is there an inset function yet?

[Anonymous]

New user, just did some googling around to see if there's a way to inset a face in Fusion. But a recent ish post said: nope.

I tried it with the offset thingy but just got lost in the UI and gave up. Instead resorted to duplicating an object, scaling it down and using it as a cutting tool. Definitely bad workflow.

[HughesTooling]

Can you share the design or at least a screenshot? You might be able to project the surface edge into a sketch then offset the profile and use the offset curve with extrude from object or split the face then press pull.

Mark

[TrippyLighting]

Inset tools are generally found in Sub-D modeling software. Fusion is mostly a CAD environment where those functions are not so common.

[Anonymous]

Here's the face that I already made an inset into using a combine (boolean) type cut. But any straightforward way or method to inset would be good to know. I tried messing around with the offset but it just got too fiddly. 

[Anonymous]

I think MOI seems to do it well.

[davebYYPCU · Accepted solution]

Warning - Opinion to follow.

Really?  Not knowing MOI, that looks like hard work, that Fusion can do, as you say.

In Fusion - for the first example you mention, it is a sketched profile with an offset for the wall thickness, extrude both for the box, then come again and extrude cut the inside by how deep.  One sketch two extrudes.  No cutter body.  I was looking for the hard part.

In the second pair of scenarios, grooves in a face/s, In Fusion I would use a sweep cut of a sketched channel profile, the bonus is it doesn't have to be an orthogonal profile.

[TrippyLighting]

@davebYYPCU MoI us a very capable NURBS modeling software. But it isn't a parametric CAD software. There is a difference between a modeling software and a CAD software.

@Anonymous I've used CAD, 3D modeling and computer graphics for almost 30 years by now and feel I have a pretty good overview over what's available on the market, whether that's Sub-D modeling, NURBS modeling or CAD software.

I did not say "does not exist" I said "not common" and by that I stand.

[davebYYPCU]

Yeah, after I posted, it came to me that there are no sketches in that demo.

[TrippyLighting]

That is not a bad thing 😉

If it comes to innovative modeling most CAD software is really lightyears behind Sub-D and other modeling software and MoI is really very cool, no doubt about it.

But the thing is that I can easily fill a fast paced, feature-film length video with all the feature I'd like to see in Fusion 360. An Inset tool is a nice-to-have but it is not essential. There are still so many essentials missing.

[HughesTooling]

Where Fusion will fail is if you have a curved 3d face, Fusion has no tool to offset a curve on a face. Just offsetting a 2d curve and using extrude from feature will give a constant offset looking straight at the face but it is not a constant distance from the edge.

Mark

[chrisplyler]

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@HughesTooling wrote:

Where Fusion will fail is if you have a curved 3d face, Fusion has no tool to offset a curve on a face. Just offsetting a 2d curve and using extrude from feature will give a constant offset looking straight at the face but it is not a constant distance from the edge.

Mark

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It gives a constant distance from the edge when measured along the vector of the extrude operation.

[HughesTooling]

The last person asking about this was working on something like the back of a violin and wanted the offset a constant distance from the edge. Not looking straight at the part but measuring across\over the surface. Thinking about it now I think you could use a pipe then intersect\split to get the correct path.

Something more like this, and it seems pipe does work.

Mark

[HughesTooling]

Here's the file just in case my description doesn't make sense. And a better picture.

Mark

[chrisplyler]

If you want the inset to be normal to the surface, you could just do this:

[HughesTooling]

I'm pretty sure the distance over the surface is not constant using that technique. Can you attach the model?

You can see here the distance straight on is very narrow at the midpoint but the distance over the surface is more constant.

Distance should be 1.25 but shows small difference side to side. 

Mark

[chrisplyler]

That's right. The distance over the surface is not constant in my model. The depth is constant, and normal to the surface, but the width was extruded along a vector to the surface.

But a Pipe won't necessarily be normal to the surface. The turns that the pipe makes determine it's angle along any one segment of the path, because it's trying to keep the joints square. So when you have a more radical surface, as in my model, you get this:

In such a case as this, there is no geometrical way to keep all three of these requirements:

1. Inset normal to surface,

2. Inset constant width (edge to edge across original surface),

3. Inset has hard corners that miter smoothly.

[HughesTooling]

That's not what I've done, did you look at the file I attached?

Mark

[HughesTooling]

Here's another version using split face and press pull. Not that you'd be able to assemble this one in the real world.

Mark

[TrippyLighting]

In response to the MoI video I created a quick screencast ho how this is also quick and easy to achieve in Fusion s360 without the need of a specific "inset" command.

On Prismatic objects without compound curvature this is quick and easy. As shown by @HughesTooling and @chrisplyler on curved surfaces this is more complicated. 

Eiter way, none of this is as fast as the inset workflow I am used to from Blender.