Autodesk Fusion 360 or Autodesk Inventor file exports to Bobcad or Solidworks
Hi @zenkustumz,
I believe that both BobCAD and Solidworks can accept .STP file types which is a file type that Fusion 360 can export. If you go into the file menu in Fusion 360, and then select export, you should see an option to export as a .stp (step file). That should work for him. Perhaps fellow BobCAD users and Solidworks users can comment as to whether or not there is a preferred file type to export as, but I do believe that .stp should do the trick!
Thanks,
James Youmatz
Product Insights Specialist for Fusion 360, Simulation, Generative Design
Drawings are 2D representations. A model is usually a 3D representation. So what is it that you need to import into bobcad.
2D information, or 3D information, a drawing, or a 3D model ?
What version of bobcad is he using, if it's one of the newer version's I think V23 on you should have no problems working with stp files.
Mark
Mark Hughes
Owner, Hughes Tooling
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Im downloaded your step file imported it into Fuusion 360 and it looks like a fine 3D model to me. What are you referring to with "drawing paramenters" ?
Once you have exported the 3D model from Fusion 360 into .step you loose all of the parametric information.
A .step file only contains one or more solid bodies, but no design history or timeline etc.
It loads into bobcad v27 fine and I can select edges and create toolpaths no problem.
One thing you might need to do is create a 2d drawing with sizes limits etc. you should probably be doing this anyway and you and the machinist sign it before production so you have some sort of record of what's expected.
Mark
Mark Hughes
Owner, Hughes Tooling
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I see now bobcad doesn't seem to be able to take measurements from a solid very well. A way around this is create a layer curves then use from solid to extract all the edges.
Then the measure tool will work on the curves. Unselecting surfaces from the selection filters will help.
Also tell him to download Fusion he'll enjoy using it a lot more.
Mark
Mark Hughes
Owner, Hughes Tooling
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I don't use BobCAD so take this with a grain of salt.
However, I've used CAD and a lot of other software for the last 25 years and I am not aware of any format that translates the parametric feature tree ot timeline or what have you from one CAD application into another. Solid Works and others have tried o aleviate this with automatic feature recognition that attems to recreate that but I somewhat doubt that BobnCAD is able to do this and in general there are clear limitations of what can be accomplished with this feature recognition.
It may simply be easier for your machinist to learn how to work with the CAM environment in Fusion 360.
Bobcad is not a parametric modeler it's a surface modeler so there's no way you'd get the history into bobcad. If you redraw in bobcad you'll end up with a dumb solid no different to the stp file you've imported. I could never get the hang of drawing anything very complicated in BobCAD so you might want to download a demo and give it a try, it's nothing like AutoCAD\Rhino or Fusion\Solidworks.
Also you'll need to use V26 if that's what your machinist has as there's no backward compatability.
Mark
Mark Hughes
Owner, Hughes Tooling
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Yes. Adding Solid Works into this is not going to do anyting in terms of getting yout models into BobCAD. BobCAD is not going to recognize SolidWorks feature tree either I am afraid.
A base license of Solid Works is somewhere around $2500-$3000 and then you'll have to add the annual maintenance fee of $2500.
The first Solid Works version i have worked with was SW 1998. It is a very powerful tool but with a price tag to match. It does NOT have the integrated CAM environment that Fusion 360 has. That costs extra. Go ahea and invesigate what a standalone version of HSM works costs 😉
zenkustumz wrote:
Hugh Using BOBCAD, i have extracted edges from the utilities menu but is there a way of choosing those items to be measured? I also found un-stitch surface from solid. is there a way to use measure to pull dimensions once i do this or another way?
Again thanks
If you created another layer for the curves hide the 3d model and it's easy to measure, I've high lighted the measure icons in this image.
And going through another program will not help. It sounds like your machinist might not have a lot of experience working with 3d models, it should be no problem working from the stp file in Bobcad. Like I said in an earlier post you should create a 2d drawing of the part in Fusion and dimension overall sizes, hole sizes and tolerances etc. and save as a PDF.
Mark
Mark Hughes
Owner, Hughes Tooling
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