Need testers: TabGen (Fusion 360 Plug-in) improvements

You definitely have an old version somehow. I’m working on a couple of fixes, in between conference calls, today. I’ll post another version later this afternoon.

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I have OpenSCAD code to create matching finger joints and sometimes similar things happen in 2D export. Changing the dimensions will make it appear and disappear. I’ve always blamed rounding error in the underlying libraries, but have never confirmed.

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Just an update for the curious: I was resolving issues that both @jules and @markevans36301 identified and realized that I had made the parameter portion unnecessarily complex. I’m resolving that before I post an update; and my wife has me sidetracked at a burlesque parody of The Empire Strikes Back tonight, so it will most likely be tomorrow.

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Sometimes a parenthetical statement will pop right off the screen. This is one of those times. :crazy_face:

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I was going to post a picture, but thought better of it.

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I successfully used it here:

Some notes:

  1. I kept running into “plane not vertical” errors. No idea why as seemingly doing the same operation a second time would work.

  2. I frequently saw error dialog boxes but the operation worked anyway

  3. When doing the “left” vs. “right” tabs on the walls where they connect to the backpiece, the tabs are at different positions on the two. I.e. the left and right pieces are different and, if you look really close, the tabs aren’t symmetrical! I believe this is because it started the tab calculation from the “bottom” of one piece and the “top” of the other. More of a surprise than a bug and, frankly, if I knew how to actually use F360 properly, it’d never be an issue.

Super cool plugin. Saved me a ton of time. Actually, it didn’t just save me time, it enabled me to make tabbed stuff in F360 whereas I wouldn’t bother prior because it was such a pain.

THANK YOU!!

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Let us know when the latest version is out. I’ve removed it so I can have a fresh install when the next version comes out.

Even using that old version that somehow got installed I can see this has a lot of potential!

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This is a testing message that somehow I missed removing.

Any chance that you got a screen capture of any of these errors?

This actually is a bug that I noticed the other day. It will be fixed in the next version.

I’m glad it was useful, even though you experienced some issues with it.

Because of the problems you and @jules had, I started digging into the code quite a bit. I’ve spent a bunch of time trying to better understand the Fusion 360 API, and have been able to reorganize and simplify the code in a few areas, and make it easier to extend in the future; I have started identifying additional features to add. I’m trying to get another update out as quickly as I can, with at least the existing functionality and known bugs fixed.

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So, I just ran through the design from scratch again, fully parameterizing it.

Not a single error ever. It might be because my original design started with a fundamental mis-assumption as to what the hell I was doing (safe bet) and that led to geometry errors. Or F360 might have updated.

In any case, I now have a fully parameterized model.

On that front, there are too many parameters that are favorited and, because of poor planning on my part, not enough sharing of parameters between. But that may be, quite likely, because I have no idea what I’m doing and did no planning ahead. :). That and F360 does deserve just a tad bit of blame here; it does a horrible job of managing variables, their names, and their units.

So, I’ll keep futzing.

This is absolutely fantastic, btw. If you had a “donate” button on your GitHub, I would. Of course, having long been in the open source world, I fully understand how “donate” can mean “obligated” to some and that may not be what you’re looking for. Instead, if you’re ever in the SF Bay Area, hit me up and there’ll be a plate of sushi or a beer or something in your future on me. :slight_smile:

I’m simplifying the parameter model in the next version.

I’ll actually be out there for a few weeks in June/July, working with a client.

Not sure how I missed this post, but… thank you! I’m diving in to Fusion 360 and it’s slow going. This will be a great help!

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Glad to see another convert,get in and learn enough to teach me something! Not that hard really.

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Not quite a convert yet, although I’m not one to let a software package get the better of me! My semester of CAD experience in college did not stick with me, but I did manage to design a cookie cutter for my 3D printer a few months ago. I gave up on the most recent project and just did it in Affinity Designer, though. I am someone who tends to learn on a project-need-basis, which is fine, but I have to find the right project without a pressing need!

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As someone who is still integrating F360 into my workflow, I am curious how this could help me. I think I could give you a hand from a beginners POV. Let me know!

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Go run through my Fusion360 tutorials in the matrix, I cover finger joints then you can contrast doing it with a plug-in. My way (I lifted it off a YouTube video somewhere) is easy compared to approaching it blind and a plug-in is another order of magnitude easier!

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I use beginner loosley. I have seen the video about finger joints and making the laptop stand. I mean that I can not do advanced shapes. I have drawn several boxes already.

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So you use the pattern command? Good deal!

We are all at a different place but get this, advanced shapes are nothing but simple shapes blended together! I say that like I have this stuff down and I don’t but that’s the theory anyway. :wink:

Alright, it’s taken quite a bit longer than I anticipated to release an update. As I was working through this, I realized that I was falling into some bad habits in the code, making it much more confusing than necessary–that hasn’t all been fixed, but it’s much better.

Version 0.40-alpha can be found here.

Some important notes for those interested:

I had to take a step back on this and reevaluate the method I was using to build functionality for the future. As a result, the code base has been completely reorganized and refactored; in an attempt to–I hope–make things easier in the future.

The bad:

  • This version is a little slower than the previous version, since it updates model parameters in place, instead of creating new parameters

The good:

  • This version minimizes the number of parameters that have to be created; keeping the model a little cleaner. With careful planning, the number of parameters created for any given face can be as low as 0 or 1, but will generally not exceed 4 or 5 (where the previous version had a minimum of 7 or 8)
  • Parametric functionality is now the default, but can be disabled by the user.
  • The user can now specify a margin from the edge, preventing fingers from being too close to the edge.
  • Interior walls can now be specified (spaced equally across the body), so that fingers will be cut across the body, not just on the edges.
  • Input validation and selection have been improved; there are a few cases where the input dialog might not function as you expect, but it should be much better at preventing mistakes; this will be improved further in the next release.
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I’m looking forward to getting home and giving it a try, hopefully I’ve purged Fusion from all traces of the older version so this will load clean, we will see?

Let me know. I spent a lot of time cleaning this up, and continuing to learn the F360 API–so much so that I haven’t touched my GF in the last 3 weeks.

You may run into bugs (:slight_smile: ), since I had to rework quite a bit, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

I’m finally at the point where I can start working on some other features, in addition to continuing to clean up the code.

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