For this week’s lab assignment, I modeled my mug. I used it a lot during my A-levels to make a cup of tea and so I thought it’d be fun to try and recreate it in Fusion360.

Overall, the modeling process was not super difficult but I did have to spend some time figuring out Fusion360. It took a lot of trial and error, but I learnt a lot along the process.

While creating the cylinder was straightforward, I struggled to create the handle. I had to first figure out how to create the line shape and then figure out how to extrude the line so it was 3D. I used the advice given here to attach the handle to the surface of the mug. It took a lot of different tries to figure out which plane I actually wanted to use as it got a little confusing pretty quickly. I had to create a tangent plane, then create a line using the three-point arc. I then had to sketch a small circle and use sweep to convert the line into a 3D object.

One thing I compromised on was the material of the mug. I used stainless steel and then painted over it with the metallic gloss. However, the actual mug is ceramic and so the texture is slightly different.

Back, Front Angled, Front View

Humanistic uses

I think that 3D modeling can be extremely useful in classroom settings. It can be difficult for students to conceptualize a 3D object just by seeing a 2D picture of it, and so by letting them interact with the object on modeling sites such as Fusion360, they can gain a better understanding of how the object is actually shaped.

My Tip

You can create a tangent plane by going to sheet metal and then construct. I created a tangent plane on the edge of the surface of the mug. On this plane, I created the three-point arc for the handle and made sure it touched the surface of the body of the mug. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to create the line of the handle so that it connected with the body correctly and so knowing this tip earlier would have saved a lot of time.

Interactive model