Changing Plane Orientation

[des_owen]

Hi

I have a couple of parts designed in Fusion that I want to send to Cura to print.  I guess I must have picked the wrong plane to place the original sketches on when I started because in Cura the pieces are on their side rather than standing up.  Can I change this after I've designed the parts in Fusion?

Many thanks.

[inchul.lee]

Hi des.owen,

You can use 'Redefine' command to move a sketch to another plane.

You may want to check out this technical article:

• How to Move a Sketch to a New Plane in Fusion 360

[NicolasXu]

Hi des.owen,

Another guess from me is that you may face a problem related to modeling orientation.

There is a preference setting to specify the default modeling orientation, to be Y Up or Z Up. It sounds like your design were created as Y Up.

The orientation is stored in the design when it’s saved, and it cannot be changed after saving. As for your case, you can either Redefine the sketch plane or use the Move command to rotate the bodies so the up direction aligns with the Z axis.

Best Regards,

[Pavel_Holecek]

Hello,

This change is possible also to do when you select all components/bodies and use Move command – then you can rotate with all components together. Another possibility is to insert current design into a new design and positioning it ( during insertion Fusion360 offers you to rotate and move with inserted component).

Regrads

Pavel

[des_owen]

Perfect, many thanks.



Des Owen

M: 07515 955810

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[desowen]

Many thanks. What a great product and superb support community.

[kingson138]

Hi desowen,  

The present orientation of "Y" up is what we used to setup STEP (CAD) files for making mold layouts for Industries like Plastic Injection Molding  It is because the Mold makers' CAD programs are usually " Y " up (my mold makers are!). 3D printing  is using the Z up format most of the time. In fact it is not too important. Unless you are using your own printer. Commercial 3D printers like Sculpteo of France will arrange your models in their printers in the most economical way (Batch Printing) with the proper texture. Only when you uploaded your model to the Commercial Printer's website you might see the model kind of laying down if you used Y up. Some 3D commercial printers will correct the visual orientation automatically. Most of their websites allow you to change the orientation to the way you wanted. That is only visually.  If you are using  3D printing as a form of rapid prototyping for Injection Mold Designing, then you should continue to use "Y" up. I think using the "Move" command to rotate your model in the work space is a good move. If you are just doing 3D printing you should set you default format to "Z" up in preference.  

[kingson138]

Hi, If you are going to use Fusion 360 for manufacturing I believe you do have to set "Y" up as default.  3D Printing companies will print your products and the orientation is not really that important. But for projects like Plastic Injection Mold designing and making the proper orientation is important. Mold designers are not product designers. They will design a mold layout based on the orientation of the model that you sent to them (stp files). All of them, are practically using "Y" up. It has to do with the proper draft angles, etc.  If your model orientation is not correct the mold designers will reject your model and just tell you that your model could not be made by that method. By the way, we as designers do not design molds. Molds Designing is a different technology that needs to be studied separately. 

[des_owen]

Great answers and they have helped my learning, thank you.  In the end, I decided to start again with the preferences set to Z up. It is more intuitive and appropriate for me to have the model sitting upright otherwise after printing it would be harder to remove from the glass plate as there would be more of it stuck down on the longer edge.  When I iterate the design it does improve so it was a good thing to do and also helped me learn more.  Thanks all.

[OFGLLC]

A limitation of this is that you can not redefine the plane to a plane that did not exist in the timeline before the Sketch was created.  Not a problem for you if you just chose the wrong plane originally.  As far as I know, the only way to deal with this limitation is to copy-paste into a new Sketch later in the timeline.   Then if the bugs in Copy-Paste don't get you, you're good.

[PhilProcarioJr]

@OFGLLC

"A limitation of this is that you can not redefine the plane to a plane that did not exist in the timeline before the Sketch was created."

This is easily fixed by rolling back the timeline before the sketch and creating a reference plane where you need it. 

[OFGLLC]

Thanks a lot.  That's just opened a new world for me.

[tommy]

Hi Guys,

I have a very similar question about this. I am a fairly CAD (and Fusion) novice so please try and bear with me. I have a assembly which has one origin for all components. Then some designer (using Solidworks I believe) has come and stuck in a PCB into that same assembly. The alignment is correct, but the origin is totally reversed. This now means when I come to save part of full assembly as a sub-assembly in IGES or DWG, the resulting assembly is no longer assembled and the two PCBs have flipped away from each other.

I have tried redefining the origin as described in this post above, but as it was not designed in Fusion there is no sketch for the PCB with the offending origin. Therefore, I cannot seem to solve how to get the origins to match (so that the added PCB has the same origin as the rest of the design).

I have attached a screenshot of the two PCBs in question with all other non-PCB components removed and the origins showing so you can see the flip reversal. I have also added a screenshot of what happens when I save these and the assembly falls apart. As you can see in the screenshot of the saved issue there is also another component (part of an on/off switch) that also appears to have another origin issue.

Any help in sorting this issue would be very much appreciated as it is driving me nuts and holding up the project.

Cheers,

Tom

[OFGLLC]

Do you know how the PCB was brought into the design?

[etfrench]

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@des_owen wrote:

Hi

I have a couple of parts designed in Fusion that I want to send to Cura to print.  I guess I must have picked the wrong plane to place the original sketches on when I started because in Cura the pieces are on their side rather than standing up.  Can I change this after I've designed the parts in Fusion?

Many thanks.

---

Wouldn't it be easier to flip the parts in Cura?  In Fusion 360 it's usually best to create all of the parts in their relative (or actual) positions. 

[tommy]

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@OFGLLC wrote:
Do you know how the PCB was brought into the design?

---

Afraid not. I could get the person who added it to try and deal with it but it is just another delay that I would prefer to avoid.

[tommy]

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@etfrench wrote:

Wouldn't it be easier to flip the parts in Cura?  In Fusion 360 it's usually best to create all of the parts in their relative (or actual) positions. 

---

Sorry, I don't know anything about Cura. I have hijacked this post as it seemed to be a related issue to mine.

[mathelm64]

Link is dead, and I still couldn't "redefine" my plane....

I think you need to show (click on little bulb) Origin first...

[Pavel_Holecek]

Hello,

here is a link to Fusion learning part : http://help.autodesk.com/view/fusion360/ENU/?guid=GUID-3E407E01-65AE-4DCC-A3A7-1439D9B5182F

Let me know if you need more info

Regards