I just applied an Autodesk Fusion update, and was browsing the release notes and noticed this:
Platform mesh color support
Platform meshes imported from 3MF files can now display embedded color information within the Additive workspace, making it easier to visually distinguish different regions of the build platform.
This is especially useful for identifying machine constraints such as no-go zones or overlap regions directly in the workspace, improving clarity without relying on external references. It also enables more customized and informative platform setups.
Only color data is supported; textures are not, and this enhancement does not affect toolpath generation.
They didn’t mention Bambu by name, but they did include this graphic:
that’s paid visual advertising pure and simple, cause an image speaks to the brain in more ways than 1k words can. Bambu paid them handsomely to put their EoL X1C plate on their website… Buuu..
Fusion has been becoming more and more Bambu friendly over the past couple of years. For engineering 3d models, the combination of Fusion and Bambu printers may just be the best combination available at a reasonable price.
Loved Fusion 360, and got pretty expert at it. Used it for designing Radio Controlled model airplanes. When they moved to the “subscription pricing” model, the cost for a hobby user became quite expensive. I could no longer justify the cost, so I looked around and found a product called Shapr3d. I tried it out for a while, and found it to have a more intuitive (aka easier) user interface. I would say its about 90% of the functionality of Fusion, so missing a few things - there are workarounds for them all even though some of them are quite a bit of extra work. But the price is incredibly reasonable - its working out to about 1/2 the price of Fusion 360. So, about a year ago, I bit the bullet and moved to Shapr3d. I am now just as proficient as I was in Fusion. Recently, I bought a P2S, and I thought it would be nice to have 2 printers (the old one is a Prusa Mk3S+), but the P2S is hands-down more superior. The print quality is way better, and I don’t have to ever worry about the first layer - on the Prusa, 8 out of 10 prints were ok, then I would have adhesion issues, and there I was having to fiddle with the z height, over and over again. The P2S, I just start the print and leave - the first layer has always been superb. Hope it stays that way.
I am loving my Sharp3d/P2S combo for designing, printing, and flying my model airplanes.
I was on the “free” version initially, which was actually full-featured. Then, Autodesk decided to remove functionality from its “free” version - I lost 2 critical functions - Lofting of bodies from one cross-section to another, and the ability to plot where a plane intersects a body. These features are critical in designing model airplanes, cars etc. This was when I HAD to subscribe to get the functionality that was removed. At that point, the “free” version became what they called “sunsetted”, meaning that none (or at least, very few) updates were done. I guess for most users, the “free” version is sufficient - it wasn’t for me. Long story short, I found an almost-as-good product at half the price.
