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True 3D sketching

True 3D sketching

Fusion 360 desperately needs true 3D sketching. The ability to create a sketch not associated to a plane. The ability to connect a couple tangent arcs to get from one sketch to another. The ability to sketch something like the runners of an exhaust manifold that aren't planar.

40 Comments
cekuhnen
Mentor

Amen to that - a long and often requested feature for sketching in a way designers need.

yoshimitsuspeed
Advisor

It seems this topic is getting some votes.
I would love it if anyone might be inspired to give examples of how better 3D sketching would actually improve their workflow or make it possible to do things that aren't currently possible.

Here is my best shot at an exhaust manifold. I could have sworn it should be possible to make the ends of the tubing tangent with the straight sketch lines making them start perpendicular to the flanges however after a lot of time hacking it I could't make the spline handles move at all.
Whatever the case even if it's possible to get it better than I managed to splines are useless for most exhaust design because this would need to be made using constant radius tubing and straight tubing. So to do this in a way in which my CAD design actually helped me to make a real manifold I would need to be able to make this design using arcs with the same radius as the centerline radius of my tubing and with straight lines representing straight tubing.
http://a360.co/20QxHBx

It should be fairly elementary 3D sketching required to do this. Just using arcs, lines and tangent associations to get from point a to point b.

cekuhnen
Mentor

@yoshimitsuspeed That is an easy model - key here is to have sketches that have the lines and then sketches that include the blend spline

 

in your model that would make 12 sketches and that is insane - good example to show how something simple can be too complex with the current workflow

yoshimitsuspeed
Advisor

Even with sketches and planes how would you set the plane positions? And how would you change the plane positions if you needed to change the design?

Also why can't I make the spline handles tangent to other sketch lines? Am I just forgetting how to do that?

And as you say, even then you would need to connect the planar sketches with splines which again wouldn't work for proper exhaust design since the tubing needs to be fixed radius arcs.


For something like this the main point would be knowing that you could make the shape out of say nothing but say 2.5" CLR and straight sections of tubing.
http://www.mandrelbends.com/mandrel-bends/mild-steel-10-11-gauge/1-63-mild-steel-2-50-radius-11-gaug...

Then step 2 would be using those sections to make drawings for the cut lengths and angles of the tubing.

 

promm
Alumni
Status changed to: Future Consideration

This idea is getting changed to future consideration.  We have plans to add 3D constraints and dimensioning to 3D sketch capabilities.  Our team is working on getting fully constrained out of preview and a few core sketch requirements before we can start on this.  Once work is started the idea will be changed to accepted.

 

Thank you,

 

Mike Prom

 

Internal tracking FUS-8588

yoshimitsuspeed
Advisor

 

A mani a buddy of mine modeled in Solidworks.

 

@promm

Can you give us a little more detail on what exactly will be implimented in the near future?
Will we be able to have true 3D sketches without defining a plane?

Will we be able to use lines, arcs and other sketch features beyond splines?

 

13401199_1296046913756054_576823622_n.jpg

Anonymous
Not applicable

Definitely needed to have true 3-D sketching ability. We need constraints such as making a point coincident to a line and a surface (not just a planar surface). Line normal to surface. Ability to dimension a 3-D line.(right now I have a straight line in space that I'm not allowed to dimension the length of.

 

 

yoshimitsuspeed
Advisor

Any update on this? It's looking pretty popular.

madengineer13
Advocate

I found this on youtube.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4vfMmkXGE4.    Its not really what we are all looking for, but maybe it can help in some instances.

 

True 3d sketching is definitely a needed capability.

yoshimitsuspeed
Advisor

@madengineer13
That's nice for some things. Maybe something sculpters, artists and the like can use more but most engineering is going to use lines, arcs and fixed dimension geometry so for someone like me who designs intake and exhaust manifolds and roll cages and things like that it is nearly useless. In fact I am designing a roll cage  right now and F360s shortcomings in this area have once again become blatantly clear and very frustrating. So far I have been able to make most things close enough to look not like total crap for demonstrative purposes but the models would be useless for manufacturing or anything like that because many things are not actually right because I would need more 3D capability to actually make them right.

yoshimitsuspeed
Advisor

@promm

Any good news for us?

madengineer13
Advocate
I totally agree. I was trying to see if anyone had come up with a
workaround and that was the only example I found.

Hopefully they will give us real 3d sketching soon.

Later,


*Madengineer13*
Anonymous
Not applicable

Super keen for proper 3D sketching for among other things modelling pipe runs.

Anonymous
Not applicable

True 3D arcs is a basic building blocks for tubular/pipe design.

It is currently possible to sketch arcs in 3D between two lines by drawing a fillet, but you loose a lot : the fillet dimensions cannot be changed without redrawing it entirely. The implicit tangency constraint of the fillet is brittle and will break if you move the lines.

In the image attached, you see two elbows connecting two non colinear pipes. The elbows have a fixed radius and are connected with straight tubes.

This is utterly easy to do in inventor with exact dimensions, and notoriously difficult in Fusion due to the lack of 3D arcs.

 

Pipe2.PNG

Anonymous
Not applicable

It would be really great to have an option to add 3-D Lines, splines. I recently tried to make a chassis which turned out to be difficult because the fusion does not have the 3d sketching options.

alexhardie
Advocate

There is an option to turn this functionality on in preferences.  I haven't messed with it much, but have you tried it?  Preferences>General>Design>check box "allow 3D sketching of lines and splines"

Anonymous
Not applicable
i'll try it now
subversivespeed
Collaborator

I have used it, and, its not real intuitive. I found it easier to make the components then connect them together in an assembly to better understand the constraints and keep track of it. Then I simple used the framework I made to define the object I needed to make. Definitely cumbersome

 

TrippyLighting
Consultant

The sketch engine in Fusion 360 is in essence a 3D sketch engine. However it is not fully developed and in fact so buggy as to be useless in many cases. I'd  stay away from it!

JamesCAD9
Enthusiast

I'd love to see this. The current 3D functionality is so limited I generally turn it off to keep from accidentally snapping to geometry outside of the sketch plane. What would be better is if 3d sketches were a seperate type of sketch with some way to sketch in 3d without snapping to existing entities. Maybe a tool similar to a gumball manipulator to select the active sketch plane.

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