Extruding 3D Curved Sketch Outline

[vedroychowdhury]

Hi,

I've been looking around other posts but none seem to be matching the problem I have. I'm an *extreme* newbie to Fusion 360 (literally my first few days), and I've made a design of diamonds on a lofted face. I'm trying to extrude the design into the face (cut) - just the edges, however (so not the projected geometry - thin extrude).

Extruding will not let me select these faces - just one line at a time. 

If more detail/files are needed I'd be happy to add them. Thanks.

[etfrench]

It's a pattern, so select one helix, thin extrude it, mirror it, then circular pattern.

[vedroychowdhury]

Does the circular pattern work for this scenario? My shapes are actually different in size, they get smaller as we go further up the loft. 

[etfrench]

They might. Each continuous line looks like a helix, so a circular pattern of one helix and its mirror should create the intersections.

You can use a thin extrude to cut the face of the model, then use a sweep to create the grooves on the model.   Mirror those features, then circular pattern them.

[vedroychowdhury]

Apologies for my beginner-ness but I'm still confused on what you mean by the helix. Do I grab a set of the diamond shapes I've created, extrude it, then mirror it? As far as I know, I can't extrude any sketch that is projected to the surface of a lofted face since it's 3-dimensional.

I've gone ahead and uploaded my file if you'd like to take a look.

[vedroychowdhury]

If it helps at all, this is what I'm going for. (The pillars at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport). That minuscule groove on the outside of each diamond and, later, the inside cut of the diamond. 

[etfrench · Accepted solution]

Here's how to create a helix, then mirror and pattern it.  I'd recommend starting fresh and creating the model centered on the origin and the sides aligned with the origin planes.  This will make it much easier to do the patterning.

p.s. Sorry, but Autodesk stopped supporting their screencast program.  It seems OSB is not capturing the dialogs.  Step through the timeline of the Fusion 360 file to see the dialogs and their settings.

[Warmingup1953]

Oh, that video is like watching a magician doing card tricks at night!  Bring back Screencast! So simple so good!

[TrippyLighting]

I've looked through the timeline of your design and would suggest you start over completely from scratch.

Before doing that, you should go through one of the tutorial courses here and familiarize yourself with Fusion 360 basics.

Then you should sit down and think thoroughly through the task at hand and then start designing. As a beginner you should be prepared to start over a few times!

[vedroychowdhury]

Amazing trick! Just had some further questions about it.

This is the 2D version of the diamond pattern I project onto the surface. Would the level of dilation here be okay to use with this? Perhaps if I curved the helix a bit more I could get the desired shape.

Also, I was hoping to cut with a thin extrude rather than to bring it out - is that still possible with the helix design?

Thanks.

[vedroychowdhury]

That's a good idea. Is there anything specific you noticed fundamentally wrong with my design that I can note for next time?

[etfrench]

Yes, you can use the Surface workspace helix to cut a body or a face.  No, I don't think the 2d projected geometry will look good because the line segments are not tangent.

See my previous post for why you should start fresh😁

[vedroychowdhury]

Thank you all! Appreciate the help and I'll be sure to get myself more familiar with Fusion in the coming weeks.. 😂