Importing Altium board files via CoDesigner

[friedl.basson]

Hi - 

I am using Altium designer for EE designs and Fusion360 for anything MCAD. I much prefer the rendering capabilities of Fusion so would like to se my Altium boards into Fusions to render and design the enclosure.  

I tried three methods, none of which was very successful;

1. Exporting STEP file from Altium and then import that STEP file into Fusion.  It works but the result is a terrible flat object with no copper for example.
2. Exporting the file via MCAD co-designer.  I installed the plugin in Fusion and successfully "pulled" the file from Altium365.  The result is even worse I am afraid. All copper are outlines only and the rest of the board is translucent.  I have attached a screen grab.
3. Lastly I exported the Altium Board file to PCAD ACSII and then import it via the ULP command import-accel.ulp.  This however presents and error and does not import the board file at all. 

I have read on the Altium Co-Desginer forum that some people with the small business (hobbyist) license are experiencing problems importing into Fusion as well and it is suggested that the free versions of Fusion does not support Parasolid Format which might be the problem.

Is this indeed the case?  Looking forward to any suggestions 🙂 

[jorge_garcia · Accepted solution]

Hi @friedl.basson ,

I hope you're doing well and I commend you on your tenacity. There aren't many good options in this situation, the STEP model as you have discovered doesn't bring all the objects over and that's the nature of that beast(the STEP format was never designed to include electronics characteristics like silkscreen or copper traces). The Altium CoDesigner tool was something Altium developed completely on their own without as far as I know any feedback from us so the result is what you would expect. The PCAD ASCII might be able to get you a board but the library will be very much a mess and it will require a lot of effort to map models those libraries in Fusion Electronics.

The best option, which may not be an option in your case, is to design the board in Fusion Electronics. Since everything integrates by design you'll be able to get all of the info you need to produce proper renderings. I wish I had better news but that's the current state of the tools. 

[friedl.basson]

EDIT: Replied below.

[friedl.basson]

Hi @jorge_garcia Jorge - 

Thank you for taking the time to assist with this.  I do not simply accept something cannot be done, so I often find myself spending a lot of time trying to make things work 😉 

The Altium CoDesigner tool was something Altium developed completely on their own without as far as I know any feedback from us so the result is what you would expect.

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This is so sad, how would they think this can work properly without consulting the "other side of the connection" ???  I knew they were able to export to Inventor, but honestly, as a student (again - midlife crisis) I am not able to afford Inventor.  I was very glad when I saw I am now able to export to Fusion, but indeed the results were disastrous and to this day I am not sure whether it has anything to do with the fact (as they suggested) that the startup license of Fusion does not support ParaSolids.  If buying a full Fusion license will resolve this, I am happy to consider this 🙂 

The best option, which may not be an option in your case, is to design the board in Fusion Electronics. Since everything integrates by design you'll be able to get all of the info you need to produce proper renderings. I wish I had better news but that's the current state of the tools. 

---

I actually used Eagle and then Fusion Electronics before switching to Altium.  I had some good years using Eagle, but honestly could not find myself liking Fusion Electronics.  I did like that fact that Fusion and Electronics were now integrated, but after a third severed connection between BRD and SCH files, rendering my file basically useless, I called it the day 🙂   I still use Fusion though and would continue to do so, hoping that Altium will some "fix" Co-Designer. Unless of course I hit the jackpot and and buy Inventor 😄 

Thank you for you time and help!

Friedl.

[jorge_garcia]

Hi @friedl.basson ,

I hope you're doing well. I got confirmation from one of my colleagues that the hobbyist version of Fusion 360 does not support parasolid import. With that said @benjamin.jordan tried it on a full Fusion 360 installation and it didn't work there either, YMMV.

Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

Best Regards,

[friedl.basson]

Hi @jorge_garcia  - 

Thank you for letting me know.  I might try it at some stage and will be sure to let you know.  Do you perhaps know whether or not Inventor handles this any better?  If I am not mistaken the export from Altium to Inventor is also done via Co-Designer.

One thing that might work for full-license users (maybe this has to do with parasolids) is to export the file from Altium as PDF3D type Wavefront Object (.OBJ).    Here is the link to a video showing the steps, but they use Solidworks instead.  Seems to work just fine, so cannot see why it would not in Fusion unless of course as I mentioned, it might have to do with my free license.  Maybe @benjamin.jordan can confirm? : )   If this do work with the full license, it might be the way to go.

Kind Regards,

Friedl.

[jorge_garcia]

Hi @friedl.basson ,

I hope you're doing well. I don't know if it works better in Inventor since I don't have any first hand experience with Inventor. 

Thanks for sharing the video I'm sure it will help other users in your same situation.

Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

Best Regards,

[friedl.basson]

@jorge_garcia - 

I wish I knew for sure whether it works in paid version of Fusion on order to offer this as a solution to users, but I guess it's worth a ty anyway.  Maybe someone will try and confirm 🙂 

Thank you for all your help!

Regards, Friedl.

[sebB6TUV]

I tried Wavefront and 3DS exports, both resulted in an 'empty' Fusion 360 scene, i.e. the import is successful but it doesn't contain any geometry.

Like you I've been searching for a way to import Altium models into Fusion 360 for rendering. There is a hack which allows you to bring the copper layer into Fusion but not the silkscreen/soldermask so the result is not great or far from photorealistic and requires a fair amount of cleanup.

https://www.pcbway.com/blog/PCB_Design_Tutorial/3D_model_Render_with_copper_from_Altium_to_Fusion_36...

I will try Solidworks with PhotoView plugin next as it looks the most promising but Blender may work also.

Hopefully there will be an easier way in future.

[sebB6TUV]

After a little more digging I found a much easier solution which involves using Oshpark renders as decals for your board. Simply upload your gerber files to Oshpark which automatically renders front and back images of your PCB including silkscreen, pads and traces at a decent resolution. Import your step file from Altium and add the Oshpark images as decals. Optionally, change PCB colour from purple to whatever using Photoshop for example.

Should work with any version of Fusion 360 and other programs.