Book Image

Improving CAD Designs with Autodesk Fusion 360

By : Kevin Michael Land
Book Image

Improving CAD Designs with Autodesk Fusion 360

By: Kevin Michael Land

Overview of this book

Autodesk Fusion 360 has become an indispensable tool for designers, tinkerers, and engineers worldwide thanks to its versatility that allows for large-scale assemblies and smaller, quick 3D prints. If you’ve faced challenges with learning Fusion 360, this book will help you overcome them and build the confidence to design your own projects, explaining step-by-step instructions and the purpose of each tool. In this book, you’ll dive into the design workspace and learn sketching fundamentals such as setting up a component, recognizing when a sketch is fully constrained, and parametrically flexing models. Through trial and error, you’ll work on multiple easy-to-build projects to create simple, useful items that can be quickly 3D printed for use around the house and then advance to much bigger projects that require joint connectivity and large assemblies. By the end of this book, you’ll be able to sketch fully parametric designs, translate them into 3D models, and create your own unique designs.
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
1
Part 1: Simple, Fun Projects for Around the Home
7
Part 2: Bicycle Water Bottle Holder Project
13
Part 3: FORM Modeling Techniques
17
Part 4: Working with 2D and 3D Scanned Images

The FORM Environment

In this chapter, we will learn how to create mesh objects within the FORM environment. The FORM environment doesn’t use any parametric tools or constraints, which means you are able to freely adjust your model as you would if you were modeling with a block of clay.

We will first learn how some of the tools work by experimenting on a box model and, once we are familiar with the typical tools used within the FORM environment, we will create an organic computer mouse. By the end of this chapter, you will know how to use the Edit Form tool, create form models, and edit these types of models.

In this chapter, we’re going to cover the following main topics:

  • Overview of the form environment
  • The CREATE and MODIFY tools
  • The Edit Form tool