Gathering Support for Extruded Profiles Library (Metal, Plastic, ...)

[Pedro_Bidarra]

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-ideastation-request-a/extruded-profiles-library-metal-plas...

I've created this idea a few months ago and I'm surprised there isn't more support behind it because I think it would be useful to a lot of users and it does not exist in other similar software, so I'm trying to spread the word out so Fusion users get a chance to judge it.

Often I have to use standard metal (steel, aluminium...) profiles in projects, modelling these profiles is, of course, simple, sketch the section and then extrude it, but it might become a repetitive work.

My suggestion would be to have a library with standard profiles  (pipes, rods, tube, 'I' beams, etc...) and with the ability to add new profiles (personal folders), with the specification of material and information to populate the BOM. With this in place one would need only to select the plane, point of placement for the profile, direction and height of extrusion or path for extrusion. The user could also set any material as the profile material (metal, plastic, rubber, wood, etc).

So basically this would be the 'pipe' modelling tool on steroids.

[scotty71]

I think may have asked for this myself.  I use steel exclusively and fight with having to start from literal nothing to generate steel tube and beam profiles.   It makes slightly harder when you have to rebuild the profile because it can cross over to another project.  

But, you have to pay a fortune to get "steel" from Autodesk an in Autocad.   It's a whole separate credit card swipe. 

[Daffydd-T]

same for me - just switching from inventor to Fusion and wondering if that is one reason for the difference in price tag...

[Garret_H]

I came up with a work flow that I think works pretty well in absence of an embedded feature. 

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-design-validate/workflow-for-structural-steel-shapes-amp-l...