topic Re: Getting on edge of sketch to be horizontal on plane in Fusion Design, Validate & Document Forum

Getting one edge of sketch to be horizontal on plane

Anonymous — Fri, 24 Jun 2016 23:50:50 GMT

Hello,

I have made a sketch and I need one edge to lie horizontal on a plane. I tried using the horizontal constraint but it only moves the line selected. I need the whole body/component (still not sure what the difference is) to move in conjuction with that one edge.

Thanks

Morgan

Re: Getting one edge of sketch to be horizontal on plane

TheCADWhisperer — Fri, 24 Jun 2016 23:51:59 GMT

Is the rest of the sketch predictably constrained and dimensioned?

Can you attach your *.f3d file here?

Re: Getting on edge of sketch to be horizontal on plane

lnonnato — Sat, 25 Jun 2016 00:00:50 GMT

Hello Morgan,

If I understand correctly, you have generated a sketch and now want to move all the elements of the sketch as a whole.

For this, you have to apply constraints to the elements (if two lines are perpendicular, parallel, coincident ... , you should explicitly constrain them) and/or dimension these elements.

After all the needed constraints are applied, you can make your line horizontal and the other elements should follow.

I should say that it is difficult to identify all the needed constraints in a first trial; probably you will need to try a couple of times till get the sketch to behave as expected.

Cheers,

Luiz

Re: Getting one edge of sketch to be horizontal on plane

Anonymous — Sat, 25 Jun 2016 00:02:44 GMT

Hi,

I can't find the file on my system. How do I get it?

Morgan

Re: Getting one edge of sketch to be horizontal on plane

TheCADWhisperer — Sat, 25 Jun 2016 00:07:16 GMT

Make sure that you pay attention to the path on Export or set it to a path that you want.

Re: Getting one edge of sketch to be horizontal on plane

Anonymous — Sat, 25 Jun 2016 00:12:25 GMT

I'm learning a lot today.

Here's the file.

Re: Getting one edge of sketch to be horizontal on plane

TrippyLighting — Sat, 25 Jun 2016 02:59:41 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

I'm learning a lot today.

Here's the file.

If you watch the introductory videos in the "Learn" section you'll find that these answer a lot of questions.

Then there's the Autodesk Fusion 360 Youtube channel with nice tutorials.

Re: Getting one edge of sketch to be horizontal on plane

Anonymous — Sat, 25 Jun 2016 04:24:23 GMT

I have been they do not seem to address it. Ill check them out again.

I did manage to export it as a .stl and import into another program and get it handled.

I want to keep trying Fusion 360 but it seems to be a pretty steep hill.

Thanks

Re: Getting one edge of sketch to be horizontal on plane

TrippyLighting — Sat, 25 Jun 2016 11:28:43 GMT

Now that I am looking at your file I agree that this is not addressed anywhere!

Before offering suggestions, could you explain what your end- goal is for this crown moulding ?

I am assuming you want toCNC machine this.

Re: Getting one edge of sketch to be horizontal on plane

TheCADWhisperer — Sat, 25 Jun 2016 11:51:00 GMT

I recommend approaching this as though you were setting up a machine to make part.

Your dimensions do not make logical sense to me.

I recommend to beginners that they create one line or one circle or one rectangle at the origin and dimension it immediately for a sense of scale for the rest of the sketch.

This is what you would do on a machine - establish a zero position and measure distance.

I would avoid using Splines unless absolutely necessary and fully understood.

Cutting tools come in specific sizes and are generally linear or circular arcs - not spline profile. Keep it simple. What can be reproduced over and over by anyone knowing standard dimensional sizes at an economical cost?

Re: Getting one edge of sketch to be horizontal on plane

burnandreturn — Sat, 25 Jun 2016 15:02:32 GMT

Quoted from TheCADwhisperer

"Keep it simple. What can be reproduced over and over by anyone knowing standard dimensional sizes at an economical cost?"

That is the first thing any designer or engineer should learn. Design things so they can be built, produced and/or repaired.

All engineers that worked for me started by sweeping the shop and cleaning up after the welders and mechanics. If they didn't want (and I stress WANT to) to do that they didn't have the right attitude to work in my company.

Sorry for the hijack!

