Selecting multiple contours

[infoWN88M]

Hi everyone - I'm new to Fusion 360 and can't seem to find a specific answer to my problem. I am using the program to generate designs for cutting on our CNC plasma table. This particular project is a full sheet of 3mm aluminium with repeated holes cut into it. In total there are about 1,060 holes in the sheet to be cut. When in the CAM section and in the window 2D PROFILE > Geomtery > Contour Selection I am going through and selecting each hole and making sure the arrow is showing internal cut path.

Selecting over a thousand holes is obviously a tedious job. Is there an easier way to quickly select all of these and ensure the tool is cutting internally?

Any help would be appreciated as I can see this being a repeated issue with some of the projects we have coming up. Cheers

[HughesTooling · Accepted solution]

First have you extruded and made a solid body? If not you should as the CAM is more likely  to pickup which side to offset to. When you have a solid you can pick a surface then select whether to cut only inner or outer loops or both. See screencast.

Mark

[seth.madore]

My one concern is going to be performance. With a sketch or solid, 1000+ holes is going to take a fair amount of time to calculate.....

If the holes are equally spaced and sized, I'd strongly urge selecting a single contour and dumping that in a "Linear Pattern" folder. Just my $.02

[djhatton]

Hello I saw you solution and you are right but my issue is i want to select just the holes in this part, so I can have a different lead in. if inner loops is selected it also selects the inner most rectangle loop. I've just been selecting 1 at a time, so repetitive. 

[HughesTooling]

@djhatton  If you are going to mill the holes you might find it easier if you use circular or bore from the 2d tab. They both have the option to select same diameter

[djhatton]

So this is somewhat of a work around I found. First it is for a plasma cutter, so for milling above is correct. But in my design tab i would give a smaller thickness for just the holes. Then select the face of the hole and check "select same plane".