01
Frame, plates, welds
Build the frame as in Standard, add base plates and gussets, then run Weld Bead on the bodies you want welded. Edit the frame later — plates and welds follow.
Fusion 360 add-in v2.2.0Pro tier
Steel Frame & Weldments Pro
Everything in Steel Frame & Weldments, plus the part of the job that happens after the frame is modelled: weld beads and a weld schedule, a weld cost, base plates, a stock-bar cut plan, flat DXF of every plate and a cut list that shows up in your drawings.
6 Pro tools
on top of 14 standard
< 5% waste
planned bar cutting
0.00%
mass vs hand formula
What Pro adds
From a modelled frame to a quoted, cut, welded one
Standard gets the geometry and the cut list right. Pro covers what fabricators still do by hand afterwards — and what no CAD does natively: the weld schedule and its cost, the foot plates, the bar order, the laser files and the drawing parts list.
Weld Bead + weld schedule
Seams are found from the joints the frame already has. Rounded fillet and cap beads, saddle beads on coped tube, stitch welding, and a schedule with length and deposited mass per weld.
Weld Cost
Arc time, labour time, consumable mass and cost per weld with MIG, flux-cored, TIG and stick presets — every rate editable and remembered.
Base Plate
Bolted foot and mounting plates on any member end: overhang or explicit size, rectangular or PCD hole patterns, slots, centre hole, chamfered or rounded corners.
Stock Optimizer
Nests the cut list onto the bars you buy. Bars to order, utilisation, waste and remnants per profile, plus a bar-by-bar cut plan as PDF and CSV.
Plates to DXF
One flat DXF per unique gusset, end cap and base plate — true arcs and circles, outline at the origin — with a quantity index for the laser.
Drawing-ready parts
Profile, length and end cuts written into each component Description, so the Fusion Parts List and balloons show the cut list. Mass and surface area per piece in every export.
The Pro commands on the ribbon
Base Plate and Weld Bead sit in the Create panel next to End Cap; Stock Optimizer, Plates to DXF and Weld Cost follow Cutting List in the Manage panel.
Weld Bead
Seams from the joints, rounded beads, weld schedule. Smooth, textured or rippled.
Weld Cost
Consumable, arc and labour time, cost per weld with process presets.
Base Plate
Foot and mounting plates with rectangular or PCD bolt patterns.
Stock Optimizer
Cut list nested onto stock bars; bars to order, waste, cut plan.
Plates to DXF
Flat DXF per plate type with a quantity index for the laser.
Cutting List (Pro)
Weld schedule, stock plan pages, mass, surface and part descriptions.
Weld Bead
Beads where the joints are, a schedule you can audit
Pick the bodies to weld (or a whole frame) and the add-in finds the seams from the miters, butts, copes and plates the frame already has. Solid beads are built in one feature and the weld schedule goes into the Cutting List, CSV and PDF.
- ✓SolidWorks-style rounded fillet beads, surface caps on flush and convex edges, segmented saddle beads on coped round tube.
- ✓Choose Smooth or Textured (hammered bump map) surfaces, and switch on Rippled beads for real scalloped MIG-look geometry when you render.
- ✓Intermittent (stitch) welding with weld length and pitch; the schedule counts the welded length only.
- ✓Every row shows fillet and cap length separately, so deposited mass = length × area × density can be checked by hand. Verified against closed-form values on square, round and mitred joints.
- ✓Welds survive a Frame or Member edit: they are rebuilt on the new bodies with the same weld numbers.
Weld Cost
A quote from the schedule in one click
Pick the process and the estimator’s model runs on every weld of the schedule: consumable = deposited mass ÷ efficiency, arc time = mass ÷ deposition rate, labour time = arc time ÷ operating factor, cost = labour + wire + gas. MIG, flux-cored, TIG and stick presets fill typical values; your rates are remembered and exported with the CSV so the quote can be audited later.
- ✓Per weld and in total: length, deposited and consumable mass, arc minutes, labour minutes, cost.
- ✓Live table in the dialog — change a rate and every row updates.
- ✓The frame above: 8 welds, 1282 mm, 99 g of wire, 6.3 min of welder time, $3.05 at the default MIG rates.
Weld schedule in the cut list
Numbers you can check by hand
Every weld row separates fillet length from cap length (a flush or convex edge gets a surface cap, 0.6 z², instead of a fillet, z²/2 + 10%), so deposited mass = length × area × 7.85 g/cm³ is reproducible on paper. Seam lengths are measured on the real geometry and verified against closed-form values: a 20 mm square T-joint reads 80.8 mm, a Ø20 round bar on a flat reads 62.8 mm against π·20 = 62.83.