Re: Getting one edge of sketch to be horizontal on plane

Anonymous — Sat, 25 Jun 2016 21:16:08 GMT

I should make it clear that I am not designing a part but trying to copy an old one, A piece of crown mold off of an antique. I intend to mill this from the top to reproduce it, not have knives made to cut a profile.

This is the process I followed.

I stood a scrap of the crown mold on edge in my scanner and scanned to a jpeg image ( I tried a tracing first but I was not happy with the accuracy and the pencil width was a problem when image is blown up on screen). I then imported that into Fusion 360 using "insert canvas". I calibrated the image to size, that is why the dimensions seem strange. I then adjusted opacity and started a sketch. I increased the size of the image and very carefully traced the outline, using lines, arcs and splines. The prominent arch on the piece is not an arc of a circle so I had to use a spline to copy it. I then turned off the inserted canvas and got the resulting sketch to the same scale as the original part. I held up the part to the screen and made adjustments until I was happy that the sketched outline matched the original scrap (believe it or not this worked great). I then extruded it.

My intention is to mill it with a small ball end mill and finish the final surface by hand with scrapers and sandpaper. If I can get this process to work I believe I can reproduce many destroyed pieces of molding and trim on antiques.

The problem I am having is getting the part to line flat in the xy plane so I can apply CAM tool paths.

Of course I will mill a sample from MDF at higher speed to check the part in the real world.

Thanks,

Morgan

Re: Getting one edge of sketch to be horizontal on plane

TheCADWhisperer — Sat, 25 Jun 2016 22:07:42 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
This is the process I followed.
I then imported that into Fusion 360 using "insert canvas". I calibrated the image to size, ...

I use this exact same process with a couple of critical differences.

I missed that your image was in the file you attached.

When I get a chance - I will create a video of my process.

Re: Getting one edge of sketch to be horizontal on plane

Anonymous — Sat, 25 Jun 2016 23:04:05 GMT

Wow,

I would love to know what the critical differences are when you have a chance. Is it possible to translate the drawing's bottom edge to horizontal?

Morgan

Re: Getting one edge of sketch to be horizontal on plane

TrippyLighting — Sun, 26 Jun 2016 00:28:45 GMT

In Fusion 360 calibrating the canvas is exactly the correct way to get scale a canvas to the correct proportions.

Your sketch seems to have some problem, indicated by the yellow sketch icon in the timeline. I think the reason is the big spline.

A mistake that many beginners make is to use way too many control points for the spline. I'd redo the splines using between half and a quarter of the control points you have now. It'll take a little experimentation. That should take are of the error.

Also, the moulding should be a component. Usually you should adhere to Fusion 360's R.U.L.E #1: Before doing anything, create a component and make sure it's activated.. All objects created after activation are created inside of that activated component, which will have many benefits down the road. The following does not work with a body (I believe) it only works with Components.

As you only have created one body from one sketch, you can simply create a new (empty) component and drag the sketch for the moulding into it.

Then you can use the Align function to align the component with the coordinate system (origin)and use the move tool to adjust as you see fit.

Re: Getting one edge of sketch to be horizontal on plane

Anonymous — Sun, 26 Jun 2016 15:37:08 GMT

Thank you! Looks like I got some homework to do and study.

Re: Getting one edge of sketch to be horizontal on plane

TheCADWhisperer — Sun, 26 Jun 2016 15:59:06 GMT

Can you attach the actual image file you used?

I want to make a video of how I would do this from the start.

My first step would be to crop most of the "noise" out of the image.

Re: Getting one edge of sketch to be horizontal on plane

Anonymous — Sun, 26 Jun 2016 16:46:41 GMT

Sure.

It is attached. Just a quick note. I edited the image in picasa to get the best contrast along the edges.

Looking forward to the movie premier.

NOTE: I originally attached wrong file. Correct image attached now.

Re: Getting one edge of sketch to be horizontal on plane

TheCADWhisperer — Sun, 26 Jun 2016 17:52:25 GMT

Turn on your sound.

Pay particular attention to how I was able to create your spline with only two nodes.

Re: Getting one edge of sketch to be horizontal on plane

TheCADWhisperer — Sun, 26 Jun 2016 18:58:34 GMT