说明
主要学习内容
- Learn about Generative Design in Fusion 360
- Learn about setting up your criteria
- Learn about picking the result
- Learn about downloading and using the file
讲师
- RSRobert SavageRobert Savage is an Education Specialist at IMAGINiT. He is a 30-year design veteran who has designed everything from molds and molded parts to robots. At Remotec, a division of Northrop Grumman Corporation, he spent 5 years as a designer in the development group, as well as CAD and Vault Administrator. He is an Autodesk Certified Instructor and a Certified Inventor Professional. He has used Inventor software since its inception, as well as being well-versed in a variety of other design software. He has 10 years of experience teaching 3D design software, including Product Design Suite Ultimate software, Factory Design Suite Ultimate software, Simulation Moldflow software, and Vault Professional software. Email: rsavage@rand.com
ROBERT SAVAGE: Welcome to the Autodesk University Generative Design Back to Basics. My name is Robert Savage, and I'll be your presenter. I hope everyone is having a great day.
So in this section, we're going to talk a little bit about generative design and look at it from the process of kind of starting over. Let me tell you a little bit about myself. I've been in the manufacturing design industry for over 30 years.
I've designed everything from piece parts to robots. I have used quite a few different softwares, spent most of my career in the Autodesk software. I now work for Imaginit Technologies as an education specialist. I teach manufacturing software.
So like I said, in this class, we're going to focus on picking generative design almost as a new user, and look at it kind of from the start. So this is very good for people who are just starting into generative design. But it can also be useful for people who are going back into generative design after taking a break, or having been used it and just need a refresh.
All right, so our objectives for this class are, first, to go through what's called an introduction to generative design. So I just kind of want to refresh you, as to what generative design really is, and where it's intended in the market. Then we're going to talk about setting up the criteria for a design.
Then after we've set up a design and ran it, we're going to talk about the results, and even what we can do with the files after we've done the design. So my introduction to generative design really comes in as, really, a four part process. You have your concept information, your evaluation of that, your validation, and then your production of your file.
Well, generative design mainly fits into three areas of this, the concept that you evaluate and validate. But it also has an effect on the produce side, because it helps us understand our part based on how it's produced. So the first thing I want to look at is, how does Autodesk Generative Design help the product development process?
Well, if you look at the product development process, you've really got a couple of different stages here. You've got your concept stage, which is where you go out, and you look at the different options for how you can create your information. Then you have kind of a gap, until you get to the validation area, because you don't really have anything to fit in there in the normal design process before it goes to validate and produce.
Well, this is kind of the sweet spot for generative design. It helps me go in and start with the concept of information, and then evaluate the different options that I get, both for things, like cost, and for manufacturability, and combine that information for a validated part that I can produce. So what I end up with is a part that actually functions the way I want it to.
Now, generative design allows us to look at multiple options for how something is actually potentially made. All right, so how does it actually fit into the product development process? So when we talk about the evaluation portion of this, we've got quite a few different variations of options that we can use in here, right? And from that, we go through, and we look for what is actually one of our better options or our best option, OK?
So with that, we're actually going in, and looking at different variations, and coming in, and validating our information as far as what we actually want to make. So as an engineer, the goal is typically to strike the right balance between performance and cost to produce of the part. But engineering is limited on time and energy. They can only spend so much time working on product exploration.
But with generative design, there's always multiple options. And most of the time, you're looking at either the low cost option or the high cost, high performance. So what you end up with is you end up with multiple different variations of information here that you can run kind of across the gambit, and you need to find a balance in there. So if you're starting out with a part, you can actually come in and evaluate that information on different options as to how it can be used or created.
So the process for doing this is really a five step process in my opinion. You've got your setup. You've got your generate, your explore, your adjust, and your validate. Your setup is setting up your criteria.
Generate means you're generating your results. Explore means you're exploring the options of your results. Adjust means you're adjusting the settings to make sure that you have the right information, and validate is, actually, validating the results that you've actually generated.
So let's talk about setting up the criteria. So setting up the criteria, it really comes down to a couple of different things here. First of all is defining what's considered to be the bodies, right? The bodies fall into a couple of different categories, your preserve areas, your obstacle areas, and your starting areas.
Then you want to come in and apply your controls. This means your loads and your constraints. You also want to define your materials, set your objectives, configure your manufacturing options. And some of your different manufacturing options in here are things, like additive manufacturing, dot casting, and even some milling options.
So when we talk about defining the bodies, like I said, there are three different variations of bodies that we use, preserve areas, which is the green information here, obstacle areas, which is the red information, and then, if you prefer, or if you like, you can use what's called a starting body. That means that I'm using my starting shape to help define what I'm trying to create, and that is an optional piece. Now, I also want to give, as I go through this, a couple of different tips for doing these different areas.
