Joining Line Segments

[Anonymous]

I have an object made up of a set of curves and then joined that were drawn in Turbo Cad a while ago and when I import the design into F360 the program treats each segment as a separate element.

The has to be some means to join line segments.

Yes I searched the archives and find lots of old posts saying it can't be done and everyone sort of agreeing this would be a good feature.

[ToddHarris7556]

Recognizing an older thread.... I'll dump my .02 in:

Re: Why it's important?

We get files from designers quite often that work in Illustrator, and the files can be a mess. Multiple layers, gaps, overlaps, you name it. This is not all Fusion's fault, nor should Fusion be expected to clean it all up. 

However, I'll say that when you're trying to work on a sketch with 10k line segments, the sketch engine really does bog down when trying to make any change. There are a number of things we can do - reference points and fit curves, etc. The original request, was, I think, fair. It's back to the old AutoLISP zero-length line and CleanUp routines. Just simplifying the geometry to improve performance. 

And having said all that... I still wouldn't bump it up that far on the priority list. This does result in some amount of pain, but it's not every day, and it's not very much.

[chrisplyler]

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@jeff_strater wrote:We should bias our priorities around those things that either cannot be accomplished at all today in Fusion (e.g. designing a cam follower), or...

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This.... Cam follower, or pin-slot-on-a-path, should be the single top priority before anything else is considered. All team members should be on this. The "Inspirations Panel" team should be on this. The boss that thunk up the "Inspirations Panel" idea obviously has too much free thinking time on his hands, and should be on this.

[Intuos5]

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@chrisplyler wrote:

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@jeff_strater wrote:We should bias our priorities around those things that either cannot be accomplished at all today in Fusion (e.g. designing a cam follower), or...

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This.... Cam follower, or pin-slot-on-a-path, should be the single top priority before anything else is considered. All team members should be on this. The "Inspirations Panel" team should be on this. The boss that thunk up the "Inspirations Panel" idea obviously has too much free thinking time on his hands, and should be on this.

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This thing called software development is not as easy as: person A demands feature X, the whole team should fix it! I for one don't use CAM and couldn't care less. 

Regarding use cases for converting a bunch of lines to a spline, I can see a specific need for it during concept development, where the end result is not something that was imagined from the get go. Let's say I design an arbitrary tent for camping. If I would create a place to sit on the inside and it happened to be too narrow for a table to fit in, it would be beneficial to convert parts of the geometry to a spline, then adjust the width or height of the enclosed volume by creating a new loft with the new spline where needed. But this is all under the assumption that the initial geometry did not consist of splines, you get the point. 

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@zalexzperez wrote:

I believe pattern on path misbehaves if your path is a collection of line segments...

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If so, then the tool itself should allow for chaining lines, which it does. And the lines should be clean. I wouldn't say this is an issue with the line geometry itself. Perhaps you should post a file (in a new thread) where the pattern tool creates a problem.

[chrisplyler]

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@Intuos5 wrote:

If I would create a place to sit on the inside and it happened to be too narrow for a table to fit in, it would be beneficial to convert parts of the geometry to a spline, then adjust the width or height of the enclosed volume by creating a new loft with the new spline where needed.

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Right. You can already do that. Of course, you have to delete the line and draw in a spline instead. The complaint seems to be centered around the fact that there isn't a "convert" button or something, which would save a few clicks.

So it's a convenience complaint. The complaint I made, about a cam follower / pin-slot on a path Joint type, is not a UI convenience. It's an important core functionality that is missing and has no workaround.\

[Intuos5]

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@chrisplyler wrote:

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@Intuos5 wrote:

If I would create a place to sit on the inside and it happened to be too narrow for a table to fit in, it would be beneficial to convert parts of the geometry to a spline, then adjust the width or height of the enclosed volume by creating a new loft with the new spline where needed.

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Right. You can already do that. Of course, you have to delete the line and draw in a spline instead. The complaint seems to be centered around the fact that there isn't a "convert" button or something, which would save a few clicks.

So it's a convenience complaint. The complaint I made, about a cam follower / pin-slot on a path Joint type, is not a UI convenience. It's an important core functionality that is missing and has no workaround.\

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Well, convenience serves people too, depending on the length of the workaround, I'd say. I'm not advocating for one or the other, just stating my opinion on the usefulness of such a workflow. There are also key features lacking in sketching, form creation, bugs and what not. All I'm saying is that one request can't be all the devs are and should be focusing on, regardless of importance. 

