DXF For Laser

Inspiration

Laser cutting is awesome - offsetting hundreds of lines is far less awesome.

What it does

Generates a Kerf compensated DXF file to produce laser cut parts with dimensions that match your drawings geometry. I've successfully used this script to build everything from small, pound together, sample cubes to a monitor stand.

How I built it

This was my first endeavor into Fusion 360's API. Along the way I created a framework I'm calling Fission to make writing scripts/add-in's easier, more enjoyable, and faster.

I'm taking advantage of the loops system exposed by the Fusion API. Once a body's face is selected I can get its loops and easily identify which loop is the outer perimeter and which other loops are cutouts. A slightly harder problem to solve was identifying which side was "out" and which side was "in" for each loop.

Challenges I ran into

Performance of the API is a problem, there remains much room for speed improvements. I'm hoping that batch deletion of points/curves will show up in the API reasonably soon. Otherwise I'll have to resort to copying my desired lines out to a new sketch instead of deleting the unwanted lines to further improve performance.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

It's working and has saved me a boat load of time.

What I learned

The Fusion API, while powerful, is unfortunately not designed for ease of use.

What's next for DXF For Laser

Improve performance. Most of all i'd like to separate cutouts onto their own layer in the output DXF. This would allow me to tell my laser cutter to "cut the cutout first and the perimeter last" - this will greatly improve the quality of my parts. Support bodies with loops consisting of only splines.