import text font

[Anonymous]

hi, how i can import a text font in fusion 360?

thanks.

[and.magro]

Hello,

I put the dxf file in attachments.

Thanks

[Phil.E]

Thanks.

I opened your dxf in AutoCAD. Then explode the text, then delete the hatch patterns. This left a nice outline.

Then I opened in Fusion and found that for every letter that has zero curved segments, Fusion produces an extrudable profile. This is because those are regular line segments. All curves and straight lines in the letters with arc shapes are splines. This is a known issue with DXF splines.

In this image I have already "fixed" the number 3.

Here is how to fix the letters. (I cannot take credit for this solution, a Forum poster showed us this a long time ago, sorry but I don't remember who, but they deserve the credit!)

Start by drawing zig-zag lines across your letter. This will reveal all the places where the splines cannot produce a good profile in Fusion.

Next, pick a straight line, delete it, and replace it with a Fusion sketch line. See how a new profile area is defined? This is how we use the zig-zag lines to find bad intersections and put in new lines that fix it.

Move your zig-zag lines around to isolate single intersection nodes. This shows you exactly where you need to replace another line. Replace the straight ones, that's easiest.

Eventually you will likely have to replace every straight line in your letters. The good news is that the straight lines are easy to replace and also perfectly keep the letter shape. I know this is a long workaround but it gets the job done when the font you absolutely must use is not supported.

Thanks,

[and.magro]

Thanks a lot Phil.

[Anonymous]

I have installed my font ttf format and I am still unable to extrude. Am I doing something wrong? It previews the font but when i click ok to finalize the size i get an error

[blackst6]

I'm struggling with getting my new font to show as well. It's installed properly on Windows 10. I've also restarted the computer and Fusion 4 times with no change. Font attached (scratch that, Autodesk doesn't allow the file type to be uploaded. It can be downloaded here: https://www.wfonts.com/font/bankgothic-md-bt 

[Phil.E]

If you can use the font in a Fusion drawing but not in modeling, that means it's not allowed for extruding. Is that the case here?

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the follow up on this Phil (It seems to be a couple years since discussed), but I'm having a similar issue.  I uploaded the font into my system (mac), and although I can see it in the font menu, it comes up as a generic/arial type of font (not the long skinny design as it should be)    Specifically, I'm trying to engrave a certain font into a coffee cup design.  A more popular pottery line called Rae Dunn has a distinguished font they put on their products - this is very similar.

I've tried to load in the ttf as well as the otf format.  i've also restarted the software and rebooted - still to no avail.

Any guidance would be appreciated

[lance.carocci]

Hey @Anonymous,

I took a look at the font on both macOS 10.15 and Win 10, and confirmed your findings. As you noted, neither the OTF nor TTF seem to work with Fusion on Mac, though they seem to work with Fusion on Windows. I can also confirm the font works in Word on Mac, however.

I noticed that user-installed fonts go to /{current user}/Library/Fonts, while system fonts are in /System/Library/Fonts/. On a hunch, I tried installing it to the latter directory, and bam! we're in business.

Rae Dunn is back in action

Good news! We can change the default font install directory from the former to the latter with minimal fuss.

1. Open Font Book
2. In the macOS system menu bar, with Font Book in focus, click Font Book (between :red_apple: and File)
3. Click Preferences
4. For Default Install Location, change the dropdown from User to Computer
5. Reinstall the font - when validating the duplicates, ensure that the one in User is disabled, and Computer is enabled
6. Restart Fusion
7. Profit! (within the allowance of your license)

Font Book Preferences in Catalina

All that said, we could be better about handling the default user-installed font location, so I've logged this away. While I cannot promise a timeline for a fix, it seems this workaround should suffice - please let me know otherwise.

Thanks for engraving coffee cups with Fusion!

[Anonymous]

Wow Lance, thanks for the effort is breaking that all down - I really appreciate it!

That all said...still didn't work.  I went through all the steps, and noticed something strange - when trying to install - a bunch of windows popped up for a nanosecond and then disappeared (too quick to discern what they were or said) - and when i looked in the 'Computer' the folder, the font I was trying to install still wasn't there. Unsure why but Fontbook is not properly installing certain fonts (actually several fonts) under the 'Computer' heading, it would only work for just 'User'. 

