How to create and edit a basic sketch

00:02

How to create and edit a basic sketch.

00:05

After completing this video,

00:06

you'll be able to

00:08

create a sketch,

00:09

edit a sketch,

00:10

create a sketch line,

00:11

circle,

00:12

and rectangle.

00:15

In Fusion,

00:15

we're going to begin with a new untitled document.

00:18

Inside of our untitled document,

00:20

we want to begin by creating a new sketch.

00:23

Let's quickly take a look at the origin folder and make

00:26

sure that it's visible by clicking on the eye icon.

00:29

By default infusion,

00:31

we automatically have an XZ plane,

00:33

a YZ plane,

00:34

as well as an XY plane.

00:36

These default planes,

00:38

as well as the origin location and axes are all the

00:41

central focus of where we need to start our design.

00:44

It's always a good idea to start your new designs at one of these planes.

00:49

There are a couple ways that we can start a new sketch.

00:51

We can pick a plane from the origin folder,

00:54

right click,

00:55

and select Create a new sketch.

00:57

We can select a plane on the screen,

00:58

right click,

00:59

and create a new sketch.

01:01

We can also select Create sketch,

01:04

which will allow us to select a plane.

01:06

And if the origin folder is not visible and we select create sketch,

01:10

it'll automatically make it visible temporarily so we can make our selection.

01:15

There are a few other ways that we can start a sketch,

01:18

for example,

01:19

using the shortcut key to start a line.

01:21

L on the keyboard.

01:23

This will automatically invoke the create sketch command,

01:25

and as soon as we select a plane,

01:27

we'll be using the line tool automatically.

01:30

For the most part,

01:31

we generally start a sketch by clicking create sketch and then we pick our plane.

01:36

This case we'll pick the XY plane.

01:39

Now we're looking at our sketch in an orthographic view with a normal orientation.

01:44

We can reset the normal orientation by using look

01:47

at if we happen to rotate our view around.

01:50

Simply select look at inside of our sketch palette

01:53

or click the Lookout button at the bottom center of your screen.

01:56

The sketch palette contains general information that we can use during sketching.

02:01

When we invoke a sketch tool such as rectangle,

02:04

more information will be presented at the top

02:06

if there are options for that specific tool.

02:08

For example,

02:09

using a center point rectangle can be clicked on here in the sketch palette.

02:14

We can also find it by expanding our Create menu

02:16

and navigating over to the rectangle

02:18

section and selecting Create center rectangle.

02:21

From here,

02:22

creating a new sketch entity is simply about clicking

02:26

and then clicking again.

02:27

In some cases,

02:28

you'll find that your sketch entities will

02:30

have dimensions highlighted on the screen.

02:33

If we want to apply those dimensions at the time of creation,

02:36

we can,

02:37

but we'll be talking about that a little bit later.

02:39

So for our purposes,

02:40

simply left click to accept the creation.

02:43

We can continue to use this tool as denoted by

02:46

the icon at the bottom right of our cursor,

02:48

or we can hit escape or right click and select cancel or OK to get off the tool.

02:54

Once the tool is inactive,

02:56

it's important that we note a few things.

02:58

On the screen,

02:59

we are able to move around this rectangle because it's underdefined.

03:03

Underdefined means fusion doesn't have enough information

03:06

to positively define its size and location.

03:10

The center point of this rectangle is defined at the origin.

03:13

It has a couple of these dashed orange construction lines,

03:16

but the rest of the sketch entities are blue.

03:18

This means they're underdefined.

03:21

Once we're done with the creation of our sketch,

03:23

and we click finish sketch,

03:26

we'll exit the sketch environment and the sketch will

03:28

be listed in the timeline at the bottom,

03:30

as well as in a sketches folder.

03:32

The small pencil icon in the bottom right tells us that our sketch is underdefined.

03:37

We are able to grab it and move it on the screen and make adjustments,

03:41

and this is one reason why we always want to have fully defined sketches.

03:45

We want to use our dimensions and constraints to

03:47

make sure that our sketches are fully defined.

03:50

We're going to get into that in a future video,

03:52

but for now,

03:53

let's double click on our sketch icon in the timeline

03:55

to go back into edit mode.

