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THEA FOR AUTODESK FUSION 360 www.thearender.com/fusion360

USER MANUAL

Revision 01 – v1.0

Image by Claas Kuhnen

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INTRODUCTION 1.

Thea for Autodesk Fusion 360 is a bridge plug-in that enables you to export your projects from Fusion into Thea Render Studio for rendering. Through the use of advanced features available in Thea Render Studio you will be able to enhance your projects with physically based materials and produce high quality photorealistic output quickly and easily using the available biased/unbiased/GPU rendering modes. This documentation offers a basic introduction on how to get started with our plug-in, starting with installation instructions and description of functionality available. Note: This manual covers the plugin settings and options only, thus for a deeper and more detailed understanding of Thea Render settings, materials, engine modes you need refer to Thea Render User Manual.

APPLICATION PREREQUISITES & LICENSE ACTIVATION 2.

Our plug-in is compatible with both Macintosh and PC version of Autodesk Fusion 360. We have however provided separate installers to accommodate individual environment needs. Please download the appropriate release according to your available operating system. In relation to compatibility for Thea Render Studio which is a required component for the complete installation of the bridge plug-in you will need to refer to the Thea Render User Manual. You will have received with your purchase a license sheet that contains four serial keys:

Thea Render Studio key

Thea for Fusion 360 plugin key

Node license keys (2x) To activate your Thea for Fusion 360 purchase you need to first install on your system Thea Render Studio available on our download page. Upon installation of Thea Render Studio, start the application and select from the main menu Help – License Form. In the Main tab you will need to insert your Full Name and Email along with the serial number for Thea Render Studio that you received with your license sheet (please note that uppercase/lowercase is important and we recommend that you record the information for future use). Once you have inserted in the Main tab the information you will need to activate your license (live Internet connection is necessary). In the Plugins tab you will need to insert the serial number for Fusion 360 plugin as provided in your license sheet. It is very important that you press the Activate Plugin Licenses button once the serial key is inserted in order to activate also the plugin license. Node licenses are used primarily for network rendering and thus are not needed on your main modelling workstation. To activate node licenses please refer to the Thea Render User Manual.

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INSTALLATION & ENABLEMENT OF PLUG-IN 3. Windows / OSX 3.1

For the Microsoft Windows plug-in installer (shown in Figure 1), Thea for Fusion plug-in files are copied into appropriate Fusion AddIns folder. If you have not installed Autodesk Fusion in the default installation folder you will need to click on the Browse button in the installer and select the appropriate Fusion plug-ins folder. For Macintosh OSX, the provided compressed zip file available provides an install and uninstall script file. You will need to decompress the zip file into an appropriate folder on your drive and double click on the install command file which will automatically copy the plug-in files to the appropriate Fusion 360 AddIns folder. Upon completion of the installation process you will need to enable our plug-in from within Fusion Scripts and Add-Ins Option from the File/Scripts menu option. Click on the green (+) icon to open the Add new script window

Select TheaForFusion360.py file in the AddIns\TheaForFusion360 directory and then click on Open button.

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Click on the option Run on startup which will make Thea for Fusion plug-in initialize when you start Autodesk Fusion 360.

Now that you have initialized the Thea for fusion plug-in you should have now in your main button panel (as shown below) in Autodesk Fusion two buttons: Export to Thea and Refresh geometry

The Export to Thea button provides the following options:

Quality of triangle mesh

Scene orientation

Add Ground Plane

Enable HDRI lighting

Export only selected objects

Refresh geometry only

Start Thea after export – enable to start Thea Render after export

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Quality of triangle Mesh This option provides control over the resolution of the mesh being exported from Fusion into Thea Render Studio. Depending on the value set the mesh resolution increases or decreases during export giving you control over the speed and the mesh triangle count. Scene Orientation This option enables you to control the export axis by which your object is brought into Thea Render Studio. If your design once exported into Studio is orientated in an incorrect manner you can control the axis during export and assign the correct orientation in exported objects. Add Ground Plane The ground plane is a small utility option that allows you to drop a simple ground plane object underneath the object you are exporting making it easy to setup quickly for a render. This is also very useful when also combined with the Shadow Catcher feature of Thea Render which gives very realistic rendered output and is great for product visualization. Enable HDRI lighting Our plugin comes with a sample HDRI image that allows you to quickly preview your model inside Thea Studio with image based lighting. During export the provided HDRI is used but can easily be replaced once the scene is open in Thea Render Studio. Export only selected objects This is a flexibility option that allows you to partially export objects that you have manually selected. This in essence makes Thea Render Studio a “collection bucket” for modelled objects that can dynamically be brought over from Fusion into Thea. Therefore you can create new objects and then add them to Thea Render Studio whenever you desire. Refresh Geometry only The refresh geometry option allows you to dynamically update any objects that have been altered in Fusion. Using this feature you can make modifications to your original design without have to re-export the whole scene. This makes it very easy to make quick updates to any of the objects you want and once you press the refresh geometry option to propagate that change in geometry

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across to Thea Render Studio. Start Thea after export When enabled, this option initializes Thea Render Studio to begin visualization of your project workspace inside the Studio viewport. The Refresh Geometry button effectively acts as a refresh for any changes that occur in your design from Fusion that is propagated during export to Thea Render Studio. When you wish for your project changes to be refreshed across in Thea Render Studio you simply click on the button and Thea Render will accept those changes and redraw the Studio viewport.

During the geometry refresh you have dynamic control over the mesh resolution of the item being exported. You have also control over which objects can be refreshed when exported thus Studio receives only the changes you want. This makes the export process quick and efficient but also very flexible as you can create objects and dynamically bring them across into Thea Render Studio. If you have any questions or feature suggestions please do not hesitate to contact us directly at fusion@thearender.com. For any support requirements related to the plug-in please contact us at support@thearender.com.