Subscribe Free Trial

Menu Search the blog

Fusion 360 Components

& Bodies for New
Designers
AUGUST 9
Aaron.Magnin 28, MIN
2018 READ

Learn everything you need to know

about bodies and components in Fusion
360! Assemble, build, and capture
motion properly!

If you’ve ever used a CAD tool like

Inventor or SolidWorks, you’ll start to
notice a difference in how assemblies
are organized. Take, for example, a
simple design like an adjustable
wrench.

To design this in a tool like SolidWorks,

you would need to draw up each part
and save it in a separate file. That would
be 5 files in total for the handle, jaw,
spring, pin, and knurl. You would then
need to make a primary assembly and
insert each of those files to make the
complete wrench. Are you starting to
see the problem with this workflow?

This might be a straightforward

example, but imagine designs with
hundreds of parts. Keeping track and
managing every file would be a total
pain for experienced and new designers
alike.

And what happens if one of those files

gets moved around by accident?
Suddenly a link is severed, and the
assembly drawing doesn’t know how to
display a critical part.

Fusion 360 solves both of these

problems with a structure of bodies and
components. Within a single Fusion 360
file, you can have a collection of parts
that are all connected to an assembly.

Regardless of how complex your design

grows, you’ll always have one file and
one design environment for your entire
workflow.

Sketch to Bodies Explained

Let’s start with the most simple of the

two – bodies. In Fusion 360, a body is
any continuous 3D shape. That might be
a sphere, cube, cone, etc. Whenever you
create a 2D sketch in Fusion 360 and
then extrude it into a 3D shape, you
automatically create a body.

The keyword about a body is that it has

to be continuous. Take a cube and cut it
in half, and you now have two bodies.

Bodies are great when you want to

model an object that won’t require any
associated motion. Maybe you decide to
model a cup. This is a static object that
won’t move and will likely consist of a
collection of bodies, including a mug
and handle.

There are several specific constraints

you’ll want to know about bodies.
Remember these:

Bodies share the coordinate system

and origin of your top-level
assembly.
If you copy and paste a body,
changes you make to one body will
not affect the other.
Bodies will not show up in a parts
list (aka Bill of Materials) or part
drawing.

What happens when you make a body

but realize you wanted it to be a
component? This is a simple fix. Right-
click the body in your Browser, and
select Create Components from Bodies.

Fusion 360 Components

Explained

In Fusion 360, a component is a part

that is capable of motion and has its
own unique origin. A component can
also serve as a container for a variety of
design objects, including:

Bodies
Sketches
Construction geometry
Decals
Other components

For example, in the image below, we’re

working on designing a tensioner and
pulley system. If you look at the
browser on the left, you can see that
Pulley 1:1 is a component designated by
its block icon.

If we expand Pulley 1:1, this reveals

several other objects nested within the
component, including a set of origins, a
body, and two sketches.

Components are great not just for the

organization but also for design reuse.
Say you want to reuse one of the
pulleys in another design. If your pulley
were just a random collection of
sketches and bodies, you wouldn’t have
any way to bring it into your new
design. However, by housing all of these
individual objects inside a component,
you can quickly export just that one
component into your new design.

Let’s try this out so you can see what

we mean. We’re going to right-click on
the Pulley 1:1 component and select
Export.

We’ll give it a name and save it to our

Fusion 360 cloud storage. In our Data
panel, we can then right-click the
exported file and Insert into Current
Design.

If we insert this pulley into another

design, you’ll see the same component
from our original design, with all of its
associated objects, including an origin,
body, and two sketches.

Like bodies, there are several

constraints that you’ll want to know
about when using components.
Remember these:

Every component has a unique

timeline.
Every component has a unique
origin and coordinate system.
Every component has a unique part
name, number, and description that
will show up in your parts list.
If you copy and paste a component,
changes you make to one
component will affect the other
depending on the paste command.

Overall, anytime you plan to design an

assembly or subassembly with parts
that will have motion, you will need to
create those parts as components.

Other Ways to Understand

Bodies & Components

It might be easier to understand the

relationship between bodies and
components by viewing them in a tree-
like structure, as shown below:

Here we can see a clear parent-child

relationship unfolding. The assembly
sits at the top of our design hierarchy
and can contain one or multiple
components. Components can contain
one or multiple bodies, including other
design objects like sketches,
construction geometry, etc.

Prefer a table to compare these two

concepts side by side?

Body Component

What it is Any Acts as a part

continuous within an
3D shape, assembly and/or a
e.g. container for
cylinder, other design
sphere, objects
etc.

When to use it For static For assemblies

models that require
movement
between parts

Origin/Coordinates Same as Each component

assembly has unique
origin/coordinates

Motion No Yes, with joints

Manufacturing Will not Shows up in part

show up in list/drawing, each
parts list component has a
or drawing unique part name,
number,
description

Copy/paste Changes to Changes to a

behavior a copied copied component
body do can affect the
not affect original
the component
original
body

Bodies and Components In

Action

Hopefully, these concepts are all

making sense by now. When in doubt,
the best way to understand is by
jumping into Fusion. We’ll be walking
through an example design that
contains both bodies and components.

Identifying Bodies and

Components

First, you’ll need an example design to

play with. Download our pulley and
tensioner sample file here.

Once downloaded, swing open the Data

panel in Fusion 360, navigate to a
project, and select the Upload button.

Open your uploaded design, and let’s

focus on the Browser for a bit. Bodies
and components each have their own
unique icons to make them easily
identifiable.

Look for the cylinder icon, which

identifies a single body.