Exploring the Basics of Fusion 360

Welcome to the VDCI CAD Teacher Course, Fusion 1, Fusion 360 Essentials. In this course, we will go over the basics of Fusion 360, including user interface, toolbars and workspaces, preferences, the browser, timeline, and data panel, and finally, the marking menu interface for Fusion 360. We will also go over basic sketching and creation of 3D geometry, modifying our geometry, assembling our geometry, and looking at some other tools in Fusion 360.

In this video, we will go over the basic user interface and workspaces, so let's get started. When you first open Fusion 360, it will have asked you to sign into your Autodesk account, or if you downloaded it as free student software, it will have automatically signed you in. We know that because at the top right of the screen, it will show our name.

When you log into your Autodesk account in Fusion 360, it will give you automatic access to your data panel. The data panel can be found at the top left of your screen, and it is this grid. When I show the data panel, I will see all of the projects that I have access to.

Fusion 360 is a cloud-based software, and therefore, wants you to save all of your files and datasets to the cloud. You can see that I have some projects already, and Fusion will automatically create your first project. Also, Fusion will have provided samples at the bottom of your data panel for training and practice in Fusion 360.

At the top of the data panel, let's go to New Project, and I will name this project Fusion 01 Fusion 360 Essentials. If we open that project, you will have the ability to upload files to your new project. We need to first download our datasets from the VDCI website, so you will see here that I will go to vdci.edu, scroll down and select Fusion, and this page is where we describe our Fusion workshops.

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You can watch a video talking about the workshops, or scroll down to find out more about Fusion. Type in your email here, and hit Join the Workshops. I will scroll down and find Fusion 360 Fusion Essentials, and then I will find where it says Download Course Datasets, and I will hit the Datasets button.

The download will start, and you will see it in the lower left corner of your screen. I will go Show in Folder to open my Downloads folder, and I will select my file, right-click, Extract All. This will allow me to extract my zip file into a regular folder.

I will hit Extract, and then here are all of my files. I will close my browser and go back to Fusion 360. When I hit Upload, I will be able to select files or drag and drop my files into my Fusion 360 folder.

I will select files, go to Downloads, open my Fusion 360 Essentials, and grab all of my files. I'll hit Upload, and you will see all of my files to begin to upload into the Fusion 360 data panel. This is uploading and saving all of my files to the cloud.

When all of the files are uploaded, I can hit Close, find my spindle file, and open it by double-clicking, and then I will close my data panel by hitting either the X or the grid. And let's learn about the user interface. In the top left of your screen, you will see the application bar.

As we know, this is where the data panel is found. The file dropdown, with options that we may recognize from other programs, save, undo, and redo. On the top right of your screen, you will see the profile section with job status, your name here, and when you hit the dropdown, your Autodesk account, preferences, and profile, and a Help button on the top right.

We can see in the middle of the screen is our Canvas. This is where all modeling and editing and other workflows take place in Fusion. In the upper left corner of the Canvas, you will see our Workspaces button and our toolbars.

In Fusion 360, Workspaces organize different toolbars. When I am in the Model workspace, I will have Sketch, Create, Modify, Assemble, and so on, and when I switch to Patch, you will see similar toolbars, but different options. When I go to a workspace like Animation, you will see a completely different set of toolbars appear.

Fusion 360 is a powerful program in that it allows for modeling and editing of geometry, rendering, animation, simulation, and computer-aided manufacturing all in one program. I will go back to the Model workspace. The Model workspace focuses on solid 3D geometry.

In the Sketch palette, we can sketch two-dimensional and three-dimensional sketches that we can reference using the Create palette to create three-dimensional geometry. We can then modify our bodies and assemble our components. The Model workspace also allows us to attach images and canvases, make our 3D geometry in 3D printing, and has basic add-ins and selection options.

The Patch workspace is similar to the Model workspace in that it has the same toolbars, but the Patch workspace focuses on the model as a series of connected faces instead of a solid 3D geometry. In the Patch workspace, I can delete and edit individual faces of my 3D solid, whereas in the Model workspace, it is treated as a solid part. The Sheet Metal workspace is one of the newer workspaces in Fusion 360.

It allows you to create sheet metal parts based on a set of rules, which can be modified under the Modify Sheet Metal Rules tool. The sheet metal parts are similar to the parts made in the Model or Patch workspace, but they are created using a different series of rules. The Render workspace allows us to apply new physical materials, appearance materials, change our render environment, and export renderings out of Fusion 360.

The Animation workspace allows us to animate our part so that we can see how it moves, functions, or simply how it's put together. The Simulation workspace allows us to study our components using a series of different tests. These tests allow us to study our materials to understand how they would function in the real-world.

The Cam workspace introduces us to computer-aided manufacturing. In this workspace, we can prepare our part using tool paths and setups to allow our part to go to a 2D or 3D CNC machine, a multi-axis machine, a turning machine like a lathe, or even to a laser cutter. This workspace is used when we want to take our computer part into the real-world.

Finally, the Drawing workspace allows us to create sheet drawings for our part. Using the components that we have made in our file, we can export them as 2D drawings and save them as PDFs. I'll go back to the Model workspace.

And below the Workspace toolbar, we will see our browser. The browser is where all of our objects are hosted, if they are bodies, components, or other geometry. We can control visibility, views, units, and a variety of other organizational tools in our browser.

At the bottom of the screen, is our timeline. The timeline captures the history of our project in chronological order. We will go over the browser and timeline in a future video.

At the top right of our canvas is our view queue. We can navigate with the view queue by clicking and dragging or clicking on one of the faces to automatically align to that view. At the bottom of the canvas, we will see our navigation and display settings.

We can switch our orbit type, look at a specific face, pan our model, zoom our model, and other zoom options. Additionally, if you are working with a standard three-button mouse, clicking and holding the middle mouse wheel will pan your model. Holding shift and clicking the middle mouse wheel will orbit your model.

And zooming is performed with the scroll wheel. So zooming the wheel towards you will bring the object closer to you and you will zoom in. And scrolling the mouse wheel away will move the object further away and will zoom out.

In the next video, we will look at setting up user preferences in Fusion 360. I will see you in the next video.