adding text to object

[info9BDAH]

Dear whoever may read this,

Probably, I am doing things in the wrong manner, but I have some issues with applying text to an object. Of course the text feature in Fusion is mainly meant for engraving and text extrusions I assume, but working with a decal doesn't really work for me in this instance. I have followed the instructions I found in a video here in this forum by applying a decal as a material to the object but that doesn't work for me either somehow. I can't get the dimensions correct, I tried many different font sizes and resolutions when exporting from my graphical application, too laborious and no satisfying results so far, also not when adding it as a plain decal, and I also need to retain the wood grain. I used transparant PNG's to this end but as said I can't get the dimensions right, which is quite crucial in this example.

So I reverted to applying text directly in Fusion although that is quite a hassle as well because as soon as I apply constraints, which I have to to align the text correctly, and I change something in the general layout, the font size changes when I don't want this

In addition, aligning text is cumbersome because the text box has this extra blank space on top making it difficult to center align vertically, for which I then have to apply extra construction lines. And of course I also need to add dimensions to define the distance between text and object, but I didn't manage to work something out with constraints and dimensions while keeping the font in the defined size when changing something in the general layout.

Also I ran into some kind of bug (if I read this correctly on this forum), some characters of the same font cannot be extruded due to an 'invalid tool body' error. I can only overcome this by extruding exploded text but then I loose the possibility to change the font family or size (still being in the design phase I need this option).

Any ideas on the best approach for what I am trying to achieve? It doesn't matter to me whether I do this via a decal or directly in Fusion as long as I can work out a good workflow and can have precise dimensions and alignment. I have to add numerous numbers and characters to a lot of these little holes and have them aligned correctly on many positions around a square surface. The font I use is Bahnschrift. The screenshot is only a test file in which I didn't apply text to all holes as I did in a previous version to later find I needed to restart again after having extruded exploded text and not being able to edit it anymore.

Thanking you in advance for any help!   

Cas

[g-andresen]

Hi,
1. Font should be OTF type
2. Never use a font with intersecting contours
3. Be careful applying taper angles
4. Add constuction lines and midpoint constraint 

Günther

[info9BDAH]

Hi Guenther,

Thanks for your swift reply. Only using OTF type does limit my choices of designer fonts greatly. Apart from this I actually have to fake it being printed text (as will be in the final real life version) by extruding it 0,01 mm and make bodies of all separate characters to be able to assign materials to the characters. Not the best way forward when a lot of characters are involved.

Isn't there a way to do something with a decal, or any workaround? I have been searching for videos about applying intricate lettering precisely aligned with Fusion objects, but didn't find a helpful post or video so far. I assume that in the industry the overlay of a surface with characters and lines is designed in another application than Fusion, Illustrator for instance. But how do you go about aspect ratios, export resolutions and the lot, and finally setting it correctly in Fusion? Do you know if there is a tutorial or anything about this particular subject (transferring surface designs to Fusion?).

Thanks in advance for your further response.

Regards,

Cas

[info9BDAH]

Hi Guenther,

I experimented a little following your comments but I still run into some of the issues I referred to. I made a description to illustrate:

When center aligning the character, the character itself is not center aligned because of the white space at the top of the character container

I have to add two construction lines to center align a character because of the blank space at the top of the character container.

The top construction line I have to add by sight sometimes as the cursor doesn’t always snap to the character, and I can’t project the character when not exploded.

This process I have to repeat for each character, which in this case means really a lot of extra clicks in actions with numerous characters. The extra steps for adding those construction lines wouldn’t be necessary if this top blank space weren’t there. There must be a programming reason behind this but it would save a lot of work when dealing with characters if this could be changed somehow.

[info9BDAH]

This example demonstrates the dimension vs font size issue I referred to. The numbers (Arial Bold, 10 mm) are center aligned with the midpoints of the circles. Here I don’t have to add extra construction liens of course for alignment. But I need control over the distance between number and circle so I add a dimension.

When I change the value of the dimensions this is the result. The change of dimension of the distance between circle and number forces the font to shrink.  

How can I prevent this from happening? I have tried variations in dimension assignment on the character; top, bottom, extra construction line vs midpoint circle but the font always changes.  

This also occurs when adjusting the rectangular pattern of the circles.

In order to make sure the font doesn’t tilt when changing the distance values of the pattern, and to keep bottom and top margin between number and circles always the same, I have added an extra constraint at the bottom of the character.

When changing the distance values of the rectangular pattern from 20 to 18 for instance, the font size is affected again and the top margin between character and midpoint circle is not maintained regardless of whether I have added a construction line, as for number 1 in this example..

This all results in having to experiment until I find the right dimensions, set everything up accordingly, and accept that I can never change the dimensions again.

Finally, I then have to select a huge amount of characters in the desired layout and extrude these to bodies to be able to assign a color to the font.

And it’s not over yet. I need this composition to be circular patterned across a given surface. I literally end up with hundreds of bodies. The workflow I have to follow to achieve all of this could be more efficient.

Do you think there is a better way to achieve what I want?