autodesk should go trim down all the dialogs. There might be others like this. Leave the screen space for our designs. Thanks.

[kingson138]

Hi Asko, Thanks for your reply. Yes i think you are right, most of the time i had to move the dialog boxes out of the way. Fusion 360 is hard to discover the many things imbeded into the program and sometimes takes lots of time to find out. For example, why a hollow cylinder say with a 2mm wall formed at the Sculpt workspace, then converted into a solid cannot have its diameter and radius measured by "Inspect"? We ended up using "Projecting Cut Edges" but the same hollow cylinder created in model workspace can be measured easily? Why a sphere or a torus formed at the Model Workspace cannot be scaled unless a point is constructed somewhere? But the same size sphere or torus created in the Sculpt workspace then converted can be scaled normally?  One contributor once mentioned that he would like to "bend metal parts". If they wanted to make a product for designers the product should be able to form graphical structures that can matched up with the curvature of some target structure. Eg a graphical structure on this ring band requires lots of procedures to curve it. Maybe they can consider adding a tool to bend a graphical structure to a certain degree that can be "installed" on other target structure. See attached:

But after using Fusion360 for a few months I learnt to live with its constant crashes (most of the time without any valid reasons, and cannot be duplicated. You and I know about this I guess!), and a little inconvenience. I just hope that they will improve the program in the next few updates.

[kingson138]

The New Update of Fusion 360 has a Pull Command tool that can Pull vertices of the TSpline body to a Solid body as an independent component. I had done some experiments with the Pull command. I had found that it will work if you want to thicken the ring band in "Soft" mode. But if you want to use "Sharp" mode to thicken the ring band, my tip here still works.

Anyway, using this method for "Soft" edges you can make the center tube into a solid body, maybe pull it longer a bit, and made component from this body. Once you thickened the outer tube back to the same amount of thickness, you can start using the Pull Command to fill up the gap and make the ring band round. Be sure to adjust opacity control, and use "Select Through" and check only "TSpline" selections. After that you can make the center tube disappear and you will have a perfectly round band. So depending on whether you want to have round edges initially or you want to fillet the edges yourself for a different look. This method will create a center solid tube fully aligned and at the dead center of the ring band.

Good Luck and enjoy!

[kingson138]

Another Tip: when thickening the outer layer back in "soft" mode, it is a good idea to leave a little gap between outer and inner Solid ring (converted into separate component). After the form editing of the ring band you can preselect the control vertices by selecting the edges, then click the Pull command in Auto Mode, and select "Surface Points". That will give you the diameter you wanted. Remember this is referring to the "Soft Thickening".

[kat.ingalls]

This is a great quick tutorial, Kingson! Thanks for sharing this. Wondering how we can better highlight user-created tutorials like this in the future... Do you think the Discussion boards is a good place to keep these? Or do you think the Gallery (should we change that section to "Projects?") would be a better place? Or maybe having a section under "Learn?"

Love the content! 🙂

[kingson138]

Hi Kat,

Thanks for the comment. I think this area is fine. In fact I picked up most of the tricks and "how to" from these boards. One of the most important technique I learnt from the board "getting help" is how to construct rails for "Loft" in the Model Workspace.  Now with the capability of using Loft on sketches in the Sculpt workspace, this method might not be needed. But it is a great place to really learn how to use the program. So I think we should share some of our own workflow.

[kingson138]

Hi the new "Object Snap" can put objects on Solid bodies so the job is easier now. The new "Face" tool works very well in "Simple" and "Edge" mode in "Object Snap". The nice thing about these tools is that the objects can follow the natural curvature of a solid body easier now! I have a little project at the "Gallery" called "Rainy Days" using "Object Snap". Take a look there!