Doubts from a newbie - Conversion of mesh to 3d printing object

[Anonymous]

I am importing a mesh into Fusion 360 and trying to convert it to a 3d printable object.

I have done a few things, but could not figure out how to do the below:

1. Removing the triangular faces of the mesh once converted to object(BRep)

2. Increasing the thickness of the object

3. Cut the mesh/object to get only the required part in a smooth manner.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[innovatenate]

Thanks for posting in the forum. If you're looking to create a smooth BREP face, converting from a triangulated mesh (STL files) will not work. 

Instead you should start with a Quad OBJ file. Here's a youtube video of using Autodesk Remake to clean up a mesh and then converting to a quad OBJ file. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7F01N6zZOdo

Here's a screencast of me using the Reform Quad engine in Remake (there's is more than one to experiment with).

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/fusion-360/getting-started/caas/screencast/Main/Details/a75cb...

Note in Fusion 360 Mesh Preferences, there is an option triangulate mesh polygons. You'll want to disable this and before inserting the quad OBJ file. 

I'd recommend using a direct modeling environment to easily switch between mesh and other environments. 

After you have the quad mesh inserted into Fusion, convert to a sculpt (T-splines) body and then convert into a BREP solid. This will generate smoother geometry than just converting directly from an STL file. 

I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any questions.

[Anonymous]

Hello Nathan,

Thank you for your reply.

I tried the way you suggested.

This is the error message from Fusion 360 when I try to convert the mesh to T-Spline. ( I am attaching the screenshot of the error.)

Here, I want to point out that the object(or scan) is a multi-curved complex object not a rectangular 4 faced object.

Please advice further....

[TrippyLighting]

You did not follow Nathand]s instructions at all. In his post the mentions that the object should be a quad mesh several times.

The error message shows that your object has 60k+ triangles but 0 quads.

[Anonymous]

I am sorry for the misunderstanding. I am not sure what a quad mesh was, and since he wanted me to try working with obj, I inserted an obj and tried it. I could not install Remake software as I am working on a MAC. Will try it on a Windows system and check again.

Thank s for the reply.