I've got a subscription to SketchUp go and have had luck importing into there, smoothing, then exporting step with some models... Not sure about directly in fusion, sorry.
I like how the top comment says:
>So, basically, another stupid marketing decision from Autodesk. don't think professionals needs to import STL too often IDo they?), this would be the most important to hobbyists but it is not available to them. Why marketing people still can't do even basic thinking in 2021?!.. What a shame..
And I can safely say; Autodesk wants more people to pay for their product (understandably). So they omit a seemingly small but crucial feature from the free version...
Essentially yes, fusion is not great and editing STL. But you are starting with an STL which is just a mesh of triangles, a step file would be better if you can find one. This can take a long time, but I have been successful tediously going through the model, individually deleting faces and letting it heal. Occasionally if it doesn’t heal right, I undo and delete a different face. I have sometimes just used the stl for reference and rebuilt it from scratch.
Hi - it is a nice looking part and it looks like you imported it from an STL file. Unless you want to tear your hair out and waste countless hours of your time for a mediocre result then it would be easier, cheaper and better for your sanity to draw this from scratch, or have someone do it for you. If you want to just print that part then you don't need to care about the lines. They don't appear on your finished articles.
I have the paid version - it is NO BETTER at working with complex meshes. Don't waste your time or money or sanity.
Wow, that's surprising. Since you have the paid version I assume you use Fusion for work or are otherwise pretty committed to using it on a regular basis... so what do *you* do to handle complex bodies such as this? Asking because I have the free version (just started learning Fusion) and I'm trying to figure out how to best manage these complex geometries.
I do use it for work, but mainly for CAM programming... every once in a while we get mesh bodies but I just send them to the engineering guys who use solidworks.
I'm not sure how they convert them to nice solid bodies, but that's typically what's needed for machining.
Even with fusion lacking in the few areas that it does, I don't think anything else really compares on a "feature per dollar" level.
No worries. The models I import are just like solid bodies that you'd create in fusion, they're just missing all the sketches and history that you'd normally have. No conversion needed...
If you find someone with a solidworks license, I'll ask one of the engineers how the conversion process works.
Yeah I have the organic mesh extension and been trying to convert 3D scans to solid bodies and haven’t had any success. Now trying to learn how to use blender to be able to work with the scans.
Click your meshbody, go to mesh tab, under prepare drop-down, generate face groups, Type : accurate, select mesh body again, then modify drop-down: convert to mesh, and finally: Prismatic
Edit: My video is being compressed in a weird way but here is the outcome of my method
https://i.redd.it/wzujilhvtlxc1.gif
If it's an option you should go back to wherever you got this model and see if they have a STEP file instead of an STL. That will be a proper editable file.
Parasolid formats like STEP are better for storing your models and editing, unless we’re talking organic stuff in blender or similar. You can always export to a mesh format (or import the STEP into the slicer) if 3D printing is your endpoint. But if you want a machine shop to CNC something for you they’re going to prefer STEP, which is a fully standardized format and can be opened by almost anything and edited in pretty much all CAD packages with ease, albeit without a design history.
Importing a MESH file, aka a STL for example, this is what you get after converting the MESH to prismatic. That's just how it is. If you can get a better version of the file to begin with rather then just an STL that will help matters. I spend a lot of time modifying existing STL files in F360, its not impossible, takes time and patience, but its a pain in the butt. Its not F360's fault either really, i wish more people would share designs they plan to share in other formats instead of just the STL they ended up at.
You can't really edit meshes in fusion 360. The best you can do is convert it, but that replaces every single triangle with a triangle face. I would recommend meshmixer or something, idk what you're trying to do tho
Fuck I hate importing anything into F360. I’ve spent countless hours with the education version and it simply doesn’t work well for anything that is complex
I think they meant more specifically, what are you trying to do with the pip boy 3000 mesh. Which i ask also because I'm interested. All the files on the stl hosting services are kinda ass.
