Kevin Kennedy: This video is sponsored by Thangs.com. Letâs take a look at converting a mesh file to a solid body, including some secrets to working with meshes in Fusion 360. Be sure to download the demo file from the link below. Fusion 360 supports 3 ways to insert or open a mesh file. Iâll cover the easiest way first, and weâll save the other two for the end of this video. The first way is to simply head to the Insert dropdown, followed by âInsert Mesh.â Notice Iâm in the Design workspace and the default Solid modeling tab. You will also see that the Mesh tab is now out of âPreviewâ mode, and no longer needs to be enabled in your preferences. The same âInsert Meshâ feature can also be activated from within the Mesh tab. Once active, select the mesh file that youâd like to insert. Note that Fusion 360 supports STL, OBJ, and now 3MF mesh files. Fusion 360 also allows you to select and import multiple mesh files at the same time. After hitting âOpen,â we can choose the unit type. STL and OBJ files are unitless, so you must select the correct unit type per your desired scale. Contrary, 3MF files do include units, so it will not require you to select a unit of measure. Note that if you import multiple mesh files at once, you cannot determine their unit of measure in the Insert dialog. Youâll be able to define that individually later on. This maze puzzle box is imported in the correct orientation; however, you can always select âFlip Up Directionâ to reorient the model. Before looking at the Position options, Iâll first make the Origin folder visible in the Browser. Notice the bottom of the model is resting on the bottom origin plane. If youâd like to center the model to the origin, simply select the âCenterâ option. âMove to Groundâ will align the bottom of the model to the origin plane. Lastly, we can toggle open the Numerical Inputs section to further define the placement of the model. Of course, we can also push and pull the distance and rotation manipulators. Once satisfied, we can click OK. The July 2021 update brought significant improvements to the mesh tools, including making many mesh features parametric. You may have noticed that we no longer are required to be in direct modeling mode to work with the mesh tools. The Insert Mesh feature is now recorded in the parametric timeline. Fusion 360 has also introduced many new mesh tools, making it easier to manipulate, repair, and work with mesh bodies. However, there may still be times where youâll need to convert the mesh body to a solid 3D body to make use of the solid modeling tools. Fortunately, this process is streamlined and we no longer need to flip back to the Solid modeling tab. We can now simply go to the âModifyâ dropdown of the Mesh tab, followed by âConvert Mesh.â Take note of the gold icon in the Bodies folder, which signifies this is a Mesh body. We can select the mesh body in the Browser or by selecting the model. Next, we can choose whether we want this to be Parametric and recorded in our timeline, or if weâd prefer to create a Base feature that does not record upstream parametric relationships. Choose Parametric if youâd like to retain the flexibility to make changes. The Base feature option is great if you have a large mesh file or when you intend to make a lot of changes to the mesh, which may cause the parametric nature to slow down the file. Notice youâll get a warning message if your file has a significant amount of mesh facets. Facets are the number of triangles that make up the mesh file. The number of facets will directly affect the amount of time this will take to convert. Last but not least, we can now choose between Faceted and Prismatic. Faceted is the original method that Fusion 360 has used for converting mesh bodies. This option will convert each mesh face, resulting in a solid body if the mesh is fully closed, or a surface body if the mesh has any openings. Contrary, the new Prismatic option will merge groups of faces into singular faces, also resulting in a solid or surface body. However, this option will produce much cleaner results, making it easier to update your models using Fusion 360âs parametric modeling tools. Letâs take a look at the Prismatic option first. If successful, this option will give us a file much closer to a native Fusion 360 file. After clicking okay, youâll see that I got an error message that the âcomputeâ failed. Itâs recommending that we first create a âFace Group.â Under the Prepare section of the Mesh tab, you will find Generate Face Groups. Generating Face Groups will help determine the boundary of each set of faces, or where the geometry changes in curvature. After selecting the bodies, we can set the type to âFastâ or âAccurate.â When reverse engineering a model, I recommend always trying the accurate option first. Just note that this may not work with models with a large facet count. After clicking OK, it may take a bit to process. Notice after computing, the model sets a color to each unique face group. Keep in mind that this is a visual representation and does not affect the physical properties of the model. In the Display settings, you will find Mesh Display, where we can toggle the Face Groups on and off. Now that weâve defined our face groups, we can re-try the Prismatic conversion. This time, youâll find the conversion completed, resulting in a very clean Solid body, as if we imported a STEP file or a native Fusion 360 file. For comparison, letâs look at the original Facet conversion. Iâll roll back the parametric timeline to use the same mesh file. Again, this may take a minute or two to process, depending on how many facets make up the model. As you can see, this method produces hundreds, if not thousands, of mesh facets. Consequently, itâs much harder for us to modify and manipulate the file. Looking at these models side-by-side, you can see what a big difference the Prismatic option makes. The one thing to note is that the Prismatic option is unfortunately not included in the free Personal Use or âHobbyâ license. With the faceted result, you can select faces on the same planar surface, followed by the Delete key. Fusion 360 will then automatically attempt to repair and merge them into a single face. Iâll right-click on the Convert Mesh in the timeline to suppress this faceted one. Rolling the timeline back to the right will then allow me to continue with the Prismatic Version. Letâs say that I want to increase the height by 10mm. I can now simply select the top face, hit the shortcut letter âQâ for the Press Pull command, and move this up 10mm. Repeating the process for the other body, youâll see that Iâm able to do this in just a few seconds, thanks to the clean nature of the Prismatic conversion. At this point, we could utilize any of the solid modeling tools. Letâs take a look at the other two ways to open a mesh file. The second method is to go to the File dropdown and select Open. Select âOpen from My Computer,â then select the mesh file. This will open the mesh file in a new tab. With this workflow, there are three important considerations. First, this is not saved to your data panel unless you save the file. Second, because STL and OBJ files are unitless, this workflow will automatically set your scale to CM. This often confuses many, as a lot of designs were created with millimeters in mind. You can fix this by using the âScale Meshâ feature in the Mesh tab. Third, you will notice that the Open workflow places us in Direct modeling mode. To make our model parametric, weâll need to right-click on the top-level or ârootâ component, followed by âCapture Design History.â The third and final method to open a mesh file is to upload the file to your Data Panel or the A360 hub. This will use cloud translation and may take longer than the other two methods. This method also uses Centimeters as the default unit of measurement. I recommend using the Insert Mesh feature for efficiency and to ensure your mesh is set to the correct scale. To summarize, the new Mesh tools and streamlined workflows allow you to convert a Mesh file to a Solid body. Use the Prismatic option to convert the mesh to a clean solid body, but note that it is not available to all license types. Using the Faceted option is still a feasible workflow, but it may require extra cleanup of the mesh triangles. Special thanks to Thangs.com for sponsoring this video! Thangs is the fastest-growing 3D model community with nearly 3 million free models to download. Theyâve also sponsored another 3D modeling challenge including many prizes. Head to productdesignonline.com/challenge to see the latest challenge, including the theme and prizes. Be sure to subscribe if you havenât already, and check out our playlist, Learn Fusion 360 for 3D Printing.
Thanks a ton I was just about to start asking about this!