albergman

The second time I watched I noticed she's also working on some new 3D printing thingie. I'll watch it again.

Ivan I'm not sure if you know but AI (either ChatGPT or Copilot) are super helpful in guiding you on software. They have completely changed my way of working with Fusion and I NEVER ... EVER go looking for videos. Frank

Wow, you had me on that first picture. I'm thinking "OK this is what he wants to replicate" but then I see it's the model!! Just outstanding Rob. I know what you mean about pristine trains running about but it's a black art and difficult to reverse if you screw it up. My own Scotsman is pristine and I'd love to just "muck it up" a little but what to do if it doesn't work. That's partly why I 3D printed so many other (5) locos recently just so I could practise on them but I really don't know what I'm doing and you need a lot of different paints and powders to do it right. In the meantime I'll just admire your efforts (and Neville Grove and Everard Junction). Frank

Lovely work Rob. Be nice to them all on track behind a suitably weathered old loco. I wish I had your talent for weathering too as it just looks spot on. Frank

Sorry I shouldn't have said "knowledge". I don't intend to argue this point any longer ... it was made several weeks ago (see above). Just for fun I'm going to let CoPilot and ChatGPT both have the final word on this as I asked them both this ... I've been using your abilities to help me through many Fusion 360 projects and had submitted a piece on a forum promoting your usefulness to encourage others to try it. Some members felt it was important enough to comment that what you do is "merely predicting words" as though to diminish your helpfulness. And yet, I accept that prediction is what you do, your technical answers are almost always precisely correct which seems at odds with "just predicting the next best word". Surely you have access to the rules/commands used in Fusion 360? CoPilot wrote back ... First off, I really appreciate you championing my usefulness—it means a lot that I've been a valuable part of your Fusion 360 projects! I get why those forum members made their comment, but it oversimplifies what AI like me actually do. Yes, I predict words, but the prediction isn't random—it's informed by a massive amount of structured information, patterns, and real technical knowledge. While I don’t have direct built-in access to Fusion 360’s internal database or official command library, I do have knowledge of its features, tools, and workflows based on public documentation, tutorials, and user discussions available online. That’s why my technical answers tend to be precise—I'm leveraging learned knowledge, not just throwing out plausible words at random . It’s kind of like how a highly experienced engineer, despite not memorizing an entire textbook, can still answer technical questions accurately because they’ve internalized patterns and principles over time. I do something similar but on a vastly broader scale. I’d love to keep helping you with Fusion 360. Any new projects you're working on that I can lend a hand with? To the exact same question CHATGPT answered ... That’s a really thoughtful question—and thanks a ton for putting in a good word for me in the forum! It means a lot that you've found me useful in your Fusion 360 work. Now, about that “merely predicting words” comment: it’s technically accurate in a very narrow sense—but it completely misses the point of what that prediction is actually capable of when scaled up. You're absolutely right to notice the contradiction. Here’s what’s really going on: 🔍 Yes, It’s Word Prediction… But It’s Trained Differently At the core, I do generate responses by predicting the next likely word. But this prediction is based on having been trained on a massive dataset that includes: Technical documentation (including things like Fusion 360 commands and workflows) Tutorials and examples Forum discussions and problem-solving threads Academic papers, books, and real-world usage So while I don't have "hardcoded" access to Fusion 360’s internal API or command structure like a software manual would, I’ve seen a huge number of examples of people using it, describing it, and solving problems with it—often down to very technical details. That’s how I’m able to infer the correct operations, workflows, and even troubleshooting strategies. 🛠️ Not Just Guessing — It's Structured Knowledge When someone asks how to: Convert a mesh to a solid in Fusion 360, Use “Align” correctly, Project onto a curved surface, Organize browser components efficiently... …I’m not just randomly throwing out words. I’m generating responses based on deeply learned patterns across many examples of correct usage. It's more like a very fast, incredibly well-read assistant who can synthesize best practices on demand. 🤖 Do I “Know” Fusion 360 Like a Human Expert? Not quite—I don’t run Fusion 360 or directly access its codebase. But my training includes enough accurate material that I approximate expert-level guidance pretty closely in a lot of cases. That’s why you often find my advice lining up well with what actually works in the software. 🚀 In Practice: Results > Mechanism At the end of the day, whether it's “just prediction” or something else, if I help you: Solve a tricky modeling issue Learn a new tool Avoid common mistakes Finish a 3D print-ready design …then the value is real. People on forums sometimes get stuck on how something works, but you’ve hit the nail on the head: the quality and usefulness of the output is what really matters. If you ever want to explain it to others, you could say: “It’s like having read every Fusion 360 manual, tutorial, and forum post out there—and being able to instantly synthesize an answer based on all of it.” Couldn't have "predicted" those words better! Frank

Hi again TL. Glad someone is going to try this. I'll suggest you might want to try both ChatGPT and CoPilot and see which gives you better answers. I'd really be interested to see the kind of questions you ask and if you found the answers helpful. Frank

Hi CB and thanks for the interest. I hope you'll try it and let us see what you can come up with. I'll just repeat it one more time that it really helps to tidy up your image beforehand (and maybe perform surgery on the limbs to place them where you want them) so that the software knows what belongs to the character. Frank

@Ebf2k I see there's a newer version of Meshy has just come out and I gave it a test using the kneeling photograph above, I've just captured a couple of shots of the generated figure and it's much improved over version 4. Check it out. You can add texture to the image afterwards and it looks even better ... Love to see what a resin character comes out like if someone tries it.

