3D Printing Essentials
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Description
3D Printing Essentials is a comprehensive add-in for Autodesk® Fusion® that streamlines design preparation, analysis, and additive manufacturing workflows across the Design and Manufacture workspaces.
The add-in provides tools for preparing, arranging, analyzing, and validating parts for additive manufacturing, along with fully configurable automation workflows for FFF, SLA/DLP, MJF/Binder Jet, SLS, and MPBF technologies.
Design Workspace Tools
- Import CAD and mesh files (STEP, IGES, SAT, STL, OBJ, 3MF) with optional parametric history and automatic mesh repair.
- Duplicate components in place or along X, Y, and Z axes with gap, symmetry, and direction controls.
- Scale bodies uniformly or non-uniformly from a point, or individually from each body's own centroid.
- Minimize Bounding Box by rotating a component so its shortest side aligns to a chosen axis (X, Y, or Z), reducing the build height.
- Optimize Orientation to find the build direction that minimizes stair-stepping (near-horizontal surface area).
- Create labeled part variants from a CSV file with multi-row support, controlling text size, placement, and arrangement.
- Generate Sinterboxes with optional labels to group and protect small parts for powder-based workflows.
- Split solid parts into interlocking sections using Pins and Holes for easier printing and reassembly.
- Analyze Minimum Part Gap, Minimum Wall Thickness, Upskin / Downskin, and Trapped Volume conditions for solid and mesh bodies.
- Detect interlocking bodies with Interlock Analysis and verify Z Removability for vertical part unpacking.
- Generate configurable additive setups for FFF, SLA/DLP, MJF/Binder Jet, SLS, and MPBF — select machine, print setting, and templates from Fusion's libraries with multi-setup packing and HTML reports.
- Customize behavior and preferences through a centralized Settings dialog with built-in Check for Updates.
Manufacture Workspace Tools
- Tessellate solid bodies into meshes with control over refinement and deviation.
- Duplicate and center components on the build platform.
- Scale bodies uniformly or non-uniformly from a point, or individually from each body's own centroid.
- Mirror components across a selected plane, with the option to add mirrored copies to the active setup.
- Optimize Orientation to minimize stair-stepping before arranging parts in the build volume.
- Generate a Component List with optional HTML export including component images.
- Label parts within Manufacturing Models and active additive setups.
- Generate Sinterboxes within Manufacturing Models for powder-based workflows.
- Run Minimum Part Gap, Minimum Wall Thickness, Upskin / Downskin, Trapped Volume, Interlock, and Z Removability analyses.
- Run Slice Analysis to compute cross-sectional area vs. layer number with an interactive HTML graph.
- Move and rotate components precisely using keyboard-driven controls.
- Create and modify custom FFF post processors (.cps).
- Display Component Colors and Mesh Face Groups for visual identification.
- Transfer the active setup to Autodesk Netfabb (Windows only) for advanced mesh repair and analysis.
3D Printing Essentials reduces repetitive preparation work, improves additive setup quality, and provides consistent, reusable tools across Fusion's additive manufacturing workflows. All dialogs remember your last settings, and analysis results are presented in styled, non-blocking reports so you can continue working while reviewing results.
About This Version
Version 1.0.0.283, 4/2/2026
## Bug Fixes
- Fixed a crash when importing STEP files via the Add Parts command. Import now uses proper import options with error handling for STEP, SAT, and IGES files.
- Fixed an issue where the MJF automation could leave parts outside the build volume in the first setup during multi-setup packing.
- Fixed an issue where rectangle (box) selection did not work correctly with the Scale and Mirror commands.
- Fixed inconsistent setup naming and hardcoded tooltip text in the SLA/DLP automation.
## New Features
- Introduced Interlock Analysis to check if bodies are interlocked and cannot be physically separated after printing.
- Introduced Z Removability Analysis to verify that packed parts can be unpacked by lifting each one straight up without collisions.
- Introduced Slice Analysis in the Manufacture workspace to compute cross-sectional area vs. layer number with an interactive HTML graph report.
- Introduced Optimize Orientation to find the build direction that minimizes stair-stepping by searching the upper hemisphere for the lowest near-horizontal surface area.
- Added a new dedicated SLS Setup Automation command with dynamic vendor/machine selection, orientation optimization, arrangement, and multi-setup packing.
- Added a new MPBF Setup Automation command for Metal Powder Bed Fusion workflows (requires Manufacturing Extension), with dynamic machine selection, orientation, arrangement, support, and toolpath generation.
- Added a new Individual Centroids mode to the Scale command, allowing each body to be scaled from its own center without selecting a reference point.
- Added multi-row label support using \n sequences in CSV files.
- Added Label support in the Manufacture workspace for solid bodies within an Additive Setup.
## Improvements
- Rewrote FFF, SLA/DLP, and MJF setup automations to support dynamic machine vendor, machine model, and print setting selection from Fusion's full library. Templates are now selectable from dropdowns with keyword filtering.
- Renamed MJF/SLS Setup Automation to MJF / Binder Jet Setup Automation. SLS now has its own dedicated command.
