Fusion 360 Form Mastery - Part 8 - Using Edit by Curve

In this video we will look at when the Edit by Curve tool makes sense, and when it doesn't. This edit by curve tool is a great addition to forms, but knowing when to use it is key.

[@sadhucat4476]

Appreciate the honest critique of edit by curve.

[@noe1077]

Great video, never used this before this video - thanks

[@dwiz_9336]

The new fusion is frustrating to learn. It seems like they changed a lot of features that didn't even need fixing just to perform simple tasks

[@LearnEverythingAboutDesign]

What do you mean by the new fusion?

[@russellmiller2564]

What do you think is the best way to make “fair” curves with fusion 360? I do a lot of work in the marine industry, but I think a similar concept is in automotive body work.

[@LearnEverythingAboutDesign]

I think the general concept to try and follow is a consistent layout of edges. How you would see this on a final surfaces isocurves is how I would lay out the main shape. To add tight details in fusion you end up needing to bunch up edges, but the main shape usually can be defined with very few edges. It is a little tricky because the form gets converted to a BREP so you aren't really defining ISO curves per say, but that is the general idea.
One other thing I would also do with "waterlines" would be to draw them on the side plane and extrude them out, then build up/down from there. When extruding you want to use the Uniform spacing, not curvature based or you will break that first rule.
I will see if i can't make a video on this method. Basically you would be building a bunch of sacrificial forms and deleting them/trimming them because we don't have a great way to build out and match the curves in 3d without introducing some tolerances. Maybe I should cover that as well. If you have any images of hulls you want me to use send them to [e-mail] as long as they are ok to show in video even if not shared.

[@superalpha]

How can I use a form to make a shrink wrap, like for a battery pack?

[@LearnEverythingAboutDesign]

if you have a mesh of the battery pack you can use the form toll "Pull" which will pull the freeform model down to the mesh. Depending on the mesh density you would likely want to manually make your shape close, subdivide it and then use Pull.

[@superalpha]

​@@LearnEverythingAboutDesignI tried it real quick and it worked well but it needs a little finesse but for a quick trial it was pretty awesome. I wish there was an easy function to do that maybe I'll write a script or something.

[@LearnEverythingAboutDesign]

@@superalpha IF the battery pack mesh is a quad mesh, you could directly convert it to a form body using the Utilities > Convert. Then you could just scale it up 1-2%. Fusion can do the quad remesh but you have to have an edu or commercial license and have the product design extension. Other than that you could use Blender or another poly/mesh program that can handle the quad remesh. some are better than others.

[@superalpha]

​​@LearnEverythingAboutDesign I created offset surface bodies for each cell in the pack and then I tessellated each body and then put a cylinder form around it and did a pull to the surface and it looked pretty good for a quick-and-dirty proof-of-concept.

[@LearnEverythingAboutDesign]

@@superalpha Awesome!