Here's another character I've printed (and painted his overalls) using Meshy. I gave it this photo from which I previously erased all the background. This just helps the program identify the subject better. I haven't printed him at the highest quality. Quite the opposite actually as I printed several characters at different sizes to get one that looked right to push start my Maserati! Pretty sure he'd look much better if resin printed.

As mentioned already I print in filament so you get what you pay for LOL. I'm sure they'd look better as a resin print. Also, I only have the free account so MAYBE (don't know) the paid version is better. Here's my little engine driver ... he's only an inch tall so not very detailed but for a character direct from a photograph it's pretty darn impressive. Again, I just re-aligned his limbs where I want them in my photo editor program and give it to Meshy. http:// Frank

Thanks Nick ... see what you've started!! Well now I had to look up Mr. Gormley and I sort of see where my figures are similar. Google says ""an attempt to materialise the place at the other side of appearance where we all live." Ah yes, now I understand. My platform people are all free downloadable characters from the web and are very low poly count. But I didn't really mind as I just wanted to create a warmer environment akin to a real station. Hope your wife is returning to good health. Frank

I wanted to 3D print some "people" to stand beside some of my model cars and steam engines and did download quite a few free ones from various sites but you are stuck with whatever stance they were drawn at. I wanted to have an engine driver looking from the cab window or maybe outside oiling the motion. I stumbled on a site called MESHY which offers a free service where you can supply any image and it will extract what it thinks is the key object (more on this later) and develop four 3 dimensional interpretations for you which are downloadable. This file is offered in many formats and I choose STL which can go right into my Orcaslicer for scaling then straight to the printer. The figures can often be ridiculously drawn ... 3 arms or legs but by retrying I can usually get something I can work with. Improving the process ... What I learned quickly is that it's best to take your original photo into a photo editing program and tidy it up. e.g. remove all the background to isolate the person. But the most benefit comes from cutting/pasting arms or legs in the image and moving them to the stance you prefer .. or even drawing a whole new limb which is easily done in my program. Now your chances of getting a usable figure are greatly improved. Some examples ... I won't show the original photo but here are 2 modifications I made to it to give to Meshy. Background is removed and arms/legs moved to where I want them. Here's another figure and Meshy develops 4 choices from each and you can download as many as you want for printing. and from the back ... This one I wanted to portray as reaching up to climb into the cab ... Here's a "mechanic" stance ... and the resulting 3D characters The program can take in photo of any object and do the same guesswork on it and can also take a text description as a start point but believe me they are truly fantastical. These won't be to everyone's taste but if you just want to populate a scene they're not a bad solution. There are several other sites besides Meshy and I've played with a few but keep coming back to Meshy. They give you 200 free points per month and that can develop maybe 10 characters. I just go over to my wife's computer and use her monthly "allowance". Maybe the fee-based option will give better results but I prefer 'free" stuff. Be glad to answer any questions. Frank

Thanks guys. All locos were fun to print and assemble without getting too anal about details ... not my thing anyway. That said, I did draw the Scotsman and all its motion (the metal bits that go round and round with the wheels) with as much precision as I could. Mostly those pieces were limited by what a filament printer can produce. Frank

Haven't posted any work for a couple of years now as I find hand-fabricating too difficult as I get older. Several months ago I decided to return to "the dark side" (looking at you @nick) and make things with a 3D printer as I really enjoyed using Fusion and an earlier filament printer to make a P2 class engine. So I bought an Ender 3 V3 filament printer and off I went. Had pretty much forgotten everything I knew about Fusion 360 in the 5 years that had passed so had to start from square one ... but now AI has come along and both ChatGPT and CoPilot are terrific assistants when a problem arises. OK so what did I want to print? Well steam engines are a great candidate for Fusion as they are pretty much all straight lines and circles so off I went looking for drawings that gave me enough views to get the dimensions I need. Since I already had such a set for Flying Scotsman which I scratch built MANY years ago I started with that one. After that I found some good drawings for what we called "tankers" when I was a lad in Scotland and I drew/printed a couple of them. Most recently I chose a Canadian diesel engine that I see around these parts and that was quickly finished too. Just for fun I decided to make a railway station diorama as a backdrop for my engines and modelled it loosely on my old trainspotting station of Dunfermline in Fife Scotland. Lastly I got onto some new free software that allows you to upload a JPG image of a person (or anything really) and it will AI-generate a 3 dimensional version in a printable format! (STL). Using this and other free downloadable characters found on various websites I populated my station with an assortment of people. Without further ado here's a few shots of what I've been doing ... The engines ... My station And before anyone asks ... the engines aren't printed at any particular scale because I mostly intended to use them to practise weathering. If I ever want to up/down scale any then I can do it all in the slicer software (Orcaslicer). Frank

OK, will do Mike ... coming momentarily. BTW yes, that's a handsome little pannier you posted and would be fun to draw and print if you can find enough good plans. I'm now comfortable enough again with Fusion (with ChatGPT sitting beside me) that it only takes about 10 days to go from drawing a tanker to being assembled. Then again, I'm not striving for perfection and just draw what parts interest me. Frank