topic How to increase the size of a component without scaling in Fusion Support Forum

How to increase the size of a component without scaling

Anonymous — Mon, 04 Feb 2019 07:22:50 GMT

Hi, So i downloaded an stl file for an adapter to attatch to a smartphone, however i wanted to stretch it to fit my phone but the problem is that the circular arc will also increase in size if i scale it, is there any other method available to do what i want without using the scale option.

Re: How to increase the size of a component without scaling

davebYYPCU — Mon, 04 Feb 2019 09:02:58 GMT

Why?

Draw a rectangle your size, draw the arc your required size, extrude a new plate.

You have not given much detail, working with mesh models in Fusion is more difficult than sketching the required article.

Re: How to increase the size of a component without scaling

Anonymous — Mon, 04 Feb 2019 09:56:11 GMT

Hi, If not this could you tell me a software which i could use. I am doing this for the project and i dont want to spend a lot of time learning on modelling. I dont think i can create a new one because i separated this and one and right now i just want to change the size and piece all the parts back together.

Re: How to increase the size of a component without scaling

davebYYPCU — Mon, 04 Feb 2019 10:25:12 GMT

Ok, hop over to Autodesk Meshmixer.

Re: How to increase the size of a component without scaling

TrippyLighting — Mon, 04 Feb 2019 11:21:58 GMT

Learning how to do this in Meshmixer very likely takes longer than than re-designing this in Fusion 360 from scratch.

This object would seem ever so slightly more complex than a cube.

Re: How to increase the size of a component without scaling

davebYYPCU — Mon, 04 Feb 2019 14:11:42 GMT

Yup, but He didn’t want to learn Fusion, didn’t elaborate on much more than keeping the arc intact.

I agree easy in Fusion, you can’t please all - all the time.

Can be done quicker than writing this up, but ....

Re: How to increase the size of a component without scaling

Anonymous — Sun, 10 Feb 2019 17:23:26 GMT

To do this in Meshmixer you just need to do PlaneCut (in SliceGroups mode) left and right of the arc, select the left group and move it using Edit/Transform, select the right group and move it the same way. Not that complicated I think...

Re: How to increase the size of a component without scaling

Anonymous — Tue, 12 Feb 2019 19:36:01 GMT

hey @Anonymous , i selected the portion and used the face transform option in the deform menu that comes up, I just had one question, when i was increasing the size basically it incremented by 1.25cm every time, is there any way i can change this to a smaller dimension say to increase by 0.5 cm

Re: How to increase the size of a component without scaling

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Feb 2019 00:36:51 GMT

To increase/decrease snapping increments in MM use Up/Down keys on your keyboard while the increments are visible as in your shot.

(To turn off snapping at all click on the green S circle in the widget. The A circle toggles relative/absolute snapping. The upper L or W toggles the orientation of the widget's axis: Local (based on an average normal direction) or along World axis)

Re: How to increase the size of a component without scaling

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Feb 2019 00:56:14 GMT

Also: I think that you did the face groups by GenerateFaceGroups at defaults. Changing the AngleThreshold in that tool should give more meaningful groups.

For further details: Maybe you ask this in MM's forum?

Re: How to increase the size of a component without scaling

TrippyLighting — Wed, 13 Feb 2019 01:01:58 GMT

You know, by this time most people had already re-designed this in Fusion 360.

Re: How to increase the size of a component without scaling

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Feb 2019 07:23:57 GMT

@TrippyLighting :

Which time do you refer to?

Given a mesh as a source, the workflow I described in my first post here , keeping the arc and internal structure (as wall thickness, bevels etc) untouched, to expand the object in one dimension on both sides lasts less than a minute (actually I did it in 39.12sec).

Doubt you're that quick re-designing it.

Plus: For my way the complexity of the content in the untouched area doesn't matter. Here it is just a regular arc but if it comes to most complex stuff to keep, the decision whether to re-design or to modify a given mesh might be even clearer.

Re: How to increase the size of a component without scaling

TrippyLighting — Wed, 13 Feb 2019 10:59:46 GMT

The OP's time.

If you have experience in Meshmixer this would likely be a quick fix there as well. I work more in Blender and would be able to do this in Blender vert quickly well.

However, the point is that a lot of people that come with these problems to this forum have no experience in any of this whatsoever and they will needlessly extend their leaning phase. The key to these problems is not the tool. It is knowledge. The knowledge in this case is what datatype this is.

Few people seem to understand the difference between CAD geometry and meshes.

Re: How to increase the size of a component without scaling

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Feb 2019 13:27:30 GMT

Sorry if this turns off topic.

Don't you think it's some kind of contradiction to state little understanding of different object representations and at the same time a needlessly extension of ones lea(r)ning phase ?

If someone isn't aware of this difference he'll never be able to use the right tool for a special task. So it's up to the guys giving advice to point out this very difference until it is common sense. In this concern simply saying it's better/faster to rebuild from scratch in a certain representation isn't that helpful, I think.

Re: How to increase the size of a component without scaling

TrippyLighting — Wed, 13 Feb 2019 13:58:42 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

So it's up to the guys giving advice to point out this very difference until it is common sense.

In this thread it was explained by Jeff why working with meshes in a CAD app is not a good idea.

I've explained this many times in other threads. It's there for everyone to read.

You also participated in this thread and could have easily linked to it.

Yet you did not!

Re: How to increase the size of a component without scaling

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Feb 2019 14:03:14 GMT

sorry, my fault. Bye

Re: How to increase the size of a component without scaling

TrippyLighting — Wed, 13 Feb 2019 14:15:46 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

...

Don't you think it's some kind of contradiction to state little understanding of different object representations and at the same time a needlessly extension of ones lea(r)ning phase ?

I can see that point!

My assumption was that's the OP wanted to learn Fusion 360 and for this simple mechanical object I think , re-designing it would probably be the best option. If that user then moves to another app and also runs into trouble there then he's sort of back to square one and hasn't gained much ground in learning either application.

I am sure at some point in time the user will come across another object that is not easily re-designed in Fusion 360. Then we can discuss other options, workflows and applications and learn why.

Re: How to increase the size of a component without scaling

TrippyLighting — Wed, 13 Feb 2019 14:44:18 GMT

I apologize of my post came across a but defensive/agressive. Wasn't meant that way!

Re: How to increase the size of a component without scaling

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Feb 2019 15:03:30 GMT

@TrippyLighting i had already done the task around 2 weeks ago and i faced a bit problem with the increment being fixed at 1.25 cm, still my problem was solved with that

One of the reasons i didnt want to redesign it was that it was one of the parts and the arc had a special pattern so that the other part would fit right into it, seeing that @Anonymous was willing to help me and had some experience i just asked how to solve this problem i had faced earlier

Since i was new to this community and didn't saw a solution to my problem, I thought it would be okay to ask on this forum, I dont know when it just converted to bashing me when i just wanted a quick hack for my project.

Re: How to increase the size of a component without scaling

TrippyLighting — Wed, 13 Feb 2019 15:13:58 GMT

Where was I bashing you ?

In my first reply I recommended for you to re-design the piece. I'd be happy to help with that if you would share the model. There is even the chance of a quick hack in Fusion 360.

You did not share your desire for a quick hack until just now. If you had shared that in the initial post I might not even have participated in this thread. I prefer to spend my voluntary time here on this forum with users that want to learn more about modeling in Fusion 360 (and other applications where needed).