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

Summary

In this chapter, you learned how to navigate the Fusion 360 UI by learning where the help menu is located and how to use the Learning Panel area. You learned where your project files are stored within the data panel, how to change to the seven different workspaces and understood what they do, and learned how to manipulate your toolbar to add buttons that you may use more frequently. We also looked at the different design approaches, such as top-down and bottom-up, and how merging the two will make you a stronger designer. Finally, you were introduced to the different subscription options of Fusion 360. At this point, you should be able to decide which one will work best for you.

In the next chapter, we will learn about planes, sketches, constraints, and parametric constraints.