Trim Command - Fusion360 Quick Tip

Even with Fusion 360's great sketch tools, sometimes your sketch can become cluttered. That's not a big problem on simpler sketches. But in a complex sketch all those extra lines crisscrossing everywhere can become confusing.

The TRIM command lets you get rid of all those extra lines and clean up your sketches so that they're easy to work with.

• Under the SKETCH menu, select the TRIM command. Or type "T" to invoke the command.
• If you are not already in a sketch, you will be prompted to select a sketch to work with.
• The cursor will change to a "scissors" icon.
• You can select either a single line or "paint" across multiple lines to delete all of them at once

Single Lines: When you move the cursor over a line, the selected line segment will turn red to indicate which portion of the line will be deleted. When you left-click on the highlighted segment, that segment will be deleted (trimmed).

Painting Multiple Lines: You can also left-click and hold the mouse button down as you move the cursor across multiple lines. All line segments that your cursors crosses while the mouse button is down will be deleted.

Since Fusion stops trimming at the first boundary, you must continue clicking line segments to delete across multiple boundaries.

• Construction lines can also function as trimming boundaries.
• Although I call them lines, TRIM also works on curves, splines and shapes (e.g. circles, rectangles).
• However, lines and boundaries must be on the same plane (share a point in space). For instance, you cannot use a 3d spline as a trim-boundary if does not intersect the line to be trimmed.

Notice that Fusion 360 makes intelligent guesses about which line segments you want to delete (trim). Fusion will select segments based on crossing boundary lines and end point nodes. Fusion will trim the line to the nearest crossing or node. If there are crossings or nodes on both ends, Fusion will trim out the center section.

The selected segment will turn red when you roll the cursor over it. Left-click on the highlighted segment to delete (trim) it. If there is only one boundary, Fusion will delete the line up until that boundary.

When there are two boundaries, Fusion will trim the segment that lies between the two boundaries.

My preferred method is to draw all my lines into the sketch. After I've drawn all my basic geometry I then go back and start trimming lines to clean up the sketch. I find that this sequence avoids the problems that happen when Fusion creates relationships and constraints between the lines.

However, these relationships and constraints are also very useful. For instance, Fusion will adjust the gap created if you trim a segment, then move the boundary line.

The TRIM command's opposite is the EXTEND command.

The BREAK command divides  a line into segments at a boundary, but does not delete any part of the line.

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