Export to STL creates too many objects

[Anonymous]

Hello, I've got a weird problem.

When I try to export some of the models to STL (separate files) the program creates way too many objects - the doors are created 5 or six times... 

These were inserted into model from another file another linked file. 

If I try to check it in Fusion everything is ok: one object per door. But when I export... 

[Anonymous]

Things are getting even weirder if You take a look at file names.
Actually it seems like it created one instance of door for every model. 

Like:
there are 5 models in the scene containing the same doors

model no. 3 has 9 doors, so it exported 9x5 doors for model no 3 
model no. 4 has 3 doors, so it exported 3x5 doors for model no. 4

?

[lichtzeichenanlage]

Can you share your model here?

[Anonymous]

No problem, but which format should I choose? 

In instructions it's written:
Fusion 360 Archive File (F3D) (This method is not applicable to Distributed Designs, or design containing XREF's)

So F3D won't be applicable if I have linked files?

Anyway, attached files (just one model and door - actually even with single model I still have the same problem - exports all doors 6 times)

https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdeveloper.api.autodesk.com%2Foss%2...

https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdeveloper.api.autodesk.com%2Foss%2...

[lichtzeichenanlage]

Okay - it looks like, that Fusion 360 is just doing what you're tell Fusion to do. Selecting 9 doors and 14 boddies results in 26 bodies. It is not doing checks like "Skip component if already exported".

This sounds like a good entry for the idea station.

[lichtzeichenanlage]

By looking at your design, there are some areas to improve. Like not using move commands but using joints. Interested?

[Anonymous]

Ofcourse!
Thanks for Your interest. 

The way I did it all was just to prepare doors in separate file and then insert them into design and multiply using array. Nothing really complicated! 

[lichtzeichenanlage]

I'm still a beginner. But that's what I learned from this forum.

The main differences between your implementation and my implementation are

• I followed Rule #1. This might be the most referenced link in this forum and is a good advise for implementing things. So I have a component for each body. The benefits are, that I could filter my timeline by activating a component, I can join components (no moves anymore) and all the components (parts) are listed in the BOM
• 
• I've always include the origin of a sketch and all sketches are fully constrained. That makes it much more robust.
• Where ever possible I've used parameters (that includes user and model parameters). Now you can change the dimensions, change number of boards etc. and the design follows it nicely.

 Edit: Missing attachment added... 

[Anonymous]

Ok, thanks, it looks really nice, I think I will switch to components from now on! 🙂

But there is one thing I can see: You didn't use linked files (which happens to cause most problems) and I really need it. It's good to know there is workaround for it if necessary, but the reason I used it was that we are not sure about the shape of these doors (there is a great chance we will generate a few series of furniture with different doors each one) and that's why they were linked, I wanted to have door model in one file. 

[lichtzeichenanlage]

@Anonymous: Sorry for my late reply. 

The suggested workflow only results in a more robust parametric design. It doesn't change the export behavior. 

IMHO it doesn't matter if the components are linked to an external design or not. Fusion will just not filter to a unique list. That's something you have to do on your own. 

I had some time to check the API but I'm not to positive if a script or add-in can do it, because I couldn't find a method or attribute to identify a component uniquely and just going for the name is risky because it's not guaranteed that the name is unique within a design. I've created a post in the API forum but got no response yet.

[Anonymous]

No problem 🙂

Yes, what I was doing recently - I was trying to identify multiplicated files by name and removing them - I'm getting better at it and for sure soon will go down to one file per part, but obviously - this is not a perfect solution 🙂

Hope that somebody from Autodesk will take part in the conversation, It's interesting what might be the reason for the program to behave that way.  

[lichtzeichenanlage]

If you are using components right now, you could enable Inspect -> Component Color Cycling Tool (Shift N) and each component type will get it's own color. So all doors might be green, all boards are blue and sides are orange. Colors are applied are also applied to the browser. Colors are picked randomly.

I haven't got feedback from the API forum yet. Sorry.

[lichtzeichenanlage]

Hey - I got feedback from the API forum and I've created a little add-in that might help you. You can get all the information about the add-in in this new thread.

[Anonymous]

Nice! Will check it out!!

You're the man!

[lichtzeichenanlage]

One file was missing in git hub, I've fixed that. I guess the plug-in wouldn't worked on your side before. Sorry for giving you a hard time.

[Anonymous]

@lichtzeichenanlage I have checked Your plugin but somehow it didn't worked, will write you back in add-in topic. 
We will keep in touch but recently I'm a little bit busy, anyway big thanks for your engagement. 

SOLUTION FOR BLENDER USERS

Export STL as one file. In edit mode press P and select Separate By Loose Parts. 

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Another solution (only for Blender users) is to use (after importing all of the files) following script:

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/87489/cleaning-unwanted-overlapping-duplicate-meshes

In my case I had to remove a few indents for it to work.