[therealsamchaney]

Jeff, one of the most important reasons we need a join line segment function is for loft rails. Often times, using multiple connected line segments (some straight and some arcs) is the best way to get the rail shape needed. Often, a single spline is not a good solution. But Fusion won't let you use these for rails because each segment doesn't touch both profiles.

Alternately, if you could modify the way the loft function (and anything else that requires a single continuous line) handles rails, and allow for chaining multiple connected line segments into a single rail, that would also fix the issue.

Please, this is a very needed feature.

Thanks,

Sam

[jeff_strater]

@therealsamchaney - can you explain more?  As far as I know, the limitations for rail curves are only that:

1. they precisely intersect the profile curves
2. they be tangent continuous

There is no restriction that the rails are a single curve.  In this example, I have a rail curve composed of two lines and one arc.  It is a perfectly valid rail curve:

here is the resulting loft:

I'm not sure how joining line segments could possibly correct a problem where the rail curves do not intersect the profile.  If the individual curves do not intersect the profile, a combined curve also will not intersect the profile.  That seems like a different problem to me.

[TheCADWhisperer]

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@therealsamchaney wrote:

. But Fusion won't let you use these for rails ...

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Can you Attach an example here?

[Anonymous]

I have a situation with no existing work-arounds which the join/convert to single entity feature would really help.

I have a port surface. As a result of the laser scanning process it comes to me split down the middle on top and bottom (technically 2 surfaces). If I want to use the edit face tool make quick adjustments in the surface I cannot make adjustments close to either of those edges. If I stitch the surfaces together, it gives an error that it cannot be resolved after hitting OK. If I don't stitch, it leaves one side of the seam up in the air above the other side, leaving a new hole.

I could project curves along the port, join the 2 curves into a single curve, do a new lofted surface without the dual seams and be able to Edit Face anywhere around the port without issue. Or, the other option would be to have a feature where we could combine the two surfaces into a single surface. Either way, it would be nice to be able to turn multiple connected entities into a single entity.

[TheCADWhisperer]

@Anonymous 

This looks like an entirely different topic to me.

Can you start a new thread (link back to this one for reference) and Attach your *.f3d file?

[larsnavy]

In reply to: TheCADWhisperer and: jeff.strater

A simple reason is so you can position several sketch objects (each consisting of multiple sketch lines) on a sketch. A tool tray is a good example. You are trying to minimize the space needed for all the tools. You need to rotate some, move some. Usually several times until you get the best results. This is easy to do in all the 2D Cad programs I have used by: join lines, group selected lines, combine selected lines, connect selected lines, etc. The sketch objects (in this case tools) will have irregular shapes and may end up overlapping other tools which means each tool sketch must each be considered a single object that you can select at anytime for additional positioning.

[seamus.e.hannan]

I've had times where I was left with a curve that had either like 15 million segments that I wanted to easily select all and join. Doing that by hand is untenable.

Also, I've made a line of 3 segments, a t-spline and straight line and another t-spline. I want to use the whole line to make an intersection curve with another and cannot select the entire 3-part curve as my first intersection curve... curve...

does that make any sense?

[hclmed]

What was the technique you used to join the segments in the open break above? When I edit the sketch and try that, the line tool doesn't detect the existing end points. Is it because they may be from different sketches? If so, is there a way to join different lines into the same sketch?

[TheCADWhisperer]

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@hclmed wrote:

... Is it because they may be from different sketches? If so, is there a way to join different lines into the same sketch?

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@hclmed 

P for Project the geometry from one sketch into another sketch.

Can you File>Export your *.f3d file to your local drive and then Attach it here to a Reply?

BTW - it probably would have been best to start a new discussion thread with a link back to this thread.

Your problem description sounds like a different problem and in any case this thread has been marked as Solved - so if it didn't solve your problem you have a different (perhaps related) problem.

[hclmed]

Ok, I see I should start a new thread rather than append to those marked solved. I worked around the sketch joining/closing problem for now, but will try using Project in a new exercise shortly. If that procedure isn't clear to me, I'll post in a new thread. Thanks

[larsnavy]

Yes, I see I should have started a ne thread if I really felt it was important. It's not really So I'll just consider it solved (closed). Thanks for all the good help