Digitizing to Fusion 360

[MecTechMike]

Typically I use STEP files between Rhino and Fusion360. STL's have worked in the past as well.

[BDubs]

Dave,

According to Autodesk Support, Fusion 360 does not support importing point clouds:

Unable to open point clouds in Fusion 360
By: Support
Oct 10 2018

Issue:
There is no option to open or import point cloud data in Fusion 360

Solution:
Point clouds are not a file format supported by Fusion 360. The point cloud will have to be converted to an STL or OBJ file in order to be opened in Fusion 360.

Note: Performance of mesh files opened in Fusion can vary based on the complexity and number of faces in the mesh. For best results, keep the mesh as simple as possible.

RE: https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/ ... n-360.html

As a professional who does digitizing for a living, the burden of 'what to do with the data' after it is collected is always on the user. It's been this way for the 20 years I've been in the game and this was the case before then. Sometimes, but not always, you can persuade your CAD vendor to write a script or plugin that helps you bring in the data, but this is usually with higher end software with yearly maintenance fees to pay for that kind of service. I would not hold your breath waiting for Autodesk, especially since F360 is a free/entitlement/benefit type software.

HOW the data was collected is very much relevant in terms of getting it into CAD. Unless 3D data was collected A) in regular, evenly spaced intervals AND B) in a rectangular grid/raster type pattern, you will be hard pressed to find ANY cad software under $2k that will be able to import it. Rhino3D is the exception here. It will pull in point clouds created by a drunken monkey with a Faro arm...but doesn't wrap point clouds into a mesh very well. Even Vectric Aspire requires the data to be 'regular' and in a 'grid' to use their 'Regular Grid Importer' gadget. It will not import polar/radial data using that utility.

As mentioned, the free/cheap way to do it (if it's a 3D point cloud) is to bring it into MeshLab, normalize the points, then use Poisson to wrap it into a mesh. Then export as STL binary. Then import into CAD. Your biggest challenge will be getting a clean wrap on the points you collected and the next biggest will be smoothing out the surface for machining without eroding prismatic features.

It is *very* important that you understand that no CAD software out there is going to recognize a .dig file. You need to make a copy of it and change the extension to .txt - then parse out all the commented lines in the beginning, the very first and very last GCode lines and do a Find/Replace X Y and Z (once on each letter) and replace them either with nothing (just leave empty) or a comma (,). Then save it out as a different name keeping the .txt format. You will actually have a comma separated values file (CSV) that you can import into Excel and just about anything else, including MeshLab as mentioned. It will effectively be 'cleaned' of all the Centroid flavor - which you have to remember is intended to be run as-digitized as a toolpath without CAD or CAM involvement.

If you can explain what you have done (what probing strategy you chose) and what are looking to do exactly (explain the shape you are capturing and what you want to do with the data) - I can probably point you in the right direction.

[Fueler1]

It is *very* important that you understand that no CAD software out there is going to recognize a .dig file. You need to make a copy of it and change the extension to .txt - then parse out all the commented lines in the beginning, the very first and very last GCode lines and do a Find/Replace X Y and Z (once on each letter) and replace them either with nothing (just leave empty) or a comma (,). Then save it out as a different name keeping the .txt format. You will actually have a comma separated values file (CSV) that you can import into Excel and just about anything else, including MeshLab as mentioned. It will effectively be 'cleaned' of all the Centroid flavor - which you have to remember is intended to be run as-digitized as a toolpath without CAD or CAM involvement.

It is my understanding that Centroids dig to cad conversion does this. Not so? or not enough?

[BDubs]

Dave,
All that .dig to CAD plugin does is strip out the lines of code that I told you about and change the extension to .txt or whatever. SOME CAD programs will open the .dig file, like Aspire, provided that the data is in regular & rectangular format.

I'm afraid that in regards to probing on ANY CNC - you are not missing any information - You didn't get 'tricked' - they are ALL pretty much the same in terms of what you get when you've waited hours or days for the data. I won't be able to tell you too much more than what you were already told here: https://www.cnczone.com/forums/centroid ... 6-cad.html You get a text file of XYZ point coordinates. From there, you'll need to wrap them into a mesh using either a free program like MeshLab or kick in for Aspire. There's also a 3rd option.

I see you started your quest back in April...possibly earlier than that. I know you 'invested' some money into digitizing, but keep in mind that any mechanical probe out there is easily eclipsed by optical scanning equipment in both resolution and speed. If you just want a clean, crisp scan of your parts, why not send them out and get them scanned? Probably for a few hundred bucks you could get exactly what you want in an STL mesh that you can toolpath and use straight away. Save the probe for 2D contour digitizing when you need it.

I don't care if you have the most expensive touch probe in the world...the data is junk compared to metrology grade laser scans. Been there done everything that can be done with a touch probe, including rotary axis scanning, 20 years ago. I'll never go back.

[Fueler1]

and the third option is?

[BDubs]

Just send them out to be scanned better and cheaper than doing it yourself...

[Fueler1]

I thank you for showing us your resume, the high end work that you do and what you use to do it.
However, I and others here will need to make do with what we have.
I suspect we will be just fine once it gets figured out what is the best practice.

[BDubs]

Dave,
You're welcome. You should have all the info you need now to import your data into F360 or any other CAD.

I took the liberty of pulling the .dig sample data from CNC12 into MeshLab, wrapped it and exported it as an STL - just to verify the steps I recommended will work for you.

As you can see from the attached photo, it's good to go - so that should be case closed for anyone with .dig point cloud data that needs to bring it into a CAD system that doesn't support point clouds.

Good luck with your project. Glad I could help!

[Fueler1]

I can get the file into meshlab ok. I think you must be using industry slang. I can't find anything related to "wrapping".
That may be what I am not grasping.
What are the steps to achieve this wrapping?

[cnckeith]

fyi.. Centroid CNC12/11/7 has a built in "DIG to CAD" feature (in the digitizing menu) which strips out the g code portion of the centroid .dig file and turns it into ASCII X Y Z text file with one button push. this is how i created the sample files in this thread.

with patience good 3D digitizing results can be achieved with a Centroid Touch Probe.
a pure copy and cut demo that we have been doing for years is the mustang.. the wax copy in this photo below is a direct cut of the .dig program generated by CNC12 as it was digitizing, no cad cam was used in this demo. 12 hour digitizing run at .01" step over.

Cad/cam brings surface manipulation and tool path choices to the table (roughing passes and different size cutters etc)

Two different ways to use cnc digitizing.

I have one customer that makes custom fishing lures that doesn't use cad cam at all, he hand shapes the lure out of wood, digitizes it with the Centroid DP4 and Grid digitizing cycle (1/8 stylus), then cuts a carbon eletrode directly with the .dig file created by cnc12 with 1/8" ball end mill, then does the little hand work on the electrode, uses a plunge EDM to make a steel mold with the electrode and then the mold goes into a plastic injection machine and then the lure ends up at Walmart, no cad cam is used in the process...

and on the other end of the spectrum... our own in house 5 axis CNC cylinder head porting machines, use the Centroid DP-7 and Centroid developed porting digitizing software to digitize hand shaped intake and exhaust ports (that no scanner has yet to be able to digitize:)) and then the centroid data is brought into Mastercam Port Expert software, adjusted to remove hand work imperfections and then fresh tool paths are created from that data and cylinder heads are ported to match. this graphic below is trying to convey the process.