Learn how to utilize the sweep tool in Fusion, which allows you to create 3D shapes by guiding a profile along a predefined path. Understand how to prevent your sketches from breaking by avoiding complexity and overlapping, and how to experiment with different options such as tapering, twisting, and changing the orientation of the shape.
Key Insights
- The sweep tool in Fusion requires two sketches - a profile and a path for that profile to follow. The complexity of these sketches should be moderated to avoid breaking.
- Using the sweep tool allows you to experiment with different features such as distance, tapering, twisting, and changing the orientation of the shape. However, these alterations should be done with caution as they may cause the shape to break.
- With the sweep tool, the orientation of the shape can either parallel the path or follow the path perpendicularly, providing different ways for the profile to follow the path.
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Let's keep exploring the sketch-based 3D geometry tools in Fusion. We'll go back to our Home tab and you guessed it, we'll click New. This new workspace is opened up and the Create drop-down.
We'll notice that one of these tools is called Sweep and it requires two sketches. One sketch is a profile, the other sketch is a path for that profile to follow. So let's get started by clicking the Create Sketch tool.
Let's create the sketch on the ground plane, that's the path first. We'll click the ground plane and we'll draw a path. Let's try another one of our sketch tools.
The fourth one in is called a Fit Point Spline. We'll click that. We'll click right on the product origin as our first point and then click back and forth creating a wavy spline going up the screen.
When we're done and we have four or five points, we can hit Finish Sketch and there it is. Back to our Home view and now we need to create our profile. So let's go ahead and go back to Create Sketch.
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This time we'll click on the front profile and we want the Line tool and we'll draw a profile. So have a little bit of fun. We don't want to make an overly complex profile because it could break.
We'll go up and maybe four or five lines. We can do a couple of arcs if we'd like, one or two. Once we have completed our profile, by clicking where we started, it turns solid and we can click Finish Sketch.
Now we'll go back to the Home view and we'll notice our two sketches. We have our path and we have our profile. Now these can break if they get too complex or overlap themselves.
We'll see if this one works. Go to our Create dropdown and we will select our sweep. Pull over our sweep tools and for type we have single path.
That will work fine but notice there are some more complex ways to make a sweep. Single path is fine for now. We'll click the profile, select, click that profile, and then click the path.
If it works, it will sweep that all the way along our path. Now there are some other options. Distance of one means that it will go the entire length of the path.
We could do 0.5 and go half the length of the path. We can taper it so we can put an angle but that tends to break it. We have to be careful with our shapes to see if that will work.
We'll keep that one at 0. We can have this twist as it goes along. Again it might break it. We'll try one here in my shape.
That one did work. It did let me twist it. So have some fun.
Don't stress if it breaks. We're just having fun and seeing if we can make a sweep. We can also change the orientation.
This is really cool. The shape can follow the path perpendicular or for example it could stay parallel the whole way through. So there's different ways to have that profile follow the path.
Quite a few options on this one. Let's go ahead and click okay and nice work experimenting with the sweep tool in Fusion.
