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Hi I am hoping someone can guide me here. I want to split complex models for 3D printing. I have created an example body that looks like this :
I want to cut and infill the single body into two bodies along the Green/White boundary. In reality the object I am trying to separate is much more complex.
I have looked at many YouTube videos and help articles but nothing seems to cover this . I am sure I have missed something. I cant use planes or sketch lines and I cant find a way to split a body using faces.
I am attaching the example file hoping someone can help me.
As a beginner you should maybe avoid the Direct Modeling mode so we have a chance to analyze your design.
My first approach did not work. I'll have to come back to this later in the day.
It's not too complicated. It's just a bit of work.
One reason the split operation did not work is because the solid has a spurious internal surface (the small red sliver in the image below), likely caused by imprecise modeling.
So attached it is split in two bodies with the help of some work in the patch environment.
I'll create a screencast later, however the best way to do this is to go back to sqare 1, identify the lack of precision and then re-build it. That would in turn not even require to split anything.
What I did to get to the above, still lacking some precision is to un-stitch everything and then stitch things together in 2 groups, the upper and lower body and loft in the missing patches. But again, your lack of precision in modeling can make that difficult.
No screencast. Takes too long. Let's see if we can get it done this way.
I first created a new file and created a new sketch.
I copy pasted most sketch objects from your old design into this new sketch and then aded dimensions to lock some of the things down to prevent accidental changes.
Look at your old design and look at these two ares in you sketch. See the difference ?
Look at the resulting geometry in your file. See the difference ?
Then I created another sketch (BTW all sketches are on the origin plane) to define the sphere location and size.
Then I simply went ahead and created the upper and lower bodies. No splitting needed.
All of this is with the timeline enabled. You can roll it backward and move forward step by step to see how this was created. Edit the features to see what options were chosen in the dialogues.
Ah splitting into separate bodies . Shame I was hoping for some way to select boundaries and split them. Unfortunately I have walked this path you suggest. I shared a simple example of what I was trying top do but the reality is that I am working on a step file I got from Thingiverse , so I have zero control over the original process:
I have made alterations and now desire to split it up for 3D printing along specific lines to hide the splits and make it into components. Seems that Fusion 360 is great from the ground up but not so good at reverse engineering. I appreciate all the help but think I may see if there is some other software that is better at this as this model breaks down into 100s of bodies. I have split by this method and merged back to a single body using selection sets, but filling in the holes was becoming extremely tedious. I just wanted a simple cut and fill operation along a face. Doesn't seem like a huge ask from CAD software but hey ho. I really appreciate the assist.
@Anonymous wrote:
I shared a simple example of what I was trying top do but the reality is that ...
... that I have somewhat wasted my time ?
I've done CAD, 3D modeling and computer graphics for almost 30 years.
If you've got something complicated to do, don't dumb it down.
Share the file and explain where you want to split it. Then we'll see.
I have 2 more CAD systems at my disposal that I can test things with if needed.
If the file format is a generic file format such a .step or .iges then it does not really matter what software it was created in.
There will be no feature tree or design history and likely no sketch geometry in the file. Just 3d geometry.
As such it almost does not matter what software was used. It's more important what design discipline ht original designer had in creating accurate symmetrical geometry. Any laps in that will make it difficult to spin this with shut a sketch or surface.
The initial approach I took to split your design was I simply un-stitched it and then stitched those surfaces back together that belonged to either half. that left one "side" of it open and I simply lofted between adjacent edges.
Stitched that into a solid body.
Other applications do indeed allow better control of what unstitched so you don't end up with hundreds of tiny surfaces, even though that's also not something to be frightened about. I use ZW3D ( it's kernel is powerful enough to read CATIA surfaces naively) and there I can un-stitch (explode) a single surface out of a body.
This might just be a little bit of repetitive work, particularly in Fusion 360, but for the price point one cannot really complain about that.
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