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3D Modeling Help Request - Japanese Character Use


Juggernut

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Hi all,

 

I'm creating a tire for the 1/32 Tamiya A6M kits that do not have any treads on them.  Every aftermarket tire I can find (that's currently available), have circumferential treads and research done by noted IJN authorities indicate that the circumferential treads weren't used until later A6M5 and subsequent aircraft.  I've only ever seen one photograph of an A6M with circumferential treaded tires and was on a captured A6M3 Model 32.  Consequently, I've designed a tire that can be used with the A6M2 and A6M5 kits.  The tire will replace the rubber ones in the kit using the kit parts E68 and E69 for the hub.

 

Now the rub.  I've been provided with some very good reference material of the tires and the markings on the sidewalls of those tires.  I can get the 600 x 175 on the sidewall of the tires but cannot for the life of me, figure out how to reproduce the Japanese characters that go with the  size information on the tires (manufacturer, date of manufacture, etc.).  I have the Japanese character set installed in Windows but copy/paste from the character map into Fusion 360 only results in the English equivalent being displayed.  I also thought about using the tire reference and import it into Fusion 360 and drawing the individual characters but that's a rather large task.  Is there anyone in the community (or know of anyone who's really good at 3D design) that can give me some advice on how this might be able to be done?

 

 I have some screenshots saved to my downloads but I'm not on my desktop computer to upload them to Imgur and post pictures at this point...I'll be able to do that tomorrow.

 

Thanks for any help/input.

 

TIm

 

As promised, the 3D CAD images are below.  Relatively simple task but since I'm a 3D modeling novice, it took me some time to decide on the best way (to my understanding) to accomplish what I was looking for.

 

wB0Fk99.png8rltzlY.png

 

I6BuZwg.png

Edited by Juggernut
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Blender imports and exports stl files. I'm not really that familiar with Blender. What if you export an stl file from Fusion 360, open it in Blender, the export an stl file from Blender. The above seems like it would work. I'm assuming that Blender and Fusion 360 imports and exports will work with one another. If the Blender file ends up okay, you should be able to use the exported stl file in the slicer program.

 

I'm not that familiar with Blender because I have Modo and I'm sure I could to it in Modo. Modo will import and export stl files too. And my first modeled part exported from Modo as an stl file went into the AnyCubic slicer program just fine. I just haven't printed it yet.

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I’m hoping that there’s a setting or an add-on that will add that functionality.  I’m going to contact auto desk and ask the question.  They may not be very responsive because I have a hobbyist (aka free use) license.  Lacking that I may be able to contact Kevin Kennedy of Product Design online and ask him.  

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I have a "hobbyist" license set up too, but I haven't really gotten into trying to model something in it. I tried starting on that above mentioned part but I couldn't zoom in close enough (it's small) and I didn't try to figure out how to zoom closer, if possible. I'll get to it one of these days.

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Tim,

This works for Autocad so there may be a crossover to Fusion. Autocad will provide any font that is in your current windows font library. You can download .ttf files from the internet and install them in the C:/Windows/Fonts folder. Once its in the windows font folder, you can add text in the desired font.

I found several Kanji style .ttf files on line through free downloads...for example wFonts.com. I can now type out kanji characters using the keyboard...its just that kanji characters are often words, not letters. (good luck on hunting down the specific characters you need)

Autocad has a feature to extrude text after a little manipulation but I am ignorant of Fusion's capability.

Hope this helps.

 

Patrick

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9 hours ago, Modelpig said:

Tim,

This works for Autocad so there may be a crossover to Fusion. Autocad will provide any font that is in your current windows font library. You can download .ttf files from the internet and install them in the C:/Windows/Fonts folder. Once its in the windows font folder, you can add text in the desired font.

I found several Kanji style .ttf files on line through free downloads...for example wFonts.com. I can now type out kanji characters using the keyboard...its just that kanji characters are often words, not letters. (good luck on hunting down the specific characters you need)

Autocad has a feature to extrude text after a little manipulation but I am ignorant of Fusion's capability.

Hope this helps.

 

Patrick

 

Thanks for that info.  I've installed "Japanese Regular" truetype font in my Windows font's directory but after rebooting the machine and restarting fusion360, that font does not show in the list.  I've contacted Autodesk about it but so far haven't received any reply.

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13 hours ago, Radub said:

Just don't treat it as "font", convert the letter outlines to "sketch", extrude these lines into objects and fuse them with the part. 

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-design-validate/text-as-sketch-help/td-p/4774081

Radu

 

 

 

Thanks for that information.  I'll definitely be trying that.  I can convert the text to outlines in illustrator I believe and depending on how I'm able to export those (I can't export them as an svg but dxf is available) I will make the attempt.

 

Well, that crapped out too.... I can get a reasonable rendition of the Japanese characters using Illustrator but when I bring it into Fusion 360 as a canvas, I can't do anything with it...or probably I don't know how to do anything with it.

Edited by Juggernut
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Tim,

 

if you have Illustrator you convert the text to outlines.  Create Outlines in the Type menu.  Then export/import the file to Fusion as an .dxf file.  I’d recommend you do as much scaling work as possible in Illustrator.  Complex sketches are memory intensive, but it does work.  That’s how these tires for Pig’s T-38 were done.

 

NoseWheelSketch.jpg?format=2500w

 

NoseWheel.png?format=2500w

 

Edited by Timmy!
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Thanks those wheel/tires look awesome!  I did just that but imported it as a tiff image.  I can import the image on a face (surface of the tire) but I’ll be damned if I can figure out how create 3D lettering from the image….If I can figure that much out, I may have found the solution.  Apparently, Japanese is not a supported font in Fusion 360 as even though I have it in my fonts directory (TrueType font) Fusion 360 does not recognize it.  If I need to import it as a dxf file, I can export it from illustrator in that format.  I think I may need to do a little more “YouTube” searching.

Edited by Juggernut
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38 minutes ago, Juggernut said:

Thanks, I did just that but imported it as a tiff image.  I can import the image on a face (surface of the tire) but I’ll be damned if I can figure out how create 3D lettering from the image….If I can figure that much out, I may have found the solution.  Apparently, Japanese is not a supported font in Fusion 360 as even though I have it in my fonts directory (TrueType font) Fusion 360 does not recognize it.  If I need to import it as a dxf file, I can export it from illustrator in that format.  I think I may need to do a little more “YouTube” searching.


Importing text or raster files like .tiff won’t work you need vector files and .dxf works best in Fusion.  

1. Arrange your design in Illustrator.

2. Convert text to outlines. Type - Create Outlines.

3. Save art as a .dxf. (On a Mac - Save As and there is a drop down menu to choose file type).

4. In Fusion 360 on the insert menu choose insert .dxf.

5. Unlock the imported sketch by selecting all, right click and choose break link.

6. Use the move tool to scale and reposition the sketch as necessary.  (Sketch’s weren’t designed to be so complicated, so it will hog memory and be slow).

7. Use the emboss command to make your markings.

 

Here’s a quickie I did in Illustrator next to my T-38 tires and wheel marks.  It says “T-38 Tires are cool.”

 

IllustratorTextDemo.jpg?format=2500w

 

Hope that clears things up.

Timmy!

Edited by Timmy!
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It sure helps!  Thanks for the tutorial.  What character font did you use for the “T-38 tires are great” ?  I may have to get that font if it’s not already on my system (which I don’t think it is) and it’s Japanese.

Edited by Juggernut
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