This week I researched on the vex forums to find out what the best software was for 3D modeling robot designs in VEX. Many people recommended Fusion 360 (which also happens to be free for students and teachers). I will try to summarize what I have learned throughout the process here.
The navigation buttons (left) are all found on the bottom menu, and have corresponding icons (they also have names if you hover over them). You can also utilize the hotkeys, but they often require a three buttoned mouse. You can find the full list here.
Navigating in 3D is a bit hard for the first time, but there is a handy cube in the upper right corner, which can help reset your view if it ever gets messed up.
On the left you will find a menu for all the projects. Projects have different settings such as open, closed or secret. Members who wish to join a closed or secret project, must be approved of by the owner before they do so, and whereas anyone can see a open or close project, you cannot see a secret project unless you are working on it. These settings can be changed by hitting the globe with the eye icon when you click into the project, they going into project settings. Another important thing to note is that a project is not a single file, but a collection of them. This is useful when creating an entire robot, because you may multiple files for the subsystems (chassis, intake, flywheel), but need them to be organized together. You may also have multiple folders within a project for more organization.
As a team we have a project dedicated to all our parts. You can find these files by going to robot mesh and then scrolling down to the bottom where you will find a CAD (STEP) file which you can download. This can be time consuming, however, so I recommend that you look for a google drive/Dropbox folder with all of them compiled. Usually if you get it off of the Vex Forums, there are people that have already downloaded it, so you can ensure that they are safe.
The browser is a drop down menu that allows you to view all the files imported/referenced in your project this is a good overview because if you double click on a part name it highlights the part in the design. Additionally, you can toggle visibility and manipulate the individual part by right clicking on the part name.
Finally, the top menu is for tools. I won't go into it much, as each tool is unique and there are so many of them. I will share more about some of the tools I used during the process.
Stay tuned for more information on VEX Fusion!
Additional Resources:
Comments