The first one is a set of tips on doing my startup, and the first tip is use your edit tool. So once you go into generative design, you have an Edit Model option, and this Edit Model option allows me to create obstacles. So we talked about obstacle bodies. So basically, this allows me to simulate the creation of a bolt or just, basically, a pin top area.
So in there, I can edit that and create the bolt or the obstacle shape. I can also do that by creating sketched information and extruding it. I also have tools for modifying the existing information. So if I do have a current body or a starting body, I can go in and pull out information out of that.
So I can modify that, taking out fillets and chamfers, removing features to refine my information. Now, in here, we also want to look at doing what's called cloning the model, so cloning the model allows me to have different variations of this. So I may want one set up, or the model actually has the fillets in the body and the shapes in it. I may want another one that doesn't.
I also have the ability to clone the studies. Cloning the study simply means that I have multiple setups for how I want my information tested. Now, applying the controls. There's really two things that we look at when we talk about the controls, the loads on my information and the constraints, right?
The loads are what force is being applied to my file. The constraints are how I'm controlling the movement of the file. If you'll notice here, I've got some arrows in this. Those arrows are my loads.
I've got blue arrows, which are defined loads, the yellow arrow, which is gravity, right? I also have constraints. The little lock symbols on the inside of these circular edges here, those are locks, OK? Those are locking the movement of that piece of information.
The next thing I mentioned was materials. Now, when we get to this point, you do have some flexibility as to the order that you do information in. You can actually set up your processes, first, and then come in and define your materials afterwards. And sometimes, that's a better option, especially if you have a large variation in materials.
So what that means is, in here-- and this is study materials. This is not the same as the design materials, even though the name might be the same, and the settings might actually be the same. There are some additional information in here that is specific to running the studies.
So if you'll notice here, these materials that I have listed here have a little symbol beside of them, including down here. Some of these do not, OK? That means that those have calculation information in them that is specific to a method, OK? And the method is my manufacturing process.
Now, my objectives. So in here, I'm setting what I want to define in this, or what is my objective for running this? Am I looking at simply coming in and minimizing the mass, or am I looking at maximizing the stiffness?
If I'm doing one of those two, what is my safety factor on it? Am I looking at frequency information? Do I have displacement options? So how much flex among allowing them?
And down at the bottom, I've also got buckling options. So am I looking for buckling in here? And if so, what is my safety factor on that? So in other words, how am I evaluating my part?
And that evaluation helps me define what the next part needs to look like, so next is my manufacturing options. This kind of goes back to the materials that we talked about a few minutes ago, but I'll show you that a little bit more here in a minute. So the manufacturing options are things, like an unrestricted option.
Unrestricted means just do what you want with it, OK? Additive, all right? Additive, typically, is a common way of referring to something that is printed. So we're typically talking about 3D prints here.
We also have diecast options down there at the bottom, and we have milling options, all right? Milling options can be a two axis, which is really a cutting option, two and a half axis, three axis, and five axis. Now, inside of each one of those, we have configurations for what our tool looks like.
OK, so a couple of tips on setting up that information. Obviously, like I said, use your Edit Model tools to edit the model, your connector obstacles. But I kind of want to come down in here, now, because I can't remove features with the Edit Model. And we talked about cloning the model and cloning the study.
So the next thing I want to look at is what's called the synthesis, and the synthesis is part of the study settings. And that has to do with the resolution of my information, so the resolution of my information is anywhere from coarse to fine, right? The finer I set this, the more complicated the analysis, OK?
But there are some areas, where the finer settings work better, and that is for things that would be thin walled. So if I have a thin wall part, I want to go towards the finer side. If I have basic shapes, then I want to go towards the coarser side. Typically, I want to stay towards the middle.
A couple of other things as far as tips going with this. Use your local preview. Let it run through, and see what you're going to get out of this. Use starting shapes to show or define a path.
In other words, I have my starting option, and I can actually use that to help me to find a path. I can also do that with obstacles, so I can create an obstacle in there and make it go around that obstacle. I can also use existing generated designs as my starting shape.
So my starting body or shape option, I can actually use an existing generated design, and come in, and refine those results. Now, from our manufacturing options, be aware of the orientation of your model, know which direction your x, y, and z is. Because it's going to come into play when we talk about the direction of the tool.
Also, things, like additive, only works in the positive x, positive y, and positive z. Also, look at your pre-check. Be aware of your pre-checked information, and make sure that any issues you have in there are addressed. Let's go over and take a look at the software now.
