{"id":4648,"date":"2016-10-31T12:56:25","date_gmt":"2016-10-31T19:56:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/fusion-360\/blog\/?p=4648"},"modified":"2016-10-31T13:09:48","modified_gmt":"2016-10-31T20:09:48","slug":"sheet-metal-check-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/fusion-360\/blog\/sheet-metal-check-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheet Metal Check-in"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello folks, my name is Patrick and I am one of the user experience designers on the Fusion 360\u00a0team. We\u2019ve been busy designing and building the sheet metal tools for the upcoming sheet metal experience inside Fusion. This is a follow up on <\/span>Bryce\u2019s blog post<\/span><\/a> to take a little deeper look at the core workflows we\u2019ll be addressing in the initial release of sheet metal. \u00a0First off, we\u2019re focusing on supporting workflows for designers and engineers to make sheet metal parts; because if you can\u2019t model your sheet metal parts, you can\u2019t manufacture it (a little hyperbolic, I know). \u00a0We\u2019re going to look into how we handle properties, our one flange to rule them all approach and cutting across bends. \u00a0We understand you sheet metal-heads out there know there is a lot that goes into sheet metal designs (material thickness, k factors, minimum bend radius, bend reliefs, flanges, flat patterns, rips, hems, punches, DXF output..). \u00a0So where do you start developing workflows? Well, we are starting at the beginning.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"change-rule\"Properties are the root of how sheet metal designs behave: \u00a0thickness, bend radius, k factor, relief shapes, etc. We\u2019re calling these \u201csheet metal rules\u201d in Fusion 360. Our intention is to provide you a simple way to build your library by providing you with a handful of \u201cstarter\u201d rules you can copy, edit and save to your library. \u00a0For folks that don\u2019t have a ton of experience with sheet metal properties the rules will be a simple way to get started. \u00a0For those of you who do possess a plethora of experience, the ability to dial in your rules to your particular design process will be supported. \u00a0Also the library syncs with your profile just like preferences so wherever you login, you\u2019ll have access to your library. Select a rule from your library when a sheet metal component is created and all the properties from that rule are applied. We\u2019re hoping this keeps your nose out of the Engineer\u2019s Handbook looking up material k factors, bend reliefs, bend radii every time you start a design.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"sheetA large part of sheet metal design is creating flanges. As Bryce points out, we\u2019ve simplified this by combining what is typically multiple commands. We took the philosophical approach of a flange is a flange is a flange; that the different types of flanges in other systems are really hyper specialized flavors of one another. \u00a0We wanted to simplify this; \u00a0giving those of you new to sheet metal less stuff to be overwhelmed by and provide a robust enough tool for the experienced designer. \u00a0The type of flange that is created is determined by the geometry you select. The intent is to allow you to create a flange, right-click and repeat, create another flange and repeat to your hearts content. If you are new to sheet metal design, we hope this shortens the learning curve and gets you up and running quickly. For the seasoned sheet metal designer, the thought is this reduces the number of commands you need to think about. You won\u2019t have to decide which flange command you need to use in what situation. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"unfold\"Once you have flanges created, you often need to create cut features across multiple flanges. Other design tools provide an unfold command and Fusion will have something similar. Where Fusion 360\u00a0will be different is the unfold command will be a mode similar to sketch or sculpt. So you\u2019ll unfold, create your cuts, then refold. Everything between the unfold and refold will be grouped in the timeline. Keeping the features grouped makes it simple to roll back and update later.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We will also take advantage of Fusion\u2019s frequent update cadence to bring you constant bug fixes, idea station requests, and other over all sheet metal goodness. Our first workflow will address creating press brake designs from scratch. You will be able to create new sheet metal designs as an individual component or within the context of an assembly. Later, we will address importing and recognizing sheet metal components from other CAD software. This lets you import and flatten sheet metal designs even if they were created in another software. We hope this makes it easier to work in a multi-CAD environment or helps transition to Fusion from another software. The third big workflow we\u2019ll get to is converting a solid body to a sheet metal design. Customers have requested the ability to start with a solid box, shell it, then rip the corners and split into multiple components. With Fusion\u2019s top-down design approach, this workflow will be seamless. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Check out what\u2019s happening with the sheet metal experience in Fusion 360, what the team is working on and some of the workflows we plan to address. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":329,"featured_media":4783,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-4648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fusion","dhig-theme--light"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSheet Metal Check-in - Fusion Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Check out what\u2019s happening with the sheet metal experience in Fusion 360, what the team is working on and some of the workflows we plan to address.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/fusion-360\/blog\/sheet-metal-check-in\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sheet Metal Check-in - 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