Remix / Fusion 360  

Fusion

That's a bit complicated, but you can import the STL, convert it into a solid body and clean it up and then modify it. As far as I know there is no easy way to do it, but here is a pretty good tutorial explaining the basics of doing that:

In most cases you can load the STL via Insert Mesh. Then disable Design History (right click on top level component). You can now right click on the imported mesh and do a Convert to BREP. From there, you can use the usual Fusion tools to modify the imported object.

Major update

@rich-r

Fusion 360 had a major update July 2021 regarding mesh editing.
Grab a big cup of coffee and watch this, you won't regret it

And this one

@rich-r

Fusion 360

Guys, 

Thanks for sharing.  This is a great thread full of tutorials.  I am trying to get better with fusion and this helps.  

Thanks for the links. I haven't watched them yet, so hope these will help as I couldn't find the old way to convert a .stl file.

I used FreeCAD the last few times to convert from stl to step and than into Fusion360.

Getting some coffee now and start watching.

commercial version only

Unfortunately the all-you-ever-wished-for conversion feature is not available in the free "personal use only" version of Fusion360.

So it's basically the old, manual way for me....

RE: Remix / Fusion 360

Posted by: @robin

Unfortunately the all-you-ever-wished-for conversion feature is not available in the free "personal use only" version of Fusion360.

So it's basically the old, manual way for me....

Well, works for me with my personal use version:

Insert mesh. Switch to Mesh menu. Under the Modify drop-down, Convert Mesh. 

EDIT: Simpler than the previous method of disabling history and convert to BREP, and it maintains history.

RE: Not what I meant

Hey fuchsr, yes you are right this mesh->brep conversion is now easier to find, since it is available in parametric mode, but it‘s still the old feature, where you have to do the clean up manually.

Watch the  video Ringarn67 posted and fast forward to 36:45 and you will see what I meant with “all you ever wished for”, and that is not available in the free version - unfortunately.

edit: yes, the new mesh editing is also great and available in free version, but the real game changer, the face group generation and conversion to editable features when converting to BREP is not. I am not complaining by the way. I am still thankful for the feature rich free version, don’t get me wrong….

Good points.

Having said all that, I admit that in most cases when I load an STL for modifications, I seem to end up reimplementing it anyway from scratch...

RE: Remix / Fusion 360

Hello, I would like to show one project as a remix here from Thingiverse. However, I could not find the project from the easy searching space. I tried to write the name of the owner, or project, or paste the link, unfortunately, it did not appear. Do you know any easy way to find the project? And if I can not find it, is it okay to paste the link of the project into the description section?

RE: Remix / Fusion 360

If the link doesn't work, it's either a) wrong, or b) the author has withdrawn the model. So adding it to the description has limited (or zero) value. To give proper credit, I'd add something to the description of the remix along the lines of "This is a remix of' 'username's' model 'modelname', 'URL'. (note: the link seems not to work anymore)".

RE: Remix / Fusion 360

This is how I convert an stl to solid in the hobbyist version of Fusion 360. 

RE: Remix / Fusion 360

Most of the time I want to do a remix of a mesh design, I don't even bother converting it to a BREP or a solid body. I can do most things right in the Fusion 360 mesh tools now. You lose some ability to do precision work, but you lose some precision when you do the mesh to solid conversion anyway.

The Fusion 360 mesh tools I find most helpful for remixes are Create Mesh Section Sketch (this helps with some precision), Fit Curves to Mesh Section, Plane Cut, Mesh Combine, & Separate. Usually I create the remix elements using the usual solid-body tools, but then convert those solid bodies to mesh using Tessellate in the mesh tool set. Then you can do the Mesh Combine operations much as you would Solid Combine, with the ability to Join, Intersect, Cut, or Merge.

I've found this workflow to be more efficient than converting meshes to solids. For organic mesh shapes, it's probably the only reasonable way to do it in Fusion 360. I'd almost be willing to bet I could work faster & get a better result than doing a mesh-to-solid conversion for most mesh remixes. Anybody up for a challenge?

RE: Remix / Fusion 360

@butronix I totally see how that workflow works well. I for one am just stuck in the solid modeling world — I'm just so used to working in that environment, I reflectively go through the mesh to brep conversion...

RE: Remix / Fusion 360

Similar to fuchsr and burtronics, I often end using the original STL as a template for a new object.  Even after converting to brep it is often easier to modify if you recreate it.  I will also offer that the convert to Brep function that used to be available by right clicking the object name in the object navigator, was moved recently moved to the Mesh tools tab and is no longer available(to me at least) by right clicking on the model.