Sketching - Constraint Selection and Creation

Summary

This video offers a concise guide to constraint selection and creation in Fusion 360, focusing on tools and techniques essential for the Autodesk Certified User exam. It covers various constraints like horizontal/vertical, coincident, tangent, equal, parallel, and more, with practical demonstrations using lines, circles, and shapes. The video also explains how to apply, modify, and delete constraints, showing how automatic constraints are applied during sketching. Viewers are encouraged to practice these tools and concepts to better understand how constraints affect sketch geometry in Fusion 360.

Takeaways

• 📌 The video covers a topic on the Autodesk Certified User exam for Fusion 360, focusing on constraints.
• 💻 The speaker starts by creating a new component and sketching in Fusion 360, choosing the front work plane.
• ⚙️ The menu in Fusion 360 provides different constraint options, such as horizontal/vertical, coincident, tangent, and more.
• 📝 Constraints like coincident help connect points on a sketch, while tangent ensures lines or circles are tangent to each other.
• 🎯 Equal constraints can make two lines equal in size, and parallel constraints ensure lines stay parallel to each other.
• 🔄 Fusion 360 often applies automatic constraints while sketching, but these can be deleted or edited if not needed.
• 📐 Midpoint constraints allow users to align points at the center of lines or shapes, which can help with symmetry.
• 🎯 Collinear constraints keep lines aligned on the same level, forcing them to move together when adjusted.
• 🔍 Symmetry constraints ensure objects mirror each other along a selected symmetry line, such as a vertical line.
• 📚 The video encourages practicing sketching and using constraints to become more comfortable with Fusion 360, especially for the exam.

Q & A

What is the purpose of this video?

The video provides a review of constraint selection and creation in Fusion 360, particularly for those preparing for the Autodesk Certified User Exam.

What is the first step the speaker takes when working with constraints in Fusion 360?

The first step is to create a new component, name it 'constraints', and then create a new sketch on the front work plane.

What does the 'horizontal/vertical' constraint do?

The 'horizontal/vertical' constraint ensures that lines are constrained either horizontally or vertically, depending on the user's selection.

How does the 'coincident' constraint function?

The 'coincident' constraint joins the endpoints of two lines, connecting them and ensuring they remain constrained to one another.

How is the 'tangent' constraint applied?

The 'tangent' constraint is used to make a line and a circle tangent to each other. The user selects both the circle and the line, and the constraint ensures they remain tangent.

What happens if automatic constraints are applied while sketching?

Automatic constraints can be applied while sketching, such as vertical or horizontal alignment, which are previewed. If not helpful, the user can select and delete the constraint.

How can a user delete an unwanted constraint?

To delete an unwanted constraint, the user must select the constraint, right-click on it, and choose 'delete', or they can simply hit the 'delete' key on the keyboard.

What is the 'parallel' constraint used for?

The 'parallel' constraint is used to make two lines parallel to each other. Once applied, the lines must remain parallel.

What is the 'concentric' constraint?

The 'concentric' constraint makes two circles share the same center point, ensuring they have concentricity.

How does the 'symmetry' constraint work?

The 'symmetry' constraint ensures that two objects remain symmetrical about a selected line. The user must select the two objects and then a symmetry line to create this effect.

Outlines

00:00

🔧 Introduction to Fusion 360 Constraints

This paragraph introduces the topic of Autodesk Certified User Exam for Fusion 360. The focus is on constraint selection and creation, where the speaker creates a new component named 'constraints' and begins a sketch on the front work plane. The speaker demonstrates how to apply various constraints such as horizontal, vertical, and coincident. Through practical examples like connecting lines and creating tangents, the speaker explains how these constraints work, and how students can practice them in Fusion 360.

05:02

📐 Exploring More Constraints in Fusion 360

In this section, the speaker dives deeper into more advanced constraints, such as midpoint, concentric, and collinear. The midpoint constraint helps align objects symmetrically, and concentricity ensures circles share the same center point. Collinear constraints keep two lines on the same level. The explanation is enriched with examples, like connecting lines in a 'T' shape and maintaining symmetry through the use of construction geometry.

Keywords

💡Constraints

Constraints in Fusion 360 are rules that define the relationships between different sketch elements, ensuring that they maintain specific positions relative to each other. In the video, constraints like 'horizontal', 'vertical', and 'coincident' are used to control the shape and behavior of the geometry. The speaker highlights how constraints can be applied, viewed, and deleted, playing a vital role in creating precise and organized sketches.

💡Coincident

The 'Coincident' constraint joins two points or a point and a line, ensuring that they share the same location. The speaker demonstrates its use by connecting the endpoints of two lines, making them constrained to each other. This constraint ensures that different elements stay connected in the desired positions within a sketch.

💡Tangent

The 'Tangent' constraint ensures that a line touches a curve or circle at exactly one point. In the video, the speaker shows how to apply the tangent constraint by selecting a circle and a line, making the line tangent to the circle. This constraint is essential for designs requiring smooth transitions between curved and straight elements.

