Using STL mesh in Fusion
Hi,
Unfortunately, meshes with too much faces that exceeds the maximum number of faces allowed in Fusion can't be converted, there isn't a workaround for this issue but to decrease the faces of the mesh inside what ever program you got it from
Regards
Saeed Hamza
Did you find this post helpful? Feel free to Like this post.
Did your question get successfully answered? Then click on the ACCEPT SOLUTION button.
Yes, I totally agree, but Fusion is still new and developing, so hopefully this kind of thing will be considered in the future
Regards
Saeed Hamza
Did you find this post helpful? Feel free to Like this post.
Did your question get successfully answered? Then click on the ACCEPT SOLUTION button.
@Anonymous @SaeedHamza
The below statement is not correct:
- Turn off 'Capture design history' (Top-node > right-click) > switches to Direct modeling mode
- Imported mesh > properties (right-click) now shows a 'Mesh to Brip' function
In direct mode you can use Import Mesh and then in Model space use Mesh2BREP
In parametric mode you can use Model space Insert Base Feature edit the base feature and then use insert mesh and Mesh2BREP
But in general you never want triangulated mesh to be turned into BREPs for many reasons such as control over their creation
surface quality and such. You can import the mesh and then use it as a blue print to model over a new and clean design.
It came to my mind that I had used the 'close mesh' function before, believing that it made the mesh a usable body in Fusion (what it did not).
After a fresh import of the object (which comes from thingiverse) I saw it uses a much lower number of triangles - and now the 'Mesh to Brip' works > I could combine the body with others that I constructed, and output the whole construction in one STL file for 3D print.
Basically, building on an object from thingiverse with fusion-constructed parts might be the application of other users also.
In this case IMHO it was pure luck that the thing-i was simple enough for the Brip conversion, other objects from thingiverse might not work.
Fusion currently looks to me more focused on serious CAD/CAM applications / careers; and surely rewarding for them to learn.
Autodesk might consider making it a bit more approachable for the above audience, maybe.
Actually instead of AD adjusting it is users that have to understand the fundamental differences between mesh and nurbs.
Even the idea to load an STL model which has only triangles and not quads and convert that to NURBS via MESH2BREB is to be honest a beginner understanding mistake.
Fusion offers that ability and new users also get the wrong impression what it is for.
While Fusion offers a basic mesh module with some basic tools they are not for turning Thanksgiving and SketchUp models into CAD.
Their purpose is for reverse engineering either via Model/Patch or Sculpt mode.
The focus of Fusion is CAD/CAM and via T-Splines it offers a good way to turn quad face polygons to well working BREP.
Having Maya Blender Modo mesh modeling tools would actually be cool to have too but that will never happen - no CAD app has that and we can use
external mesh modeling apps that are more mature for such tasks.
Claas Kuhnen
Faculty Industrial Design – Wayne State Universit
Chair Interior Design – Wayne State University
Owner studioKuhnen – product : interface : design
Accepted solution
Something really strange just happened ...
@Anonymous you're last post disappeared ??!
I replied to it, and my reply disappeared as well ...
Saeed Hamza
Did you find this post helpful? Feel free to Like this post.
Did your question get successfully answered? Then click on the ACCEPT SOLUTION button.
@Anonymous
"The focus of Fusion is CAD/CAM"
"Even the idea to load an STL model which has only triangles and not quads and convert that to NURBS via MESH2BREB is to be honest a beginner understanding mistake."
Sorry, but Fusion, maybe just recently, also adresses people who are interesting in 3D print, in the marketing as well as in the software (3D print button etc.).
And for these people the workflow will often be similar to mine:
Integrating an existing STL model from some other source, be it made of triangles or rectangles, be it less or more complex.
You can use Fusion has a hobby person or use Fusion as a professional tool.
Particularly the last one requires certain awareness no matter what marketing says or people use functions for.
The pure fact how to high density models already are not feasible to be converted from STL to MESH
is already a clear sign that somebody uses the tool incorrectly.
Correctly would be a feature aware mesh to BREP converter that rebuilds the mesh body not face by face
but uses modeling features to accomplish this.
Fusion has since the beginning the Mesh2Brep ability - it is not new. I used it for converting my poly furniture models
to BREP models in the past but because of accuracy tolerance issues Fusion now mainly triangulates meshes.
There is even no real benefit to BREP a high density STL mesh to print it because you can 3D print an STL directly.
"in general you never want triangulated mesh to be turned into BREPs"
One does not care much about the technical (data) representation inside Fusion, as long as the imported object can be integrated into the construction somehow.
'Mesh to BRep' is the function that actually accomplishes this, so the "beginner" can not be that much "mistaken".
And obviously someone programmed the function, maybe for a reason 😉
The hobby users that later complain about Fusion often make such an assumption like you wrote above because they do not see
the technical reality here no matter if pro or hobby - modeling techniques are modeling techniques.
Yes you can insert an STL so you have a reference geometry you can work with maybe reverse engineer some data from it so you can further model parts around it.
Sadly Fusion fails to offer proper snapping to any geometry thus you cannot snap BREP data to Mesh data which is pretty sad as this forces you to do extra work.
But STL data if you want to use such ready for 3D print data to Mesh2Brep ideally you want STL data that excludes cosmetic details such as fillets as those create
the bottle neck for the Mesh2Brep process.
Claas Kuhnen
Faculty Industrial Design – Wayne State Universit
Chair Interior Design – Wayne State University
Owner studioKuhnen – product : interface : design
@SaeedHamza @Anonymous
yo true your posts are gone - yet I got those emails.
man this forum software is really the worst I ever saw being used by a company.
Claas Kuhnen
Faculty Industrial Design – Wayne State Universit
Chair Interior Design – Wayne State University
Owner studioKuhnen – product : interface : design
@Anonymous
yeah the switch to direct modeling is not a must have suggestion.
phill has reasons for it which are personal preference.
i use mesh2brep in a base feature a lot in my design workflow
Claas Kuhnen
Faculty Industrial Design – Wayne State Universit
Chair Interior Design – Wayne State University
Owner studioKuhnen – product : interface : design