Assembly color export problem

[cardy-]

Hi everyone!

I had this same problem before, and in a hurry I solved it with a quite rude technique, but actually it worked. Now things are a little bit different.

So the basic problem was, if I have a component which has more component inside it, and I export this to step or igs the appearances added to it will be lost on the exported model. What I did was create a new component and copy all the bodies inside it, and export this new component. This solved the color issue, but now I realized that with this method the exported file size will be much higher (more than 3 times higher) than the one exported without colors, and I'm sure it's not about the color, this must be cause because of the different shape relations in the model. It should be mentioned that I used imported models from an unknown source (it's an extremely detailed connector model in this case), I will try to generate the same problem with something modelled by me.

Generally I think this is a bug of some type, I don't really understand why the colors dissappear if I have multiple components in a design.

Here's a photo of this specific item:

Look's fine but if I export it the colors will be gone in the stp file.

Is there a solution for this problem, or anyone else experienced this?

Best regards!

Laszlo Galantai

[paul.clauss]

Hi @cardy-

Thanks for posting! 

Unfortunately, because no options are given when exporting a Fusion 360 Design as a step or .igs file, there is no way to ensure that appearances will remain consistent with the original Fusion 360 design.

I think the exported files you created in the color work-around may be much larger due to the fact that the inserted bodies are no longer instanced. In the original file, identical bodies (possible copied and pasted), are linked, resulting in a reduced file size. When these bodies are copied into a new file and exported in either step or .igs formats the link is lost. Because of this, the program no longer recognizes the identical bodies as copies of one body, and the file size can increase greatly (as the program sees each identical body as individual and unique). 

Let me know if you have any questions or comments - I'm happy to help!

Thanks,

[cardy-]

Hi Paul!

Sorry for the late reply, I was busy with other things recently. So actually exporting colors work fine every time I have one solid model with different appearances on faces, even if I import a model from an unknown source (for you to understand I use Fusion mostly to model, or modify electronic parts for 3D PCB file generation, so the appearance is important for me). If I model my own parts, I always make them as a solid (that's the easiest to handle for the PCB software I guess and in 90% of the cases they are really small in file size, even with moderately complex parts too), like that I have to add appearances to the faces whish can be a bit difficult sometimes, but that works fine when exported.

If I have time I will make a sample project which will contain multiple parts, with correct appearances, I wonder would that work? I will post an update when it's done!

Best regards!

Laszlo

[TrippyLighting]

Yes, please do so and when done post i in the Tips & tricks section of the Form.

I've come across thi before when needing 3D represnetaion when desinging a PCB on Altium Circuit Maker.

Applying the apprearance to bodies did not occur to me but as we an see has disadvantages.