Good morning everyone, this is my first of many posts in which I will be learning how to utilize CAD software in order to edit 3D molecular structures for 3D-printing. My first step was to find a good CAD software that was both cheap (or free) and had enough processing power to edit extremely complex protein structures. After doing some research and speaking with my father I was able to find the software called Autodesk Fusion, which excels in 3D-pritnting related CAD work. Also, Autodesk Fusion is completely free for college students and if it wasn’t it would be like 85$/month which is crazy. Regardless, instead of jumping straight to the end goal I decided it would be good to spend my first couple of hours working with the built in introductory files which help new users to familiarize themselves with the program.
Also, a quick note, working with complex CAD files requires a pretty substantial computer (a good GPU) and I will be doing most of my work with a desktop gaming PC (GTX 2070).
After exploring the introductory files, I found that I still had no idea what was going on and decided to consult YouTube where I found a series of videos from a channel called “The Fusion Essentials” (links below). I basically watched each of these videos and made a few designs (shown below). I think this was a perfect practice exercise because creating the dowel of the toolbox is going to be a similar process to making pegs for my models.
Note: I haven’t made it to part 4 of the video series yet..
(156) Getting Started with Fusion 360 Part 1 – BEGINNERS START HERE! – YouTube
Getting Started with Fusion 360 Part 3 – Modeling with SOLID TOOLS! (youtube.com)
Getting Started with Fusion 360 Part 4 – Modeling Tools, Cutting Holes, and Removing Material! (youtube.com)
I was a few hours into doing this post and realized that this software needs to support the .STL files created by PDB (Protein Data Base) where I will be obtaining most of the molecular structures. Good thing Autodesk Fusion supports these file types as I would have had to restart and choose another program.
Well, that’s that for this week. UMW just bought a multi-extruder printer over the summer so next time I hope to include a picture of a test print using soluble support material. Also, should I make a google doc showing off some of the key skills I learn in Autodesk Fusion? Did I blog properly? Also, I’m starting to really get a good idea of what my end project will look like and wow I think it’ll come out good.