- Added "Generate Toolpath" and "Generate Report" as optional checkboxes in the FFF automation.
- Trapped Volume Analysis now supports selecting and analyzing multiple bodies at once.
- Minimum Part Gap Analysis results are now sorted smallest-first in a styled HTML report.
- All automation and analysis reports are now displayed in non-blocking HTML palettes with color-coded status indicators.
- Added descriptive tooltips to selection inputs across multiple commands.
- All dialog settings across all commands are now remembered between sessions.
- Added proper SVG icons with dark theme variants for Duplicate, Label, Move By Keyboard, and all new commands.
- Completely rewrote help.html with modern styling and descriptions for all new and updated commands.
- Introduced a localization system supporting English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Turkish, and Chinese Simplified.
Excellent app for duplicating labels, My only wish is that text wraps on to a new line if there is a space between two characters. At present I have to change the horizontal dimension of the sketch for each instant.
thanks for the suggestion. the next update of the app will have this functionality using "\n" input to identify a line break within the CVS file text.
Recently I got chance to start using Trueshape tool of Fusion and love how quick and simple it is for nesting parts during data preparation. Had been using another software, but it looks like Trueshape is built listening what customers want and Fusion is becoming my go to software for a lot of data preparation jobs for printing. One feedback is if you can incorporate sub-nesting capability that helps when packing all parts of a product into a build.
This is an involuable tool that helps extend fusion into a true enterprise capable solution for printing. This tool brings so many critical and valuable capabilities into the fusion workspace. I highly reccomend it for anyone running printers or even those who outsource printing.
This extension fixed so many seemingly small issues that end up being very big roadblocks to adoption. Something as simple as duplicating a part in space was previously not doable without copy and pasting the part as many times as you need. My MJF build volume had 2500 parts in it, now I can make those 2500 parts in a few seconds, vs being not even feasible before. THANK YOU! to the Autodesk team for spending the time and effort to develop these tools. The manufacture tab has become very competitive against other AM softwares.
Excellent tool - been using the labelling function. I need the tool to allow the distance between parts to be 0 or less - I am making a stack of components built on top of each other. Setting the distance to min 0.1mm mean I have to extrude the face between each so they are all attached to each other.... Can this be adjusted?
hi Jono Munday Yes this can be adjusted. The App is written in python. So you can edit the App easily and customize it to fit your needs. Look for the specific python file on your hard disk and edit it with notepad or visual studio. For the DUPLICATE command, it will be in a location such as this : (make sure to replace XXXXX with your user name) C:\Users\XXXXX\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins\3DPrintingEssentials.bundle\Contents\commands\duplicate\entry.py Row 131 has the hard coded limits which control the allowed inputs. change the 0.1 within that line to 0 and save the file. This will enable you to type 0 in to the dialog and proceed with your workflow. If you want to customize the LABEL command, look for this file: C:\Users\XXXXX\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins\3DPrintingEssentials.bundle\Contents\commands\makeLabel\entry.py (make sure to replace XXXXX with your user name) rows 180 and 181 control the component gap. Hope this helps!
I use Fusion alot for various additive workflows, and there some of the features contained within this app have aided in making the workflows even more streamlined and seamless. I love the easy access to the duplication and scale commands etc. The part labelling is also a fantastic addition for me since I do a lot of testing of settings etc and this is crucial for that.
I look forwrad to trying the scripts to automate the setup creation & print-preparation side of the workflow.
The labelling functionalty has been extremely helpful for part tracking
Been waiting for this feature! Thanks, Fusion.
My go-to app for component duplication is very useful for generating copies and aligning them afterward.
[UPDATE] With recent updates, it's even better—a quality of life improvement. I cannot imagine working inside F360 without it!
Tip; combine this with the parametric text plugin ;)
Nice-to-have suggestion:
- being able to select multiple components to duplicate
- being able to duplicate in multiple axis (like the review above, for 3dprinting, to fill a buildplate square)
- being able to set the direction to duplicate (for example, duplicate on x is always to the left)
Thank you Bas S for your 5* review! I really appreciate this and forwarded it to the dev team. Your suggestions are noted and also forwarded to the dev team. Happy new year and cheers, Fabian
Bas S. based on your suggestion we updated the App to address several points you highlighted above 1) you can now duplicate in multiple axis. 2) You can now "Flip" the direction of Axis (Example from +X to -X) We did not combine it with the parametric text plugin, but we think we we solved a similar issue by adding the "Label" command. Please give it a try and let us know what you think.
Thank you @Sualp, Update looks promising, i will definitely check it and get back to you if there are issues. Thanks for adding the label command. The 'tip', was meant more for end-users, the suggestions was for dev ;)
hi Bas S with the update today (Version 1.0.0.53, 6/6/2024) Changes in this version: - Users can now select multiple components to Duplicate in DESIGN and MANUFACTURE workspaces
Highly recommend it to anyone who needs to quickly make multiple copies of a given component for 3d printing, or scale a part within the context of their 3d printers build volume.