💡Parallel

The 'Parallel' constraint makes two lines maintain equal angles, ensuring they run alongside each other without ever intersecting. The video explains how to use this constraint to make two lines parallel, demonstrating that applying it ensures consistent alignment in sketches, which is essential for creating balanced and proportional designs.

💡Automatic Constraints

Automatic constraints are suggestions that Fusion 360 provides as a user sketches geometry. The software predicts useful constraints like vertical or horizontal alignment and applies them automatically. The video explains how these automatic constraints help but can also be deleted or modified if they aren't needed for the design.

💡Midpoint Constraint

The 'Midpoint' constraint ensures that a point on a line or curve aligns with the exact middle of another line or object. In the video, this is demonstrated when the speaker selects a line and makes it coincide with the midpoint of a rectangle, ensuring symmetrical positioning in the sketch.

💡Collinear

The 'Collinear' constraint forces two or more lines to align on the same axis, ensuring they stay connected at the same angle. In the video, this is used to keep two lines on the same level, demonstrating how to maintain clean, orderly sketches by aligning elements precisely.

💡Symmetry

The 'Symmetry' constraint ensures that two objects mirror each other across a central axis or symmetry line. The speaker illustrates this by creating a construction line and applying symmetry between two parts of a rectangle, ensuring both sides move together and maintain balance within the design.

💡Fix/Lock

The 'Fix' or 'Lock' constraint prevents a sketch object from moving or resizing, making it stationary in the design. The speaker explains that fixing a circle ensures it doesn't change when applying other constraints, such as tangency, allowing designers to anchor certain elements while adjusting others.

💡Sketch Dimension

Sketch dimensions are used to define the size and measurements of objects within the sketch. In the video, the speaker demonstrates how to apply dimensions to control the scale of objects, ensuring precision. For example, applying a dimension of 1000 to a sketch helps maintain accurate measurements in the design process.

Highlights

Introduction to Autodesk Certified User exam for Fusion 360.

Overview of constraint selection and creation in Fusion 360.

Creating a new component and naming it 'constraints' for demonstration purposes.

Explanation of automatic sketch constraints in Fusion 360.

Demonstrating the horizontal and vertical constraint tools.

Using the coincident constraint to connect endpoints of lines.

Applying tangent constraints between circles and lines for alignment.

Demonstrating the equal constraint to match the length of two lines.

Using the parallel constraint to align two lines parallel to each other.

Illustration of how to delete constraints that were automatically applied by Fusion 360.

Utilizing the midpoint constraint to align a line with the midpoint of another object.

Exploring concentric constraints to align circles sharing the same center point.

Using the collinear constraint to align lines at the same level.

Demonstrating the symmetry constraint to mirror objects across a line of symmetry.

Discussion of curvature constraint, though not as frequently used.

Summary of the importance of practicing with different constraints and editing them in sketches.

Encouraging students to test out constraints to understand their behaviors and relationships.

