topic Re: Struggling with thickening a OBJ file in Fusion Design, Validate & Document Forum

Struggling with thickening a OBJ file

christopher.giles — Fri, 10 Apr 2020 23:01:56 GMT

I am hoping someone can help me dig myself out of the hole I have been in for the last week.

I am importing a boat hull shape into Fusion 360 as an OBJ file (I have tried 3D DFX files as well). I use the hull design software because it does complex hydrostatic calculations and creates linesplans. My goal is to have a proper solid body so I can design the rest of the key parts such as ribs, chine, sheer line, etc. so I can manufacture them on a CNC router.

I can't seem to find any consistent was to thicken the imported OBJ file. I have converted it to BREP and none of the thicken operations work. I have converted it to a BREP and converted it again with the Solid Convert command to Quad meshes. I get stuck there.

I have turned off Capture Design History, but I can't make any changes in the Mesh workspace. I can't select any of the faces let alone stitch anything together.

I have tried boundary fill as well.

I have attached both the OBJ file and the #DFX files to this post. UPDATE: I tried to attach the files, but Autodesk keeps removing them. 😞

Thank you!

Re: Struggling with thickening a OBJ file

jhackney1972 — Sat, 11 Apr 2020 01:04:59 GMT

Your attached files did not make it in your post.

Re: Struggling with thickening a OBJ file

christopher.giles — Sat, 11 Apr 2020 01:20:02 GMT

This is the OBJ file for the boat hull. I hope.

Re: Struggling with thickening a OBJ file

jhackney1972 — Sat, 11 Apr 2020 01:22:14 GMT

You will have to zip these file, then attach. Forum posts can only attach certain files without zipping.

Re: Struggling with thickening a OBJ file

christopher.giles — Sat, 11 Apr 2020 02:01:00 GMT

I apologize, all. This is my first time using this forum. I have been able to muddle through my other learning curves.

Here is a ZIP file with the OBJ and 3D DFX files.

Re: Struggling with thickening a OBJ file

jhackney1972 — Sun, 12 Apr 2020 00:00:42 GMT

I have very little luck with any type of mesh, this one included. I have attached the best conversion I can get and a Screencast on how I did it. The mesh looses all of its radii upon conversion directly. I used the smoothing operation to help maintain these but then you get a faceted solid. Hope it helps some.

efecdce4-8e01-4f69-b3a0-f366f9b98796,640,650

Re: Struggling with thickening a OBJ file

TrippyLighting — Sun, 12 Apr 2020 01:21:46 GMT

This mesh is mostly a quad mesh so it can be converted into a T-Spline. It needs a little cleanup to remove the triangles. I note that the thing comes in at approximately 15mm length so you might want to scale the mesh either before import, or you scale the T-Spline. Don't scale the surface, or solid.

Then you can thicken it preferably with the tool in the surface tab as that is parametric and more precise. But if all fails, this can also be thickened in the T-spline.

Edit: added a little render for pure pleasure:

Re: Struggling with thickening a OBJ file

christopher.giles — Sun, 12 Apr 2020 04:27:41 GMT

Thank you very much for taking the time to look into my issues. Unfortunately, I lose too much resolution when I delete the diagonals and all of the corners are becoming rounded. I need an exact body so that I can create sketches, bodies, and CNC g-code for the interior structural components.

Unfortunately, when the model goes through these transformations it changes too much.

I make have to redraw all of the sketches from the design documents called linesplans. It is a real headache and takes a lot of time, but I can't seem to find another way to do this. Fusion 360 just seems very limited in its dealings with meshes and the like.

Again, thank you so much for taking the time and creating the screencast. It was very easy for me to follow.

Re: Struggling with thickening a OBJ file

TrippyLighting — Sun, 12 Apr 2020 10:19:17 GMT

Would this work ?

Re: Struggling with thickening a OBJ file

christopher.giles — Sun, 12 Apr 2020 17:38:47 GMT

How did you make this??

This is basically what I am trying to make.

Thank you!

Re: Struggling with thickening a OBJ file

TrippyLighting — Mon, 13 Apr 2020 03:39:15 GMT

There is a “crease” function/tool in the T-Spline environment.

Re: Struggling with thickening a OBJ file

christopher.giles — Fri, 17 Apr 2020 04:04:09 GMT

Hi, thank you again. I was able to create a hull like you did above with the crease function. That worked nicely.

Now I have another perhaps related issue. The body appears to be a solid body, but I can't create a sketch plane of any of its surfaces, nor can I project any of the geometry from the new hill. Ideally, I'd create a plans starting at the transom about every 2 feet. Projecting the hull shape on all of those various plans gives me the shape of each rib. I can then manufacture those ribs on the CNC machine.

The number of sketch planes depends on the length of the hull and a handful of other hydrodynamic properties.

Does this make sense? Any ideas?

Thank you!!

Re: Struggling with thickening a OBJ file

TrippyLighting — Fri, 17 Apr 2020 12:15:24 GMT

Yes, that does make sense. You can create offset planes form one of the origin planes.

Another method could be to create a sketch and then create plane-at-angle on sketch lines etc.

Ten you can projet-intersect surfaces onto that sketch.

Have you gone through any of the introductory tutorials n the Learn & Support section of this forum?