topic Re: Generative Design Additive Manufacturing Axis in Fusion Support Forum

Generative Design Additive Manufacturing Axis

jordancormack1 — Sun, 12 Apr 2020 14:06:07 GMT

I am starting to use Generative Design within Fusion360 and have some seemingly strange behaviour happening with the additive manufacturing method. If the 'set current view as...' or part orientation is changed, does Fusion360 use the updated co-ordinates for the generative design orientation outcomes, or the original co-ordinates?

Looking at each generative design outcome orientation (X+, Y+, Z+) it seem that they do not match with the my part co-ordinate system. In the attached images, it can be seen that the outcome orientation is supposed to be Z+, but the part has a solid mass on the Y- side, seemingly stepping at close to 45° as specified in the additive manufacturing setup. To me, this suggests that the algorithm is generating the part as Y+ instead of Z+, as this 'stepped/angled' bit is on the Y- side.

I have attached one image of the unrestricted method as a comparison, looking at the two other additive orientations, it seems that the X+ outcome should be Z+ and the Y+ should be X+.

Am I correct in saying this behaviour is unexpected? The generated geometry itself is not unexpected, just that is is seemingly miss-matched to the axis. The reason I rotated the part and changed the 'set current view as...' is that there seems to be no way to change the axis which the generative design outcomes are based on. It would be great to be able to specify the axis within the method options, as I may already know I will not want Y+ but may be interested in Z+ and Z- for example.

I suppose I could recreate the entire setup from scratch without rotating the part to see if that changes anything - but thought I would post here also.

Re: Generative Design Additive Manufacturing Axis

Ben-Weiss — Mon, 13 Apr 2020 17:28:14 GMT

Hi @JordanCormack !

Thanks for your post! From your pictures, I agree that this looks like a bug - the generative outcomes are labelled differently than the axes shown in the Explore view.

I've never thought of using the Set Current View As... command to reorient the part for generative. I am running a couple of experiments now to see if I can reproduce the issue on my end. If so, I'll file a bug. If I can't, I may ask you to put together a brief screencast so I can see what exactly you did.

Typically I use the Edit Model workspace to rotate generative setups in order to use manufacturing constraints along different orientations. I made a quick screencast showing how to do this here.

You can also use the Align tool in the Edit Model workspace; I put together instructions for this as part of an AU class I taught last fall. See Page 67 of the Handout here.

Hope that helps!

Ben

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Re: Generative Design Additive Manufacturing Axis

jordancormack1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2020 17:37:44 GMT

Hi Ben, thanks for the suggestions. I will use those instead of the Set Current View As... command in the future. Probably still worth looking into it though, as someone will inevitably do the same in the future!

Running a simple scenario with two plates (one fixed and one end loaded) seems to show the result clearly (see

attached images). The standard image shows that the Y+ orientation is generated as expected, with a flat bottom, but rotating and using the Set Current View As... causes the generation to be the same, but not on the specified axis. (the materials are also different in the attached screenshots but that should not affect it).

Re: Generative Design Additive Manufacturing Axis

Ben-Weiss — Mon, 13 Apr 2020 17:43:11 GMT

Thanks! I was able to reproduce this on my end, and I've notified the appropriate team so they can file it in their backlog of bugs.

Thanks for catching this!

Ben