So, I started googling this -clearly this is an Apple issue. Not much direct assistance that I could find but there were several who referenced to 'manually drop the files in'  so I started playing more with it ...and i did get it working

When I went to the folder Macintosh HD/Library/Fonts, I opened it up - low and behold only ONE  font was in there - "Arial Unicode.ttf";  the very font that it defaults to for like 70% of the fonts I try to choose in Fusion.  So I went hogwild dragging and dropping dozens of different fonts into the folder, and after restarting Fusion, voila - Spiderman, peppa pig, whatever font you want...they all worked - including Rae Dunn. 

Not sure what Autodesk can do about this - more of an Apple/Fontbook fix but nonetheless, there's the solution.

Thanks for the follow up!

ok - back to making the mug -Happy wife, happy life.

[lance.carocci]

Hmm, the only thing I can think when I did this, is that installing to Computer triggers an admin password prompt where installing to User does not. If it was a smaller rectangular dialog with 2 text fields, that might have been what you saw.

On that note, I don't think I caught what version of macOS you experienced this on. Could I get that for my report? I tried this on the 10.15.1 beta, but I wouldn't be surprised if Fontbook and font directory structure changed a bit from 10.14.x and prior.

I'm glad you found a working solution nonetheless!

[Anonymous]

yes, the two rectangular boxes in the top left corner was what quickly popped up and disappeared - again, I couldn't see what they said.   I'll continue to search how to fix that setup with Apple.

I'm using The latest fusion 2019, and I'm on a Mac pro, Catalina (freshly updated a day ago, but the issue was occuring on the previous version OS, Mojave I believe)

Thanks again for your help & support.  Now to master form creation in Fusion - ironically a lot like working with real clay!

Cheers

[stephen.k.cooper]

In Catalina, the location for system fonts is locked down and cannot be modified.

Looks like we're dealing with two bugs - one in Fusion, one in FontBook.

The bug in FontBook means that fonts cannot be installed system-wide.

The bug in Fusion 360 means that user fonts cannot be used.

Luckily, the workaround @Anonymous found works just fine. Just move all your fonts from /Users/<name>/Library/Fonts to /Library/Fonts.

[jean-michel_legoff]

Hi,

I have a question about using fonts in Fusion360.

I’ve found that there are some issues when extruding explosed text, the continuity between curves looks to be lost. So even if the face is closed there are some tangences issues between the surfaces generated what may be an issue when you try to filet or bevel the edge of the solid extruded.

Is there some improving on the go?

many thanks

[Phil.E]

Hi,

Can you provide an example, i.e. what fonts?

I ask because text font libraries on your computer are not designed for manufacturing. For most of them that produce what you are describing, the problem is the font. If I have an example to work with it will be easy to illustrate.

[jean-michel_legoff]

I discovered the issue on a custom font I made by my own.

but after some inspection, I get the same bad results with any standard font like Arial or Bodoni NT,

it looks like Fusion try to convert Bézier curves to rational curves in the « explode text »operation and so, lose the alignment of Bézier frame line.

It’s really bad thing.

the only way is to find a good tool (Adibe illustrator) to vectorize the font and export it as DXF or SVG but it’s boring and not so user friendly.

[jean-michel_legoff]

I understand that usually type face are not supposed to be used in manufacturing, and that the focus is only "visual".

But if the result of the vectorization is correct in Illustrator or in Inkscape or if the extruded shape is clean in Dimension, i was supposing that the definition of the font is not too bad.
I just cannot understand why Fusion360 extract such curves instead of a basic cubic bezier one.

 

here you can see on the eye of the "&" caractere of the "Forte" Typeface that there is some issues on the curve definition, particularly at the top. on left (AdobeIllustrator) the tangent are horizontal and alligned, on the right in Fusion they are making an angle.

 

[jean-michel_legoff]

here is a file where you can compare the difference between both (you may have to notice that I've imported the Fusion exploded text as DXF).

[Phil.E]

Thanks for the well detailed example. This can be logged as an improvement request.

[jean-michel_legoff]

Thanks for your reply, but for me, as it generate corrupted geometry it's more a bug report than an Improvement Request.

It's almost a blocking issue, as we need to use an extra software, to vectorize the tsxt and import as SVG or DXF...

[Phil.E]

Duly noted, thanks for the clarification. The ticket for this is updated to reflect this.