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

Overview of the FORM environment

We are going to switch gears from the parametric design space now and start working within the FORM environment. The FORM environment is another modeling space that does not use any parametric tools to create models. There is no history bar at the bottom of your screen, meaning that all the mistakes or changes that you make will have to be manually changed or fixed with the Undo command.

We will go over a brief overview of the environment, where the most common tools are located, and how to use them in this section.

To get to the FORM environment, you must go to the CREATE panel and click on the Create Form tool.

Figure 11.1 – The location of the Create Form tool

Figure 11.1 – The location of the Create Form tool

Your workspace will change and show new tools at the top of your screen. The CREATE and MODIFY tools have changed and there are now tools such as SYMMETRY and UTILITIES.

Figure 11.2 – The FORM environment

Figure 11.2 – The FORM environment

The most...