Bodies vs Components | Fusion 360 Core Concept 

any chance you could link to a video of this?

Thanks, Jeff. Happy new year!

Thanks, Dan!

Thanks, Martin! Wonderful addition - thanks for sharing this!

haha thanks :)

Thanks, Cheryl! Glad that was helpful :)

Glad it was helpful! Cheers :)

Thanks for your support!

Hi Steve. Proper weldments are one area where Fusion 360 lacks a feature (if you're looking for similar functionality to SolidWorks). Are there any other areas or workflows that you're finding challenging?

Hi Steve! Your post is a year old but I had an idea about your design issues so I'll write it up. Weldments as a connection tool caused the issues, but other connection tools could just as easily mess up too. It was the 'top down' and 'components are containers' comments in the vid that caused this idea. I'm thinking, 'the design fails because it's not starting at the top. Where *is* the top?' And the answer I found was, 'the cow is the top.' Excuse me while I crow a bit, this is pretty brilliant. I don't have ideas this good very often and I'm having fun with it. LOL!!! I think of this as the 'aroundment' problem. You need to contain a cow. With normal design, you start building the frame at one point, go around the cow in width, height and length, and meet up "somewhere on the other side." That's where points don't line up. Or they do but won't 'connect.' I think this is one way to describe the root of issue: Both ends/legs of the structures that goes around the cow are part of the same component/container, and when the meet on the other side won't 'connect to itself. F360 basically says, 'Nope nope nope, not gonna do it, try again.' :( Yes, been there, done that. My idea is to build the cow itself into the design, so the aroundment bits always have a 'common shape' to reference and hang on to. Not just 'the' cow though, or one cow, but the cow as it exists through *time* as it passes *through* your machine! Stick with me on this... A cow walks up to your machine. There's a gate, and the side rails start, and maybe there's a ramp. The cow is the shape that your machine must contain. Create a sketch shape the height and width of a cow, imagine it's facing the gate and ready to enter the machine. Create an extrusion that moves forward into the machine (the machine that isn't there yet, this is just the cow.) Make the extrusion as long as you want the cow to walk into the machine. I'm guessing that after it walks into the machine the exit gate is in front of the cow and it stops there. If you need a ramp to get into the machine, extrude upwards at an angle, then go forward the length of the cow at a level angle, and have the cow outline go down another angle at the other end.. You should have a blocky shape on your screen that looks one of two ways. If it's just a cow, no ramps, there's a rectangular block about 3' wide, 8' long and 6' high, or similar. You can make the outline more realistic if that's important for how the animals are held. If it has ramps then those shapes are attached to the one in the middle, and slope downwards on each side. So there's your cow. Now build the cage around it. I'm not going to say at all how to do that because there are a few ways and you know what you prefer. But here's an idea for how to continue, that keeps an original 'reference' cow available in the background. Yes timeline could do this to but this will be faster later. The cow as shown can't be the actual design surface; it's too small, the cage is bigger than the actual cow. It needs to be enlarged to allow for largest animals, tubing diameters and such. Leave the cow there, and build another box around it. I forget the name of the tool for that, but it references one body to create another completely around it. Make it x% wider and y% longer by whatever factors you use to get to your overall size. Then turn off the cow, but it'll still be there. The box that you built around the cow is hollow. If there's no roof, take that off. With the box shape left, use the corners and edges to define endpoints of tubing. Cut the front and back off the box and split those vertically to make barn door gates, or don't split it to make a single gate, or the gate drops and becomes a ramp, you know what you're doing. Here's another way to say it: The Trail of Dimensional Authenticity starts with a single fully defined component, and everything references back to it.

Thanks - love the idea! I definitely need to do a video on assemblies and subassemblies.

Great questions, Osinachi! You can copy or mirror - that will often depend on your design intent and other intentions. For example, if you're creating a parts lists you'll want to copy instead of mirror. Otherwise, the mirrored parts will show as 'different' on the parts list. Naming components is really up to you. Generally, I try to name things concise, but descriptive so someone else new to the file could understand what it represents.

You would have to redrag them to their new position. There's no way to "ungroup" them :)

Hi, aditya. Can you elaborate on the issue that you are facing?

Stay safe! :)

Hi A. Z Status. My personal favorite is "Keyshot 8".

Yep - you can export surface bodies as STL files. However, note that they're very thin and in most situations won't print without getting "thickened" first.

Creating sub-assembly components will help you keep things organized (group several components that make sense). Other than that, it's hard to say without seeing a specific file or example :)

@@ProductDesignOnline I wish I could find the equivalent to the coincident solidworks mate. And also how to align planes or use sketch entities with joints

Hi Matthew. This video is a shortened version from my "Masterclass: Fusion 360 for Woodworkers." Check out the full course curriculum here - bit.ly/woodworkingCourse

Generally, you should already have a component created and active before you sketch out the Circle/Extrude it. Think of Components as 'folders' or ways to group all your sketches, bodies, construction planes, and other features that relate to that part. The intention is that you can copy, delete, insert into another design, etc...without risk of losing critical relations/refrence objects that destroys the parametric nature of the file. There's not a 1 for 1 equivalent in SW. The closest thing would be to think of Components as a 'Part File'...but that analogy gets messy when it comes to assemblies as Fusion 360 caters to both bottom-up and top-down assemblies methods, as well as some unique hybrid approaches.

@@ProductDesignOnline kind of understand. Thanks for making such a great tutorial.

Your bodies can interact in any way (cut, intersect, combine) regardless of how the components are organized. The components are just there to keep the bodies "Group" how you need per other requirements :)

That's not a good practice, at all. You have to create your component(s) first so the relevant sketches, bodies, construction planes, etc are all placed in the correct component. If you create the component after the body, you won't have the sketches in there which will cause many issues with assemblies - especially if the part is copy/pasted or reused in other files.

Hi James, I do agree that the naming and workflow could be improved.... just remember that components (containers) CAN include multiple bodies (or with your example, multiple books). I may not have made that very clear in this video.

Loads wrong with fusion I have to say. Anyway so heres the question. Mid design I open a new component. Then I sketch out the body and extrude it. Only the body does not appear in bodies under the new component. It still appears under the bodies of the first component list I was using. Why is that?

What part(s) do you find confusing?

@@ProductDesignOnline Bodies and components. I am not clear of what they are or the role they play in a design.

The main reason - You would not be able to use Joints per each board. The 'parts' would also display incorrectly in the parts list, as well as other disadvantages.

That's correct. Components = Parts.