Fusion 360 for Beginners webinar

I just saw a post on Facebook about an Autodesk Fusion 360 for Beginners webinar next Tuesday at 4 PM EST. It appears to be free.

http://www.facebook.com/events/179645459041780/

It’s described as follows:

Attend this session to learn the basics in Fusion 360. This is intended for those out there who are completely new users of Fusion and 3D design. After an introduction to the user interface, time will be spent learning how to navigate, changing workspaces, sketching, and primitive modeling and drawings will be covered.”

I’m not affiliated with this at all. I’m sharing this because I know several people have asked on these forums about software choices. I plan to attend this as I don’t know anything about Fusion 360 and have only done a little 3D design work in other programs.

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Awesome! I have Fusion downloaded for my CNC but have had minimal time to play with it, so this is perfect. They have a TON of tutorials online too.

Excellent, thanks for the heads up!

I’m also learning how to use Fusion 360 to use with my 3D printer, and they recently had a webinar on that subject. It looks like they’re good at putting these videos on YouTube after the fact:

Haven’t watched it yet, but looks like it has good info! Fusion 360 is a really powerful program, and I’m excited to be able to use it with both my 3D printer and my Glowforge :smile:

Ordered my Glowforge a few months ago and can’t wait to get it. I work at Autodesk on Fusion 360 and happy to answer any questions on it.

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Awesome, an insider! I am leaning towards using Fusion instead of SketchUp too, but am so far unsure how best to turn a completed model into a Glowforge compatible cut file. Do you have any tips in that regard?

How free are you to choose your own projects? Like… I dunno… making a GlowForge print plugin :wink:

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If you need to slice the model I would import it into 123D make and slice/export from there. Otherwise there are several export option From Fusion 360 that should work to get data in.

  • Export sketch as a DXF - Right click on sketch and select Export DXF
  • Export model as STEP or other format
  • Create a drawing and export it as a DWG - may need to open it in something like AutoCAD to export as an EPS or DXF format.

Again I haven’t been able to test any of these workflows but based on my understanding these are two workflows that should work.

Happy to experiment with you to see what’s the best way to get data over. Give me an idea what your trying to make and the formats you can import and I will send you a few files to try.

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Are you with Autodesk in the Boston area or SF?

Sorry I couldn’t code myself out of a wet paper bag. I am not a developer, more on the business side of it but consider myself an export on the tool. I have a CNC machine and 3D printer and look forward to adding the Glowforge to the mix. We have an open API and encourage companies and individuals to write addins for Fusion 360 so perhaps we can make this happen :smile:

Should have been more specific, @garlin-gardner - are you with Autodesk on the east or west coast?

What I was thinking of is when I design a box or tray, I will ‘assemble’ it in the app to ensure the joints align. Then, I would want the 2d faces of the Individual pieces laid out on one plane and saved as a pdf or SVG. Even if not optimised, one could then open it in Inkscape or illustrator and rearrange them if need be. Make sense?

I am on the west coast out of Portland Or.

Can you by chance open this dxf or convert it as an SVG in Illustrator? box.dxf

If you can import this I will create a video to show you how to get a DXF out of F360.

Thanks for offering to help, @garin_gardiner. That DXF opens just fine in Illustrator and it’ll convert nicely to an SVG.

123D Make is also fantastic - highly recommended. It’s how we made the globe in the video.

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I was also able to open it in Inkscape (don’t have Illustrator). Of course, this one only seems to have a single face, so I would love to see how to lay out several individual components of a model that are on different axes in F360 into a flattened DXF like this!

I created a short video to show how to do what I think you are asking.

Export DXF Video

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That’s just awesome, @garin_gardiner, should work well! Unfortunately, one of my laptop’s hard drives seems to have just failed, so it may be a few days before I can actually try this out myself. :angry:

I have found that when I saved things as a DXF from inkscape, there are added lines when i reopen them to cut them out. Is this common? The laser I’m currently able to use will not read SVG. So thats not an option.

Does Inkscape have different options for the DXF output?
My DXF outputs from Rhino are very clean.

It has many different ways to save files. I think only one is the DXF. Im trying to learn Fusion 360 now. I hope those files come out clean. Been having a lot of problems with Inkscape. I’m sure it’s more of the software that the laser uses than the Inkscape itself.