03:57

From here,

03:58

let's take a look at using a couple of other sketch tools.

04:01

We also have the line tool.

04:03

As we start the line tool,

04:05

we can continue to make additional lines by simply left clicking at each point.

04:10

If we go back to the last endpoint and hold down the left mouse button,

04:13

we'll transition this into a tangent arc.

04:16

Once we let go,

04:17

the arc will be created and we can continue on with the line tool.

04:21

Once we're done,

04:21

we can use the green check mark,

04:23

which will leave the line tool active,

04:25

or we can hit escape or again right click and use OK or cancel.

04:30

We have other sketch entities that we can create,

04:32

things like circles.

04:34

Once again,

04:35

there are multiple options.

04:36

With the circle tool,

04:37

we generally will create a center diameter circle,

04:40

but we can also define circles by 2 or 3 points

04:43

or by things like making tangent curves.

04:45

Let's explore a couple of these options.

04:48

First,

04:49

if we create a center diameter circle,

04:50

we simply need to click to place the first point

04:53

and then click to place the radius or diameter.

04:56

Then if we go to our circle tool and say use a 3 tangent circle option,

05:01

we need to select 3 references

05:03

and a circle will be created that's tangent to those 3 references.

05:07

Let's go ahead and hit escape to get off of our circle tool.

05:10

As we change the size of our sketch,

05:13

we can see that the circle itself is going to update and change

05:16

because it's using the constraint system to drive some of its values.

05:20

Creating sketches can be a complex process,

05:23

but it's important that we learn the fundamentals at this stage.

05:27

Let's go ahead and hide sketch one and let's practice just a little bit more.

05:32

We're gonna create a new sketch,

05:33

this time we're gonna select the front plane.

05:36

We're gonna start using a center diameter circle.

05:39

And with the blue value highlighted,

05:41

we're gonna manually enter 100 and hit enter.

05:44

This is now a fully defined sketch.

05:47

It has all the information it needs to define its position and its size.

05:51

The 100 millimeter diameter

05:53

turned the rest of that sketch circle to a black line.

05:57

Once we finish our sketch,

05:58

we can also see inside of our sketches folder that we have a red lock icon,

06:02

which represents a fully defined sketch.

06:05

The small pencil icon tells us that sketch one is underdefined.

06:10

Let's go ahead and hide this and try one more time.

06:14

Once again,

06:15

we'll create a sketch on the front plane.

06:17

We're going to expand our sketch tools

06:19

and note that some of them do have shortcut keys.

06:22

L for line,

06:24

R for rectangle,

06:25

and C for circle.

06:28

We can also explore other tools like arc tools,

06:30

polygons,

06:31

or ellipses.

06:33

For this example,

06:33

let's go into the slot tool.

06:36

We're going to use the center point slot tool,

06:38

which allows us to select the center point,

06:40

in this case the origin,

06:42

drag out a specified distance,

06:44

and then drag out the radius or diameter value of the slot.

06:48

You'll note automatically constraints are added for

06:50

tangency around the outside of our slot.

06:53

This means that the arcs on the edges are tangent to the lines at the top and bottom.

06:58

If we had escaped to get off of our slot tool,

07:01

because we didn't add any dimensions,

07:03

this is still underdefined and allows us to move it around.

07:06

It has a center construction line that is driving the overall width of our slot.

07:11

This can be modified,

07:12

a dimension can be added,

07:14

or this slot can be removed and changed.

07:17

The center line has a constraint that keeps it horizontal.

07:21

This means that the rest of the slot will

07:22

always remain horizontal unless this constraint is removed.

07:26

Make sure that you do explore the creation of new sketches

07:30

and understand some of the sketch entities that you have available.

07:33

Make sure that you focus your time on learning

07:35

the basics of creating each of these items,

07:37

such as lines,

07:38

circles,

07:39

and rectangles,

07:40

as they'll be the foundation for most of your designs.

07:43

Once you're done,

07:44

feel free to save this document,

07:45

but we won't be using it again,

07:47

so we can just finish up and move on to the next step.

Video transcript

00:02

How to create and edit a basic sketch.

00:05

After completing this video,

00:06

you'll be able to

00:08

create a sketch,

00:09

edit a sketch,

00:10

create a sketch line,

00:11

circle,

00:12

and rectangle.