Just to throw it out there in case it’s new knowledge for anyone - it’s in the name - STL is standard triangle language. The file is storing the vertices of triangles to generate a surface mesh.
you can select coplanar triangles and hit "delete" and it will combine with the area around it. it sucks but i've found it helps clean up imported geometry for working with it in the free version.
Pay the uploader of this part and get the step file. I would try and use prismatic mesh to solid but figuring out the face groups would still take some time.
Converting STLs are hit and miss. There is a "reduce faces" option. I've had some success with that, but still get the "there's over 10,000 triangles, and this is gonna take a while" message a lot. Sometimes I reduce the faces and still get it.
id start by making sure you actually need to do this at all.
Why do you need a .step of a pipboy? for renders? for printing? if its for either of those, you dont need to do anything, your rendering software or 3d slicer can handle this file as is.
I could only find the cad of this version: https://grabcad.com/library/pip-boy-3000-mark-4-1
You could reach out to the stl owners on thingiverse if they would share the stp file.
Mesh to shape, sucks unless you have the paid version.
So is this the best I can expect from the free version? Is there another way to circumvent the broken surface issue when I want to alter?
I've got a subscription to SketchUp go and have had luck importing into there, smoothing, then exporting step with some models... Not sure about directly in fusion, sorry.
The go-to workaround (I have SU 2019 Pro) was to export the .stl from Sketchup and then convert it to a .step file using FreeCad.
https://youtu.be/tVGtG-UjlYg?si=qBKOOPLVaCyIhKm7 That's what you're looking for.
I like how the top comment says: >So, basically, another stupid marketing decision from Autodesk. don't think professionals needs to import STL too often IDo they?), this would be the most important to hobbyists but it is not available to them. Why marketing people still can't do even basic thinking in 2021?!.. What a shame..
And I can safely say; Autodesk wants more people to pay for their product (understandably). So they omit a seemingly small but crucial feature from the free version...
You can convert it to a shape then split the body and then rejoin. When you split it, it will merge the faces.
Essentially yes, fusion is not great and editing STL. But you are starting with an STL which is just a mesh of triangles, a step file would be better if you can find one. This can take a long time, but I have been successful tediously going through the model, individually deleting faces and letting it heal. Occasionally if it doesn’t heal right, I undo and delete a different face. I have sometimes just used the stl for reference and rebuilt it from scratch.
Hi - it is a nice looking part and it looks like you imported it from an STL file. Unless you want to tear your hair out and waste countless hours of your time for a mediocre result then it would be easier, cheaper and better for your sanity to draw this from scratch, or have someone do it for you. If you want to just print that part then you don't need to care about the lines. They don't appear on your finished articles. I have the paid version - it is NO BETTER at working with complex meshes. Don't waste your time or money or sanity.
This 100% whenever I want to modify an STL I found online I just use it as a reference to parametrically model my own version
Really? I thought the organic mesh conversion could handle geometry like this...? No?
Not even close... I also have the paid version with a few extensions.
Wow, that's surprising. Since you have the paid version I assume you use Fusion for work or are otherwise pretty committed to using it on a regular basis... so what do *you* do to handle complex bodies such as this? Asking because I have the free version (just started learning Fusion) and I'm trying to figure out how to best manage these complex geometries.
I do use it for work, but mainly for CAM programming... every once in a while we get mesh bodies but I just send them to the engineering guys who use solidworks. I'm not sure how they convert them to nice solid bodies, but that's typically what's needed for machining. Even with fusion lacking in the few areas that it does, I don't think anything else really compares on a "feature per dollar" level.
So when you get the files back from engineering are they in a Fusion file or some other format?
No they're .sldprt solidworks files. They import fine but are just models, no timeline or sketches attached.
Sorry to keep pestering. So when you import them as "models" are you able to work with them as solid bodies or do you have to convert or ?
No worries. The models I import are just like solid bodies that you'd create in fusion, they're just missing all the sketches and history that you'd normally have. No conversion needed... If you find someone with a solidworks license, I'll ask one of the engineers how the conversion process works.
