Machine cut meshbody silhouette - contour

[Anonymous]

I am trying to machine a relief. An STL file imported into fusion as meshbody. I was able to do the roughing and cleaning step normally, but I am not finding a way to cut the object by its edge. The 2D outline does not work with meshbody and the object is way too complex to convert to solid. I can't project its contour to a sketch either. Any ideas?

[paolo.bastianelli]

Hi @Anonymous ,

Have you tried oversimplifying the model to just obtain a "decent" outer shape? If you have already generated the rest of the toolpaths for the actual relief, it shouldn't be a huge issue to decrease massively the number of triangles to then convert them.

That way you'll be able to get a shape you can use Projection on, or a Contour you can use to drive your toolpath.

I hope this helps.

Cheers,

Paolo

[Anonymous]

I ended up doing it, but it wasn't easy at all. The original model is very complex and greatly reducing the number of triangles ends up losing much precision in the generated contour. One output would be to use mesh section, but could not select as outline. 

In order to generate an outline i ended up having to cut a thin slice of the model, then reduced the number of polygons and finally cut that slice in half to finally get a clear shape that i can finally Project to sketch to use as contour.
It is a common task to cut the piece borders at end of machining, so you can sugest a easer way to do that?

[HughesTooling · Accepted solution]

First, why are you using the Insert Code option for your text? It makes it hard to read!

Did you try 3d contour? Just set a big minimum stepdown and set the bottom height to below the mesh.

Mark

[Anonymous]

Sorry for that insert code thing. I dont know why turned out this way. 
This 3d contour trick worked nice
Thank you

[n8ainsworth]

You can also adjust the top height after you adjust the bottom height. That way you can still keep a small stepdown if you need while also skipping through any of the inner 3D contours that you don't want. And if you want tabs as well, go into design and extrude your own tabs around the contour of the bottom plane. do NOT include these in your setup model. Instead just go to "avoid" in your 3d contour toolpath and select the tabs you created.