Transcripts

hey everyone this is another video on

the autodesk certified

user exam for fusion 360. and in this

video we're going to take a short look

at

constraint selection

and creation so as we go into fusion

we're going to take a look at one i'm

going to go ahead and create a new

component again getting in this habit

and we'll just call this

constraints

and we're not really going to create

anything per se in this but we're just

going to at least create a new sketch

and from here if i'm in my principal

work planes

i'll go ahead and choose my front work

plane

so with this i'm going to go ahead and

just look at one what are our

constraints here so when i click on the

word constraints the menu pops down and

gives us an option of the different

constraints that we have available so

for example what i usually do is

sometimes i'll have a little exercise

for my students but like here if i draw

a line or a couple lines here

to just kind of signify

what we're kind of working with

here i can usually grab like the

horizontal vertical tool

and or constraint and by clicking on it

and you'll be able to see an icon that

pops up that identifies that a

constraint was being applied so here

there's the vertical so there's that

particular one

if i want to use coincident so

coincident goes through and the best

part is if you leave your cursor on any

of these constraints as your students

are going to have fusion 360 available

it does tell them what it does so again

just practice coincident if i'm able to

grab the endpoints of both of these

lines it's going to join them and

connect them together so make those two

points constrained to one another

if i draw a circle

and for example if i want to go and have

it be tangent as i kind of work across

the constraints

i can choose the circle choose a line

and it'll make it where it's tangent

same thing with this bottom one and now

i have some tangent lines

or that are the lines that are tangent

to the circle i should say

so for example as i move across equal if

i want the two lines to be equal in size

to each other i'll click one and i'll

choose the other you'll notice these are

the constraints that are getting applied

so those are some of the things that we

can end up doing if i have two lines

and let's say that i want to

go ahead and have these i'm going to

draw this one off just by a small amount

and the next one is going to be parallel

so if i choose parallel and choose the

two lines it'll automatically go through

and make those two lines parallel this

one was already horizontal so it applied

an automatic constraint that's the other

thing is as you sketch you'll find that

sometimes as you're sketching

automatic constraints you'll see there's

a preview of the vertical

will be applied if there's ever a case

sometimes fusion

thinks it's being helpful in those and

if it's not you can always select you do

have to make sure you're not uh have any

of the tools highlighted but you can

always select that constraint

right click and choose delete or just

select the constraint where it's

highlighted and hit delete on your

keyboard

now this line will not be

constrained to be vertical but you can

see

if you do place it back in the vertical

position fusion will apply an automatic

sketch constraint

thinking that it's going to help you out

so that's kind of the process that i go

through with my students

is making sure

that these lines

and

different shapes are constrained to each

other so like for example as i move down

through the next one perpendicular

choosing this line and choosing this

line will make a nice 90 degree angle

there between those two lines

and the other thing is as well for

example like if i go through and have

two circles here

and let's say if i lock

or fix

one of the circles so that'll turn like

a shade of green

and then if i use the tangent constraint

this other circle has to move or size to

the other one so you notice this one did

not move or change so another way to do

that again is we can to show this being

worked on

here we'll apply a sketch dimension of

i'm going to do this 1000 so i'm doing

really small measurements here it looks

like so it looks like it was really

zoomed in but i can tangent

and that has to move to the position

because this is fixed

so that's kind of what's happening there

all right some other things as we go

through and we kind of sketch as well

if i draw for example a rectangle and if

i take a line and as i kind of trace

over the line you'll see an excel form

and then you'll notice that an automatic

constraint comes up when i'm right in

the middle it shows a triangle so here

like for example if i draw this line

i'm going to purposely kind of draw it

off at an angle here

is i'm going to go ahead and choose

the midpoint constraint which has the

same triangle symbol so i'll click the

line and i'll click the other line

and again and so this may go through and

show you an error

as far as where that's going

so again we you may need to go through

and take a look at you know what are

some options that we need to do so let

me try midpoint again let me try the

point

there we go so try the point at the end

of the line so it doesn't really like

the line but it does like the point and

it found the midpoint

of our rectangle so just playing around

with these constraints i'm going to go

ahead and move this point here until

it's vertical and actually you're going

to see here's what's going to happen it

picked up the midpoint and it has the

two triangles so they kind of signify

that we do have a connection

being made to that midpoint

so the other ones we have we have four

more options here which are just when

we're drawing with constraints selection

and deleting

for concentric

i kind of use this as an example of

having a bullseye so what we do is when

we click like two circles

they are going to share the same center

point and then they're going to have

concentric or concentricity to them as

they go through and work there

collinear are is a really kind of neat

option a lot of times well what i use

collinear for

is like for example if you're drawing

kind of like this t shape

or have something like this

where

let me go and just touch the end and

then it'll help track there there we are

so for example if you want the two

two sides this line that i've selected

and this one to be like on the same

level i like to use

collinear and when i choose that line

and i choose the other one these have to

stay collinear which means now if i

click and drag those lines have to stay

in the same

position or if i was to take a line

between them

it would be connected by a horizontal

line just like so so we would be able to

see that effect you know they have to

stay

in a co-linear fashion

the last two with symmetry and curvature

so i really don't

use these quite as often

but like for symmetry

um you know like so this rectangle is

pretty well uh kind of set there same

kind of scenario let's use this this use

this option i'm gonna get rid of this

line that i just drew and let's say i go

ahead and draw a

vertical line down here

i'm going to go ahead and select it

and toggle to a construction line so

we'll use this as some construction

geometry same kind of thing if we have

um again because so here's the bottom so

you'll notice i can move this in but

this side does not move with it so i'm

going to go ahead and choose symmetry so

this goes through and has us choosing so

first it says select the objects

so here i want to choose this line

and i want to use this line

and then the last thing it says select

the symmetry line so this is the only

one that really has a three click option

so if i click the one in the center now

we're going to have symmetry and if i

move this one it moves the outside as

well so it has to maintain symmetry

with the

mirror line that's right down the center

or the line of symmetry we should say so

it kind of gets treated like a mirror

line if you kind of think of it as well

so that's kind of what we do with with

those again you can go through and here

you can use curvature so again this one

i don't i've not used quite as much so i

usually use some things like tangent and

some other constraints that work really

well but just become familiar with a lot

of the constraints

and be used to get used to how to

edit them maybe go through and apply new

ones and maybe even they'll have to go

go through and delete so like for

example if i wanted to not have these

two be tangent i can delete that and now

i can pull them apart

and so that way that you don't have

those existing relationships

so hopefully this was a good review of

constraints and how to apply them how to

delete them and how to change and

utilize in different scenarios again

practice with sketches practice with

geometry to test these out and see how

these behaviors are applied and the

relationships that you see when you use

the different constraints

hopefully you learned a lot from this in

the next video we'll check out another

exam objective and be sure if you have

questions send me an email be happy to

go through and talk through anything on

the autodesk certified user exam for

fusion 360.