00:15

In Fusion,

00:15

we're going to begin with a new untitled document.

00:18

Inside of our untitled document,

00:20

we want to begin by creating a new sketch.

00:23

Let's quickly take a look at the origin folder and make

00:26

sure that it's visible by clicking on the eye icon.

00:29

By default infusion,

00:31

we automatically have an XZ plane,

00:33

a YZ plane,

00:34

as well as an XY plane.

00:36

These default planes,

00:38

as well as the origin location and axes are all the

00:41

central focus of where we need to start our design.

00:44

It's always a good idea to start your new designs at one of these planes.

00:49

There are a couple ways that we can start a new sketch.

00:51

We can pick a plane from the origin folder,

00:54

right click,

00:55

and select Create a new sketch.

00:57

We can select a plane on the screen,

00:58

right click,

00:59

and create a new sketch.

01:01

We can also select Create sketch,

01:04

which will allow us to select a plane.

01:06

And if the origin folder is not visible and we select create sketch,

01:10

it'll automatically make it visible temporarily so we can make our selection.

01:15

There are a few other ways that we can start a sketch,

01:18

for example,

01:19

using the shortcut key to start a line.

01:21

L on the keyboard.

01:23

This will automatically invoke the create sketch command,

01:25

and as soon as we select a plane,

01:27

we'll be using the line tool automatically.

01:30

For the most part,

01:31

we generally start a sketch by clicking create sketch and then we pick our plane.

01:36

This case we'll pick the XY plane.

01:39

Now we're looking at our sketch in an orthographic view with a normal orientation.

01:44

We can reset the normal orientation by using look

01:47

at if we happen to rotate our view around.

01:50

Simply select look at inside of our sketch palette

01:53

or click the Lookout button at the bottom center of your screen.

01:56

The sketch palette contains general information that we can use during sketching.

02:01

When we invoke a sketch tool such as rectangle,

02:04

more information will be presented at the top

02:06

if there are options for that specific tool.

02:08

For example,

02:09

using a center point rectangle can be clicked on here in the sketch palette.

02:14

We can also find it by expanding our Create menu

02:16

and navigating over to the rectangle

02:18

section and selecting Create center rectangle.

02:21

From here,

02:22

creating a new sketch entity is simply about clicking

02:26

and then clicking again.

02:27

In some cases,

02:28

you'll find that your sketch entities will

02:30

have dimensions highlighted on the screen.

02:33

If we want to apply those dimensions at the time of creation,

02:36

we can,

02:37

but we'll be talking about that a little bit later.

02:39

So for our purposes,

02:40

simply left click to accept the creation.

02:43

We can continue to use this tool as denoted by

02:46

the icon at the bottom right of our cursor,

02:48

or we can hit escape or right click and select cancel or OK to get off the tool.

02:54

Once the tool is inactive,

02:56

it's important that we note a few things.

02:58

On the screen,

02:59

we are able to move around this rectangle because it's underdefined.

03:03

Underdefined means fusion doesn't have enough information

03:06

to positively define its size and location.

03:10

The center point of this rectangle is defined at the origin.

03:13

It has a couple of these dashed orange construction lines,

03:16

but the rest of the sketch entities are blue.

03:18

This means they're underdefined.

03:21

Once we're done with the creation of our sketch,

03:23

and we click finish sketch,

03:26

we'll exit the sketch environment and the sketch will

03:28

be listed in the timeline at the bottom,

03:30

as well as in a sketches folder.

03:32

The small pencil icon in the bottom right tells us that our sketch is underdefined.

03:37

We are able to grab it and move it on the screen and make adjustments,

03:41

and this is one reason why we always want to have fully defined sketches.

03:45

We want to use our dimensions and constraints to

03:47

make sure that our sketches are fully defined.

03:50

We're going to get into that in a future video,

03:52

but for now,

03:53

let's double click on our sketch icon in the timeline

03:55

to go back into edit mode.

03:57

From here,

03:58

let's take a look at using a couple of other sketch tools.

04:01

We also have the line tool.

04:03

As we start the line tool,

04:05

we can continue to make additional lines by simply left clicking at each point.

