Getting any Text and SVG file into Fusion 360 to work.

[PhilProcarioJr]

I spent the evening trying to figure out how to get a clean SVG and text file into Fusion 360 and being able to extrude and fillet it without problems or errors, and most importantly without all the cleanup that is normally involved. All the testing I did using illustrator gave me curves with hundreds of points...well that causes Fusion 360 or any 3d app for that matter to crawl and eventually lockup or crash. What I found was if I use Inkscape (which is a free app) I can generate size accurate and flawless imports into fusion. So lets get started.

Anyone that has used the text tool in Fusion 360 knows it can be a headache in its current state, to be honest I like this workflow better then a native tool which I will explain later.

Paul posted on the Design and Documentation forum about not being able to use a font that he had to use for work so I will make this tutorial use that font. It can be downloaded here:

hypatia-sans-pro

I can only describe the windows work flow as its the only OS I have.

After downloading the font double click on the file a window should open with an install button at the top of the window, click install.

Download Inkscape for your OS here and install:

Inkscape

Open inkscape and you will be greeted with the app running in a window, click the maximize button so you have something that looks like this:

Right now we are not going to worry to much about document size, but we do want to set the orientation, grid and units.

So from the top menu, top left corner click file->Document properties and a window will open like this:

(Set everything the way it is in the screen capture)

Now click on the grid tab at the top of this window, then click New and set everything up like this:

Now click the X at the top of the dialog box to close it and you will see our page is setup in inches with a grid that has 1/4in blocks for reference like this:

As marked in the picture this is where the origin will be in fusion when you import the SVG file. This is important so we know where the text or layout will appear when we import the SVG file. Click on the text tool, set the font and click somewhere towards the top left corner of the page to start typing. The actual location doesn't matter because we can move the text after it is created.

After we enter out text, click on the selection arrow in the top left of the tool bar and click on the lock between the width and height numerics in the top bar and set the units to inches and the height to 0.25in like this:

Ok now we have our 1/4in high text, all we need to do now is position it and ungroup it and export. If you place your mouse cursor over the text it will turn into a hand and you can left click and drag it to the top left corner: it should snap into place when you get close enough. Now with the text still selected click Object -> Ungroup and you should see little box around each letter like this:

Now we are ready to export the text. This next step is very important. With the text still selected click File -> Save As. In the dialog box hit the drop down for file type and select Plain SVG like this:

 (NOT INKSCAPE SVG) Name the file and click save. Now open Fusion 360 and click Insert -> Insert SVG like this:

In the dialog box that opens click on the little folder and select your SVG file like this:

Click ok and exit the sketch. Now to get the scale correct. With the sketch still selected go Modify -> Scale and set it like this:

Click ok and check your text to the grid and make sure its 0.25in tall now. From here we can do the press pull select the letters and set the height, then click ok. You should have something like this, nice clean letters that don't need any clean up:

Now I will bevel the corners of the letters like this:

Now to add a rule fillet like this:

I hope this helps someone, later I will do a more advanced tutorial.

Cheers

[Anonymous]

@PhilProcarioJr, I am familiar with Inkscape.  I will try this later, but I wanted to thank you now for what appears to be a very helpful and detailed instruction.  I'll let you know how I make out a little later.

[PhilProcarioJr]

I just hope it works for you Paul and many other people struggling with text in Fusion 360.

[Anonymous]

@PhilProcarioJr, I just gave this a quick try and it worked.  I struggled with ungrouping the text object.  No matter what I tried from the menu or toolbar it wouldn't ungroup.  But, for some reason when I used the right click menu and chose ungroup it worked.  This seems odd and may be something I am doing wrong.  I'll play with it a bit and probably figuanks for the sure out why I had the problem.

Thanks for the suggestions, and especially all the detail.  So helpful.

[PhilProcarioJr]

There was a step missing thats why you had trouble, click path -> object to path, then click object -> ungroup.

Maybe I can get a mod to modify the post because I can't do it now.

Sorry about that.

[Anonymous]

@PhilProcarioJr, Nice!  Thanks again.

[Anonymous]

I'm trying to engrave text with a cnc mill and this was very helpful but I'm having a problem with the font I want to use. I'll try to insert a picture. Any idea how to fix this? It looks like when I create the simple disc shape this text will be engraved on and push the font shape into that form it won't work, so I want to fix it first. Or is it best to experiment with other fonts and see which come out looking cleaner? Thanks in advance for any help. I'm totally new to both Inkscape and Fusion 360 and this is the first thing I've tried to do on my cnc mill.

[HughesTooling]

The reason one letter is not shaded is because the profile is open, you might be able to fix this if you find the gap. One option is to download the plug-in here to check of gaps. Another option is to draw some lines across the letter in a zig zag from top to bottom to find the gap. When you locate the opening try adding a coincident constraint between the end points.

Mark

[PhilProcarioJr]

Also what font are you using as I would like to take a look at it.

[tjzelick]

This tutorial is definitely helpful because I have run in to this issue on more than one occasion. What I still haven't been able to figure out is how to get vertical text to import properly. Trying to mill a set of tap handles with the label down the length but oriented horizontally and every time I import the SVG the text gets changed. Have you tried that before and if so, were you ever able to get it to work correctly?

Thank you so much,

Tom Z

[HughesTooling]

I think the problem with the text changing is because your SVG does not contain the curves that make up the text, it just has the text and Fusion is converting the text to curves and Fusion dosn't support vertical text. I've attached a sample file where the export is all curves and that imports correctly.

Is there some way to convert to curves before you export?

Mark.

Edit just noticed this note in Phil's steps,

"Now we are ready to export the text. This next step is very important. With the text still selected click File -> Save As. In the dialog box hit the drop down for file type and select Plain SVG like this:" "(NOT INKSCAPE SVG) "

Have you saved as Plain SVG

[tjzelick]

Apologies for the late reply, Mark, and thank you for looking into this. I'll try your suggestions and report back. It's entirely possible that I missed a step along the way!

Sincerely,
Tom Z

[rafalK7ZVE]

Hey ,

Thanks for the tutorial! works great and I was able to instantly import text into fusion. However I have problems scaling as I'm using mm instead of inch where did you take value of 0.044 from ? 

Regards

Rafal

[PhilProcarioJr]

@rafalK7ZVE

Actually Mark ( @HughesTooling ) and I figured out exact scaling in another thread. I will have to find it though, unless he sees this and beats me to it.

[HughesTooling]

The thread with info on scaling most SVGs is here.

Mark

[PhilProcarioJr]

@HughesTooling

Thanks Mark.

[lukexm2]

Great tutorial, however I haven't been able to get results from it on my mac (Sierra Version 10.12.6). Wondering if anyone else is having issues? 

I can export it from Inkscape, but when I import the SVG in to F360, the font type is not correct... it's defaulted to Arial or similar.

Tried exporting with Inkscape SVG and Plain SVG with same results. 

Also tried TTF and OTF font file formats without any luck. I've attached them both, if anyone has a few minutes and can try it out for me I'd really appreciate it! Becoming a bit of an issue since it's our company logo font, and needs to be engraved or laser marked on components.

Cheers, Luke

[PhilProcarioJr]

@lukexm2

Did you ungroup the text?

"There was a step missing from the tutorial, click path -> object to path, then click object -> ungroup."

I don't know if this has anything to do with the Mac...I don't have one to test it.

[lukexm2]

Hey thanks Phil, that made all the difference and I was able to import the text as desired.

Really appreciate your help! 

Cheers

[PhilProcarioJr]

@lukexm2

Your welcome, glad it helped you out. I know a lot of people struggle with text in Fusion.