So in here, I have what would be my starting part here, so this would be my starting part here. I've already got my preserve regions created in here, and I can turn the visibility of those on and off. I created those as separate bodies. Always make sure you're using separate bodies when you're doing these.
If I want to look at that, I can, basically, turn off the original body, and look at the preserve regions here. Now, I've not gotten into generative design yet. So if I come in here, now, and I go in, and tell it I want to go to the generative design section, in here, now, I'm looking at my study, OK? So in here, I have things, like my perserved geometry, my obstacle geometry, and my obstacle offsets.
I also have my starting shape options here. So when I look at this, if I come under this study drop down, this is where I have my study settings. This is where I can adjust my resolution in here.
This is my Edit Model section, and my Edit Model section is where I've actually gone in and created these shapes here to be my obstacles, OK? I've created these using the connector obstacle tool here. So if I go in and look at that, here, I've come in. And I've selected the start of my shaft, and then I can also select the end of the shaft. Or I can just set a depth, all right?
I can also just define a diameter. I can even have a bolt head on there and say whether I want the bolt head on both sides. Basically, that's creating a clear out on that, so that I make sure that I have room to get in there to the bolt head.
That's what creates these different shapes here, and it all automatically creates these as obstacles. Now, over here is where I have my modify information, where I can come in and remove features, like fillets and chamfers, and even faces. I even have the ability to replace something with a primitive.
Once I have this information set the way that I want, I can finish the model, and it will come back in here. And it will automatically have this information in my obstacles and geometry here. So I'm going to turn off my obstacles here, so that you can see.
Now, I've already applied my different constraints on this, so I already have these circular faces here locked down. I also already have my loads in there, and actually, I have three loads. One is gravity. One is force one.
So if I look at force one, here, this is a structural load, and I'm using force in here. I'm selecting a phase, and then I set an angle on that and the direction. Actually, I have two forces in here.
Now, my manufacturing options. I've gone in and selected my manufacturing options. Now, a couple of things that are important to note about the manufacturing options are production volume. Production volume allows me to define what my theoretical production volume is on this, because the production of 10 parts would be different than the production of 1,000 parts.
I'm only going to make 10 of them. It's going to look at it differently. Now, I have an unrestricted option. I have an adaptive option.
I'm looking at this from an adaptive option here, and I've got my orientation set. I also have what's called an overhang angle and a minimum thickness. I have my milling options, which is where I can come in and configure my different milling setups for those different milling options.
I also have a cutting option. So if this was just a flat, two axis cut information, I could use that also. I also have options for die casting, where I can set things, like a minimum draft angle, minimum and maximum thicknesses on this. Now, the materials. So the materials here, I have a selected set of materials that I've already put in here, and those materials can be separated based of the method that I'm using.
So I can say that I want 6061 applied to all of them, or I only want certain ones applied the milling and certain ones for unrestricted. So this is the reason that I say you can actually apply them based off of your different methods. All right, so here is my additive material library. I also have a nonlinear material library, and I have just a standard material library.
So if I come into this, if you'll notice, some of these have little symbols beside of them, meaning that they have cost estimate calculations in them. So they have the ability to do cost estimation on those, but again, it depends on my production method also. So I may want to go back after I've done my material or after I've done my manufacturing options and adjust my materials.
Then I come in, and it's automatically going to run a pre-check, all right? And I can go into my previewer here, so I can run my previewer here. And then I can use my generator.
Well, I've already generated here, so I'm going to take a look at the different options that we have on this. But before I do that, let's go ahead, and go back to, and talk about picking the results, OK? So let's talk about picking the results on this, and there's just a few slides on this one. It's relatively short area.
But when we talk about picking the result, what we're doing is we're evaluating the different options, because it's going to give us several different options in here. And we need to come in and say which option is going to be the best option for us. So when we look at this, there's a couple of things of importance here to note. One is across the top, I have an area for recommended outcome.
Recommended outcome is just that. It's what the system feels is your best options for this. Now, I do have several different options down here at the bottom, right? Down on the left hand side of this, I've got what's called my filters.
So if I look at the overall screen, that was actually back over here in this original explore area here. But if I come over here to what a lot of people refer to as their scatterplot, then in here, this is, basically, showing me or a point that represents each variation of my model. So when I come in here-- and they're all broken down by material. So if I come in here and adjust my filters on this, then I can adjust which materials I'm looking at, or which study I'm looking at, or which manufacturing method I'm looking at. So I've got several different options to look at in my filters.
So a couple of tips in regards to results. Use your filters, all right? And sort the information to refine your results. Don't just look at the image and say, this one looks best, OK?
