2D and 3D Design

Practice with LibreCad and Fusion 360

The second assignment was to create a 2D and 3D design as a sketch for a project. Before starting with the assignment you have to download LibreCad and Fusion 360. LibreCad is a free Open Source CAD (free computer-aided design) application for Windows, Apple and Linux. Fusion 360 is a cloud-based CAD/CAM/CAE tool for collaborative product development. After downloading both modeling software Daniele Ingrassia gave us a brief introducion in both tools. For Fusion 360 it is important that you sign in as a student to get the free license for the next 3 years.

I had to come up with an idea for a 2D and 3D Design project to complete the assignment. I used the website Printerest as an inspiration and found a beautiful 3D Design of a deer head. So I choose to work with Fusion 360. In this way I could create a particular 2D Design from the deer's head and later on just extrude the parts to create the 3D Design.

Creation of the 2D Design

I started sketching the deer's head on paper to understand the structure of the design I wanted. It was important to know the length and the corners of the lines I had to draw.

This later made it easier to work with Fusion 360, because I just had to repeat every step I did.

I began to create a new sketch on Fusion by clicking in the right corner of the navigation bar.

The first thing I did, when I began to draw the deer's head, was creating the middle line. The whole sketch was depending on the middle line, that's why it's the most dominant line in the sketch. In the drawing I made the middle line was about 20 - 20,5 cm long, so I created a vertical line with the same length.

Usually the units in Fusion 360 are in mm, so if you want to work in cm you have to change the units. This can be done by clicking on your account's Preferences.

Immediately a new window will pop-up with your preferences by clicking on Default Units --> Design you will be able to change the units.

Then click on the browser tree on Document Settings to check if the units are changed.

If they didn't change click on the little sketch icon on the left of Units. A new window will pop-up to adjust the units settings.

Afterwards creating the middle line I started creating the bottom of my sketch, as I used to when I was drawing. The chin of the deer was about 9 cm long in horizontal length. So the basic two bottom lines at the chin had to be 5 cm long. With some trying I found the perfect corner for the chin. After making the bottom line it was easy to attach the other lines to finish the chin and the nose for one half of the head.

To create the same size and the same corner of the lines for the other half of the head. I just had to mirror the lines. This was a much easier procedure, in comparison to the drawing by hand. You can find the Mirror tool by clicking on the sketch dropdown menu.

A new window appears where you have to select the objects you would like to mirror and the mirror line, which will always be the middle line of the sketch. So basically I only had to sketch one half of the deer's head on fusion and the remaining other half I would just mirror.

Through that all lines are connected with each other, moving one line will change the whole structure of the design. As you can see in the following picture I moved the chin line, which generated a new shape for the deer's head.

The middle line and the two bottom lines have a fixed size, which means that the length of these two lines can't be changed while moving them. To change the size you have to click on the length you set before and type another number in it. Hereafter I undid the moving, because I just wanted to show you what would happen if you moved a line of the sketch.

Now I am going to create a border around all the lines to make a particular design. The borde will be around 0,5 cm wide. All the outside lines of the sketch will be 0,5 cm wide, while the inside lines will be 0,25 cm wide on each side. To be sure that the border has the right width I created lines to indicate where the next line for the border starts. These lines need to have a square angle to the basic line.

Subsequently I just needed to draw a line from the end point of the indication line to the next basic line. It is very important to maintain the square angle when you create the border line, otherwise it will change the structure of the sketch.

Next just trim all the extra lines that where made, while creating the border.

As known the mirror tool will generate the border effect on the other half of the head. Just repeat the procedure until you finish.

Download the 2D Design

click here to download the file!

Creation of the 3D Design

The idea was to create a 3D Design from the deer's sketch I made. I never worked with Fusion 360 before, so I had to learn the basics and read up on the tools and the features you could use. I tried a lot but had a really dificult time, to get the perfect shape from the head I wanted to make. At the end I decided to do something easier for the beginning. Again I looked on Printerest to get an inspiration and quickly decided to make a cube.

The cube has 6 faces which are all squares. I started sketching the first face in 2D Design like I did before with the deer's head. Moreover I wanted the cube to be 5x5 big, so I quickly made a square by using the 2-point rectangle tool. You can find the Rectangle tool by clicking on the sketch dropdown menu.


Afterwards I began to make some cut outs to create a frame, that could be joined with another face of the cube.

Each face would exist twice. Essentially I just had to make 3 faces, with each different frames that would still suit each other. As before with the deer's sketch I used the mirror tool to create an exact copy of the face. But you could also just copy the body and paste it anywhere you'd like.

I only sketched 4 faces of the cube, to check out if the frames would match each other.

In addition I extruded the faces to begin with the 3D Modeling. By clicking on the create dropdown menu you can find the extrude tool. First I increased the depth to 1 cm later I changed it to 0,3 cm.

Furthermore I joined the pieces and immediately recognized that they perfectly fit together.

After joining everything I went back to the sketch mode to finish sketching the last piece.

Then I extruded the remaining pieces and joined them to a cube.

At last I had to form the holes that represent the numbers on the faces of the cube. To create them I used the center diameter circle tool. You can find the Circle tool by clicking on the sketch dropdown menu. I extruded the circles and dragged them to the right position. On top of that I inverted the extrude, to create the holes.

I also made a little animation to demonstrate the final result. To make an animation you need to change to the animation mode by clicking on model.

At the bottom of this mode you can find the animation timeline. The duration of the animation I made is 10 seconds. To spin the cube I opend the transform components tool. You can find it by clicking on the cube in the browser tree.

Download the 3D Design

click here to download the file!