Creating a scaled drawing from a JPEG using Fusion 360

[Don Baer]

In the following I will show how I create a scaled drawing from a picture in Fusion 360. In my case it will be a scaled drawing but you could use actual size dimension if that is what you need. I needed to do this to create a 3 d model of the submarine hull I am working on. The only known dimension I have is the length over all (LOA) of 425 feet and the beam (width) is 33 feet. While I am sure someone who is better at Sketchup could do something similar, I find Fusion works easiest for me.
I start out by finding a picture of what I want to model, in this case a cross section of the missile compartment of a 616 class Polaris class Ballistic missile submarine. Here is one I found

Next using Paint I crop the picture to just what I need to make my drawing.



the only known dimension I have is 33 feet for the width. For my purposed this will have to be scaled down since my CNC will only handle 48 inches of travel and my shop is only 20 feet long. In my case I use a 300:1 scale. So in for this drawing 33 feet = 1.32 inches.

 

[Don Baer]

Next I open Fusion and select a plan for my sketch. In my case I will use the X,Y plane.



Next I pick a point for the center of my sketch and draw a line equal to the width of the submarine. In this case the scaled width which is 1.32 inches long. This will be used to allow me to determine the scaling of the jpeg that I will import.




Now I import the jpeg into my sketch.

Now I need to determine the scale to use to make the JPEG the exact scale of my sketch. I do this by simply drawing a line from 2 point of the known dimension. In this case it say that 33 inches equals .6 inches and I want it to equal 1.32 inches so I need to scale up the jpeg by a scale of 2.2 inches.

I also reposition the drawing so that the center of the jpeg is at the origin of my sketch. to do this I merely told the scaling tool to move the drawing .7 inches in the Y direction. This I determined by trial and error.

Now it's a simple matter of tracing over the drawing using line circles and arc to come up with the dimensional drawing.



I hope this helps others I know for me it is a tool that I'll be able to use over and over.

 

[Bill Arnold]

I've been able to do a similar operation in SU. Import the jpg, draw a rectangle or circle the desired size, then use the Scale function to adjust the jpg.

 

[Don Baer]

I've been able to do a similar operation in SU. Import the jpg, draw a rectangle or circle the desired size, then use the Scale function to adjust the jpg.

One of the problems I had in SU doing this was scaling the drawing in both the X and Y planes. It could have been me but when I tried it I had to scale X and then scale Y. In Fusion I can do X or Y or x and Y.

 

[Bill Arnold]

One of the problems I had in SU doing this was scaling the drawing in both the X and Y planes. It could have been me but when I tried it I had to scale X and then scale Y. In Fusion I can do X or Y or x and Y.

In SU, the scale function works any way you want. Grab a corner and it scales X & Y together; grab a side and it scales only that direction.

 

[Don Baer]

In SU, the scale function works any way you want. Grab a corner and it scales X & Y together; grab a side and it scales only that direction.

Thats all well and good but I wasn't trying to show how it's done in SU this was for folks who are interested in learning more about Fusion 360

 

[Bill Arnold]

Thats all well and good but I wasn't trying to show how it's done in SU this was for folks who are interested in learning more about Fusion 360

I understand. I was clarifying your other comment below.

One of the problems I had in SU doing this was scaling the drawing in both the X and Y planes. It could have been me but when I tried it I had to scale X and then scale Y. In Fusion I can do X or Y or x and Y.

 

[Darren Wright]

Thanks Don, this will be very helpful.