As much as I love independent software and applaud the straight-to-the point simplicity of BikeCAD, I felt constrained by its two-dimensional, heavily formulaic workflow and frustrated by its Java-native idiosyncracies. I yearned for the flexibility and relative ease-of-use of my habitual CAD programme, Autodesk Fusion. But alas, that mighty behemoth was missing a single, crucial component for my mill-deprived workshop: the ability to generate printable mitre templates without resorting to arduous workarounds.
Well, not anymore! "Be the change you want to see in the world" - I take that to heart, and since I'm a software engineer, I decided to spend some of my time and LLM tokens on coding up a solution in the form of a Fusion Add-In I have dubbed Mighty Miter.
At the time of writing, only joints between cylinders are supported. However, I am planning to add support for arbitrary shapes as long as they can reasonably be coped using a paper template I.e. the add-in should produce a good template for an oval, tapered, bent chainstay while it might struggle to come up with a functional solution for a super "flowy" 3D-printed yoke.
Left: the GUI of the add-in in Fusion 360.
Below: a mitre template produced by the add-in for the head tube / top tube joint shown on the left. The full ouput contains a title block as well as calibration marks on the page. In the final version, the layout will be configurable and it will be possible to print multiple templates onto a single page.
Left: the GUI of the add-in in Fusion 360.
Below: a mitre template produced by the add-in for the head tube / top tube joint shown on the left. The full ouput contains a title block as well as calibration marks on the page. In the final version, the layout will be configurable and it will be possible to print multiple templates onto a single page.
The core of the plugin is host-software-agnostic. Once the Fusion version is reasonably feature-complete and functional, I am planning to add support for FreeCAD as well.
I am also still thinking about how and if the templates should be integrated into Fusion's timeline.
Get the Add-In
You can install the add-in by dowloading the repository into your Fusion add-in directory and activating it in the add-ins dialogue (Shift+S).
Once the plugin is more stable, I'll package releases for download and I might also make the add-in available in the Autodesk Store.
If you have a question, want to share photos or your experience of using the add-in as well as any feedback, message me on Reddit.
