Form, Sculpt and Mesh#

This section covers two kinds of non-parametric modeling. The Form workspace sculpts organic shapes with T-splines: you start from a primitive cage, edit and refine it, use symmetry, and finish it into a solid. The Mesh tools handle STL, OBJ and 3MF files, including repair, reduction, remeshing, shelling and conversion to BRep.

It ends with an end-to-end reverse-engineering workflow that rebuilds a scanned part as a parametric model. It suits beginners starting with Form or mesh import, and intermediate to advanced users converting and cleaning meshes.

Pages in this section#

1. Form Workspace Overview (T-Splines) (beginner): How Fusion's Form environment works: T-spline bodies, the control cage.
2. Form Primitives and Creating Forms (beginner): Box, Plane, Cylinder, Sphere, Torus, Quadball, Pipe, Face.
3. Edit Form and Selection (beginner): Move, rotate and scale cage vertices, edges and faces with Edit Form.
4. Creases, Insert Edge and Topology Tools (intermediate): Make sharp edges with Crease, add detail with Insert Edge and Insert Point.
5. Symmetry, Mirror and Circular Patterns in Form (intermediate): Use internal mirror and circular symmetry to edit one side of a form and duplicate it.
6. Subdivide and Refining Form Topology (intermediate): Add resolution with Subdivide, manage face density, thicken and flatten forms.
7. Finish Form and Converting Between Form and BRep (intermediate): What Finish Form produces, why it can fail.
8. Mesh Workspace and Importing STL, OBJ and 3MF (beginner): How to open the Mesh tab, import STL.
9. Mesh Repair, Reduce and Remesh (intermediate): Fix holes and bad triangles with Repair, cut triangle counts with Reduce.
10. Mesh Shell, Plane Cut and Other Mesh Edits (intermediate): Hollow a mesh with Shell, slice it with Plane Cut.
11. Converting a Mesh to BRep (Convert Mesh) (advanced): Turn mesh bodies into solid BRep geometry with Convert Mesh.
12. Reverse Engineering Workflow: From Scan to Parametric Model (advanced): An end-to-end procedure for rebuilding a physical part in Fusion from a scan or mesh.

Before you start#

The Convert Mesh Organic method is part of the Fusion Design Extension, per the Mesh help. If another mesh command is greyed out, check your entitlement.

Confirmed vs not confirmed#

Not confirmed in Autodesk's documentation: whether Form is included in every license tier (including Personal use), and license availability of mesh tools other than the Organic method.