interpolating or blending between two lines in sketch

[Anonymous]

I would like to create a series of splines that interpolate/blend between two splines (or lines). In CorelDraw this is called a "blend". It looks like this:

where the top line and bottom spline are the inputs and the lines in-between are the blend. I plan to use the collection of curves/lines to to generate a toolpath in CAM. Is there any way to do this in Fusion 360?

I tried exporting the sketch to dxf and loading into CorelDraw, but my version doesn't read the splines. I tried installing DXFSplineToPolyline, but it causes Fusion 360 to hang on launch on my machine. (I've reported this to the apps team).

[HughesTooling · Accepted solution]

If all you need is a toolpath you could use Morph to achieve what you're after. just join your line and spline to make a closed profile extrude into a solid and select the edges in the Morph op. Hold Alt down while selecting to select a single curve. see attached file.

MArk

[Anonymous]

Thanks - that's pretty much solved my problem. For some reason, when I looked at operations all I saw was morphed spiral. I couldn't seem to spot morph even after you suggested it. But I eventually saw it 🙂

Here's the remaining problem. I can't seem to get the path to extend past the edge of boundary so that it doesn't take small cuts from the ends of the grooves:

I've tried all the various combinations of contact, tool containment, etc, but can't get the paths to extend enough past the end of the workpiece.

I'm attaching the model in case you have a minute to look at it.

Thanks for the help.

[HughesTooling]

The only way to extend 3d ops is to make an extended surface. In the attached file I made a new component and copied the body you created then offset the end faces. In the morph op I selected the 2 top faces under model on the geometry tab, you use model to add patches\surfaces used in an op to the geometry selected in the setup. I also added an offset to the boundary for the adaptive clearing to allow for the extra area machined by the morph op.

Mark

[Anonymous]

I was aware that extending the surface would do the trick, but hoped that the CAM parameters could handle this. That said, thanks for taking the time to create and share an example. I was particularly impressed that the offset faces didn't merely shift the faces, but actually extended the shape of the underlying loft - that's a nice trick! Of course, that means if you try to extend it too far it will crash because the extended curves don't exist. (There's an easy solution - don't do that!).