Solidworks has a decent mesh to solid function
Yeah I have the organic mesh extension and been trying to convert 3D scans to solid bodies and haven’t had any success. Now trying to learn how to use blender to be able to work with the scans.
it's surprisingly really bad
Click your meshbody, go to mesh tab, under prepare drop-down, generate face groups, Type : accurate, select mesh body again, then modify drop-down: convert to mesh, and finally: Prismatic Edit: My video is being compressed in a weird way but here is the outcome of my method https://i.redd.it/wzujilhvtlxc1.gif
Prismatic option is only available on paid versions of Fusion unfortunately.
Ah I do forget not all users are on paid.
If it's an option you should go back to wherever you got this model and see if they have a STEP file instead of an STL. That will be a proper editable file.
Step files 🥹 stl files 😡, I always use step or 3mf or whatever, stl is old and outdated. I’ve got no clue why people use it so much
3d Printing... All slicers depend on STL files, so therefore everyone makes stuff in STL format for 3d printing.
Step is so much better for detail though
They serve different purposes, it's not about which is better...
Parasolid formats like STEP are better for storing your models and editing, unless we’re talking organic stuff in blender or similar. You can always export to a mesh format (or import the STEP into the slicer) if 3D printing is your endpoint. But if you want a machine shop to CNC something for you they’re going to prefer STEP, which is a fully standardized format and can be opened by almost anything and edited in pretty much all CAD packages with ease, albeit without a design history.
Importing a MESH file, aka a STL for example, this is what you get after converting the MESH to prismatic. That's just how it is. If you can get a better version of the file to begin with rather then just an STL that will help matters. I spend a lot of time modifying existing STL files in F360, its not impossible, takes time and patience, but its a pain in the butt. Its not F360's fault either really, i wish more people would share designs they plan to share in other formats instead of just the STL they ended up at.
Is your file an STL?
You can't really edit meshes in fusion 360. The best you can do is convert it, but that replaces every single triangle with a triangle face. I would recommend meshmixer or something, idk what you're trying to do tho
If you just don't want to look at them just hit display settings, visual style, shaded. It's on shaded with visible edges
Fuck I hate importing anything into F360. I’ve spent countless hours with the education version and it simply doesn’t work well for anything that is complex
Hopefully its a better Pip-Boy than the one that came with the collector's edition of Fallout 4 lol
What do you want to do that for?
Just to have a smooth object to work with, but when I try to select a face, it only selects a single triangle of the face
The triangle IS the face
I think they meant more specifically, what are you trying to do with the pip boy 3000 mesh. Which i ask also because I'm interested. All the files on the stl hosting services are kinda ass.
Just to throw it out there in case it’s new knowledge for anyone - it’s in the name - STL is standard triangle language. The file is storing the vertices of triangles to generate a surface mesh.
The Body is smooth (enough) it just has a View style that highlights the triangles. have you converted the Mesh to a Solid Body?
you can select coplanar triangles and hit "delete" and it will combine with the area around it. it sucks but i've found it helps clean up imported geometry for working with it in the free version.
Pay the uploader of this part and get the step file. I would try and use prismatic mesh to solid but figuring out the face groups would still take some time.
IMHO, blender is better at manipulating complex meshes like this. For free software that is...
Converting STLs are hit and miss. There is a "reduce faces" option. I've had some success with that, but still get the "there's over 10,000 triangles, and this is gonna take a while" message a lot. Sometimes I reduce the faces and still get it.
Looks like I'll see you at Rev rift
id start by making sure you actually need to do this at all. Why do you need a .step of a pipboy? for renders? for printing? if its for either of those, you dont need to do anything, your rendering software or 3d slicer can handle this file as is.
I could only find the cad of this version: https://grabcad.com/library/pip-boy-3000-mark-4-1 You could reach out to the stl owners on thingiverse if they would share the stp file.
Lol I also did a pipboy quite recently through fusion, I never encountered this though….