Offsetting different edges on different axes at the same time (Geodesic Dome)

[BedirhanUyar]

First of all, good day. I'm pretty new to Fuson 360 and I made a Godesic Dome. But they only have faces. There are 160 of them, and they are all on different axes... I must first offset the edges of all the triangular faces of this dome, then extrude them, and finally chamfer them, but since their axes are different, I have to do them all one by one. I couldn't find any resources on how to do this quickly.

[BedirhanUyar]

(The image in the second stage appeared to be of low quality)

[wes_glassmeyer]

@BedirhanUyar I am new to Fusion as well, so take this as just a suggestion, but I would think to simplify your parts down to the individual triangles. I would then joint those triangles together to make hexagons. I would then joint a combination of hexagons and triangles to make the complete geodesic dome. Just an idea, hopefully it makes sense. 

[davebYYPCU · Accepted solution]

In Fusion, you make one finished panel, and then using Circular Patterns duplicate them.

Might help…

[Drewpan · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I would strongly recommend that you do the embedded tutorials in the Fusion Documentation and also some of the

Self-Paced Learning to help you to learn fusion faster and better. They can be found here:

It is also much easier for the forum to help you if you attach your file AND a screenshot of what you want to achieve

and what the problem is. You can create a file to export like this:

Time spent on the tutorials and self paced learning will not be wasted. Also check out the three RULES that are pinned

to the forum for further guidance.

When I was first learning fusion I had been doing an AutoCAD project which involved a geodesic sphere. I had done a

great deal of research on geodesic structures as I had hand calculated the correct angles (to 3 decimal places) of such

a structure that could be scaled from a 5m diameter structure up to 100m. I could make it bigger than that if I went to

five decimal places. I had not had any previous experience with parametric modelling and did not understand much of

the underlying theory. I was very competent at 2d and 3d DRAWING but there is a very different mind set to the way

you do things when you 3d MODEL.

Check out this message thread.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-design-validate-document/advice-to-a-new-fusioner/m-p/11161063

This thread is very long, over 40 messages, and it goes into several different areas of modelling, including how to get

started. It also includes a number of ways to model geodesics and it taught me quite a lot about how fusion works on

the way.

There are several tricks to doing geodesics. Many so called geodesic calculators do not actually create a structure that

can be properly engineered and constructed. This is because those calculators create a series of triangles that actually

all touch the inside of an actual sphere. In theory that is what you want, but in practice it does not work (as I discovered).

The problem is that this kind of structure does not have standard lengths and angles. From an engineering fabrication

and assembly point of view it is a nightmare, sort of the engineering equivalent of doing a jigsaw puzzle. Buckminster

Fuller, the guy who is famous for introducing the world to geodesics in the mainstream, worked out a method that used

a slightly modified geodesic structure where all of the "legs" of each triangle were at a very specific ratio, and this created

a structure where all of the angles were the same (but had to be extremely accurate). From this work and work by others

you can engineer a fully scaleable geodesic structure simply by changing the length of the legs and maintaining the ratio

of the lengths.

I spent a great deal of time on this project as it was one of the major pieces for my engineering Diploma. The report I handed

in was about 40 pages of calculations and data to prove it would all work.

Hope this helps you.

Cheers

Andrew

[TheCADWhisperer · Accepted solution]

@BedirhanUyar 

@wes_glassmeyer 

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

[g-andresen]

Hi,

Take a look here 

günther

[BedirhanUyar]

As you can see in the attached f3d model, I created the geodesic dome. However, as seen in the image of the prototype model I made in blender, I want to thicken and extrude the edges of the triangular surfaces on this dome.

[jeff_strater]

Is this what you want?  Just stitch and thicken:

[TheCADWhisperer]

@BedirhanUyar 

First thing I would do is fully define your Sketch1 and then resolve all of the unresolved issues highlighted in yellow on your Timeline.

I didn't complete the patterns given the unresolved issues indicated on the Timeline...

[BedirhanUyar]

Thank you, this will work for me as you showed me, but what I really want to do is to thicken only the edges, not the surfaces, and then extrude the thickened edges.
Then I will eliminate the surfaces and it will be a structure consisting only of triangular profiles.
Isn't there a quick solution for this purpose, other than selecting each triangle separately and then doing the offset inwards manually? Once this is done I will extrude all the offset edges and then chamfer them

[BedirhanUyar]

I don't know exactly how to fix the yellow errors
The program crashed at some point, so maybe that's why? The error is "The project source is lost, Cache is used!" writes.

[TheCADWhisperer]

---

@BedirhanUyar wrote:

I don't know exactly how to fix the yellow errors

---

@BedirhanUyar 

Then start over and attach your new file here.

Offsetting the sketch lines looks like wayyy too much work to me.

[TheCADWhisperer]

---

@BedirhanUyar wrote:

I don't know exactly how to fix the yellow errors

---

Did you figure out how to fix your foundation geometry by starting over?

Once the foundation is good - then we can build the frame relatively easily.

[BedirhanUyar · Accepted solution]

Yes, I went back to the timeline and made the extrusions and edge offsets I mentioned on the initial sketches. Fuson 360 automatically applied them to the final model 🙂

   

[TheCADWhisperer]

@BedirhanUyar 

Sounds to me like you did it the hard way.