A parametric photo frame
Five user parameters drive a 3D-printable frame. Change the width and height and the frame rebuilds for a 4×6, an 8×10 or a 200 mm square without touching the sketch.
I want one frame design that fits a 4×6, an 8×10, or anything else, without remaking it. Scaling the whole model would scale the frame thickness and the corner radius too. Parameters let each of those change on its own.
Parameters
Press S, type para, Change Parameters. Add five user parameters:
| Name | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
width |
200 mm | outside width of the frame |
height |
150 mm | outside height |
frame_thickness |
20 mm | how wide the border is |
corner_radius |
6 mm | rounding on all eight corners |
material_thickness |
6 mm | how deep the frame is |
Photos come in imperial sizes, so when I am matching a print I type 4 in and 6 in. Fusion converts. Everything else is metric.
Sketch
New sketch on the ground plane. Centre rectangle on the origin, so the frame stays anchored when it changes size. Don’t type sizes while drawing; use Sketch Dimension afterwards and enter width for the top edge and height for the side. The little fx on the dimension means it references a parameter.
Offset the rectangle inwards by frame_thickness. The sketch is now fully constrained: nothing drags. Finish it. Keep sketches minimal; anything that is not needed is a future problem.
Extrude and fillet
E, click the border between the two rectangles, distance material_thickness. Read the dialog like a form: type, profile, start, direction, extent, distance, taper, operation. New Body.
Press Q (press/pull, which becomes Fillet when you pick an edge), select all eight vertical corner edges, radius corner_radius.
Test it
Change Parameters again. Try 4 in × 6 in portrait; the 20 mm border is too heavy at that size, so drop frame_thickness to 12 and the radius to something smaller. Try 200 × 200. Try material_thickness 40 and you have a shadow box.
Push corner_radius too far and the fillet fails: the feature goes red in the timeline. A red or yellow feature is a model that will break on someone else’s numbers, so fix it, don’t ignore it. The radius is limited by the frame thickness; five millimetres always works here.
The photo itself is a decal, placed by hand. That is an aesthetic decision, not a dimension, so it does not need a parameter.