04:10

If we go back to the last endpoint and hold down the left mouse button,

04:13

we'll transition this into a tangent arc.

04:16

Once we let go,

04:17

the arc will be created and we can continue on with the line tool.

04:21

Once we're done,

04:21

we can use the green check mark,

04:23

which will leave the line tool active,

04:25

or we can hit escape or again right click and use OK or cancel.

04:30

We have other sketch entities that we can create,

04:32

things like circles.

04:34

Once again,

04:35

there are multiple options.

04:36

With the circle tool,

04:37

we generally will create a center diameter circle,

04:40

but we can also define circles by 2 or 3 points

04:43

or by things like making tangent curves.

04:45

Let's explore a couple of these options.

04:48

First,

04:49

if we create a center diameter circle,

04:50

we simply need to click to place the first point

04:53

and then click to place the radius or diameter.

04:56

Then if we go to our circle tool and say use a 3 tangent circle option,

05:01

we need to select 3 references

05:03

and a circle will be created that's tangent to those 3 references.

05:07

Let's go ahead and hit escape to get off of our circle tool.

05:10

As we change the size of our sketch,

05:13

we can see that the circle itself is going to update and change

05:16

because it's using the constraint system to drive some of its values.

05:20

Creating sketches can be a complex process,

05:23

but it's important that we learn the fundamentals at this stage.

05:27

Let's go ahead and hide sketch one and let's practice just a little bit more.

05:32

We're gonna create a new sketch,

05:33

this time we're gonna select the front plane.

05:36

We're gonna start using a center diameter circle.

05:39

And with the blue value highlighted,

05:41

we're gonna manually enter 100 and hit enter.

05:44

This is now a fully defined sketch.

05:47

It has all the information it needs to define its position and its size.

05:51

The 100 millimeter diameter

05:53

turned the rest of that sketch circle to a black line.

05:57

Once we finish our sketch,

05:58

we can also see inside of our sketches folder that we have a red lock icon,

06:02

which represents a fully defined sketch.

06:05

The small pencil icon tells us that sketch one is underdefined.

06:10

Let's go ahead and hide this and try one more time.

06:14

Once again,

06:15

we'll create a sketch on the front plane.

06:17

We're going to expand our sketch tools

06:19

and note that some of them do have shortcut keys.

06:22

L for line,

06:24

R for rectangle,

06:25

and C for circle.

06:28

We can also explore other tools like arc tools,

06:30

polygons,

06:31

or ellipses.

06:33

For this example,

06:33

let's go into the slot tool.

06:36

We're going to use the center point slot tool,

06:38

which allows us to select the center point,

06:40

in this case the origin,

06:42

drag out a specified distance,

06:44

and then drag out the radius or diameter value of the slot.

06:48

You'll note automatically constraints are added for

06:50

tangency around the outside of our slot.

06:53

This means that the arcs on the edges are tangent to the lines at the top and bottom.

06:58

If we had escaped to get off of our slot tool,

07:01

because we didn't add any dimensions,

07:03

this is still underdefined and allows us to move it around.

07:06

It has a center construction line that is driving the overall width of our slot.

07:11

This can be modified,

07:12

a dimension can be added,

07:14

or this slot can be removed and changed.

07:17

The center line has a constraint that keeps it horizontal.

07:21

This means that the rest of the slot will

07:22

always remain horizontal unless this constraint is removed.

07:26

Make sure that you do explore the creation of new sketches

07:30

and understand some of the sketch entities that you have available.

07:33

Make sure that you focus your time on learning

07:35

the basics of creating each of these items,

07:37

such as lines,

07:38

circles,

07:39

and rectangles,

07:40

as they'll be the foundation for most of your designs.

07:43

Once you're done,

07:44

feel free to save this document,

07:45

but we won't be using it again,

07:47

so we can just finish up and move on to the next step.

After completing this video, you'll be able to:

  • Create a sketch.
  • Edit a sketch.
  • Create a sketch line.
  • Create a sketch circle.
  • Create a sketch rectangle.

Video quiz

How can a user transition a sketch line into a tangent sketch arc without invoking a new tool?

(Select one)
Select an answer

1/1 questions left unanswered

Step-by-step guide

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