You can also look at the cost data results. For those things that have the cost calculation in them, you can look, again, at the cost data results. You can also use tagging and filter.
So when you use the filters, obviously, you're refining it. But you can also tag an option, and basically, reference it for someone else to go back and review. And the primary one there is to, also, as you're going through this, when you've whittled it down to a couple of them that you like, go in and review the iterations of the file. So let's go back over and take a look at those results there.
So I've already got to get this one filtered a little bit. So if I come in here and look at this, I'll reset this back. So in each one of these, it breaks down by different areas here.
So if I come in here and look at the processing status on this, I can. I only have one study that I ran. I also have Visual quality or visual similarities, which breaks it down into groups. I do have an option here with one that is unique.
Well, that's very unique. I don't think that one's going to work, all right? But I can come in here and just look at the different groups on this, but it's just visual, design files, technical previews. Now, this information up here at the top also allows me to look at this in different ways.
Now, I'm in the thumbnail. I'm just looking at the image. If I go to what's considered to be the Property View, now, I'm getting the properties of each one of these, as well as the preview. So this is going to give me more information, including the price range on these and the median price, the median of the price, all right?
Now, here's the scatter that I talked about. So in the scatter, I can come in here and say, OK, let's just look at this based off of material. So I'm going to take out everything, but 6061. So these are almost 6061 options here, and in here, I can adjust my information here.
So right now, I'm looking at safety factor. I can come in and say, OK, I want price per cost versus the weight, or versus the stress, or the safety factor, OK? So I can review several things in here, and I can look for the one that I may feel is the best for me.
So let's take that back to volume. Let's go over here and look at manufacturing methods. So if I just isolate out the three axis components, then, here, it's going to show me the three axis. I can also isolate the five axis based off the materials that I have, all right?
I can even look at the diecast options here. I can also look at them from a table option, and I can export that information out. Reset that. Now, once I found one that I want, I can actually come in here to that one, so that one came back with a recommended option of 92%.
So once I've gotten my information or gotten it down to one or two, that's when I can come in here and start looking at a little bit more details on the file. I have my options for doing rotates on here. I even have my camera preview, but I also have, down here, my different iterations of this. So I can come back and look at different iterations of this in here, and how it got to this result.
Now, if this is actually the one that I want to use, now, I can talk about going out and bringing the file into the setup that I want. So now, I want to look at doing what's called downloading and using the file. So when we talk about downloading the file, we really have two different options for the format that file can be downloaded.
It can be downloaded as a mesh object or as a solid. Now, I will tell you, running the analysis, obviously, does cost cloud credits, unless you're in a test period. Also, downloading the options, cost cloud credit. So you need to be aware of those cloud credits, all right?
Now, a couple of things to remember about downloading the files. First of all, my tip here is always export as a solid. I can convert a solid over to a mesh, but I can't always convert a mesh over to a solid, right? And exporting, as a solid, I can come in, and use that, and work with it, and even modify it.
So once I have downloaded it, as a solid, here, I can come in, and modify that, and even use what's called symmetry. So if it's not 100% symmetric, I can come in, and use symmetry to come in, and refine the look of that information. So that it is symmetric.
I can also modify the solid. I can go back and adjust the results, and I can even use this to simplify. in the simplification tool to verify, OK? Now, when I talk about verifying, I'm not just talking about verifying that it's the one that I want, the weight that I want, the look that I want. But I can also run stress analysis on this to make sure that it actually comes out the way that I want.
So let's go back and take a look at that. We've got a couple of different variations exported here. One, in particular, here, is the one we we're just looking at there. And in this, I want to point out that down here across the bottom, I have my steps here or my timeline.
If I put my cursor over it, as you can see, these are preserve regions. These are obstacle regions. This is a mesh or a free form, and then they've joined all that information together, all right? Or actually, they've done a boundary, and then they've combined it.
But if I want, I can actually come in here, and do an edit on this, and actually, come in and start tweaking my information. So if I want to give myself a little bit more room in here to work with this, I can come in here and make adjustments to this. Now, if this is something that came out, as a 2D milling, it would actually come out in layers. So it would look like it has a layers to that, and allow me to come in, and review those different layers, and how they were created.
All right, so in conclusion, we kind started out with a part that looks like this. We added in our generative design information, and we got our results that we wanted. So earlier, when we talked about the fact that the ultimate goal of an engineering activity is to strike the right balance between performance and cost to produce for given design challenges and market opportunities. In other words, the objective is to fund the best part, and in my opinion, generative design allows us to create the best version of the part that we want. Thank you. Hope you have a great day.