Drawing-ready parts
The cut list appears in your Fusion drawing
Each member component gets a Description such as SHS 40x40x3 L=1040/960 45°/45°, plates get their size. Add the Description column to the Parts List and balloons and the cut list is right there — no add-in needed on the drawing side. Mass and surface area per piece are in the table, CSV and PDF for paint and galvanizing quotes.
Base Plate
Foot plates and mounting plates in seconds
Select the member end faces and get a plate flush under the post, centred on the section, sides parallel to the walls, with the bolt pattern you need. It rides on the same machinery as End Cap, so it is rebuilt automatically after a frame edit and listed in the cut list.
- ✓Size by overhang around the section or by explicit width × depth; thickness; chamfered or rounded corners.
- ✓Rectangular n × m holes with automatic or set spacing and optional slots; or n holes on a pitch circle from a start angle; optional centre hole for a leveling foot.
- ✓Patterns that would fall outside the plate or overlap are refused with a message, not built wrong.
- ✓Cut list row like
BasePlate-110x110x10-4xD14with the hole details in the text.
Plates to DXF
Every plate as a laser-ready DXF
One flat DXF per unique gusset, end cap and base plate, quantity and thickness in the file name, plus plates_index.csv with size, mass and material for the cutting order. R12 DXF in millimetres with true lines, circles and arcs, outline at the origin — readable by every nesting and CAM program. Nothing is added to your model.
Stock Optimizer
Which piece comes out of which bar
Cutting in list order typically wastes 15–30% of the steel; a planned cut lands under 5%. Enter the stock lengths you buy, the saw kerf, the end trim and the offcut you keep, and the optimizer fills every bar with the pieces that use it best — an exact knapsack per bar, the way shop optimizers work, in a fraction of a second.
- ✓Per profile: bars to order (count × stock), utilisation, waste and reusable remnants, updated as you type.
- ✓Several stock lengths at once; the least wasteful bar is picked each time. Members longer than every stock are listed, never dropped.
- ✓PDF with one diagram per bar — pieces to scale with their cut-list item number, offcut hatched — and a CSV cut sequence. Also appended to the cut sheet PDF.
Workflow
Model once, hand the shop everything
02
Cut list, stock plan, DXF
Cutting List with mass, surface and weld schedule; Stock Optimizer for the bar order; Plates to DXF for the laser.
03
Quote and drawing
Weld Cost for the welding side of the quote; open a Fusion drawing and the Parts List already carries profile, length and end cuts.
Standard or Pro
Same add-in, two listings
Both are the same codebase. Standard stays the frame modeller it always was; Pro switches on the fabrication tools. Files made with one open fine in the other.
| Capability | Steel Frame & Weldments v1.3.2 | Steel Frame & Weldments Pro v2.2.0 |
|---|---|---|
| Frame, Member, miter / butt / cope, corner override, weld gap | Included | Included |
| Gusset, End Cap, Tab / Slot joints, Notch, Miter, Trim / Extend | Included | Included |
| 616-size library, custom profiles, CSV import | Included | Included |
| Cutting List: table, CSV, PDF cut sheets with balloons | Included | Included |
| Mass and surface area per piece | Included | Included |
| Weld Bead: beads, weld schedule, textured / rippled options | — | Included |
| Weld Cost estimate | — | Included |
| Base Plate with bolt patterns | — | Included |
| Stock Optimizer (1D bar nesting) + stock plan pages | — | Included |
| Plates to DXF + index | — | Included |
| Drawing-ready part descriptions (Parts List) | — | Included |
| AI control (MCP) of the add-in | Included | Included |
License
One-time purchase, Autodesk sign-in, 3-day trial
A free 3-day trial starts the first time you run the add-in. Purchase through the Autodesk App Store and Pro unlocks through Autodesk Entitlement when you sign in to Fusion. Activation codes are available for team installs and direct licensing.
Steel Frame & Weldments Pro v2.2.0
Early accessWindows and macOS. Built for fabricators who quote, cut and weld what they model — machine frames, tables, guards, carts, trailers, structures.
Common questions
Is the deposited mass a real figure?
It is the estimator’s figure: theoretical fillet area z²/2 plus 10% reinforcement (caps 0.6 z²) times length times 7.85 g/cm³. The lengths themselves are measured on the real seams and checked against hand formulas to within 1%. The 3D beads are drawn fuller for looks; the schedule, not the bead bodies, is what to quote from.
Does Weld Bead work on everything?
It welds the joints the frame produced: miters, butts, copes, plates, round-tube saddles (use the coped trim type). Oblique contacts it cannot bead are still listed with their length as data-only rows, never silently skipped.
Will the Stock Optimizer know my stock?
You enter the lengths you buy — 6000, 6100, 12000 or anything else — plus kerf, end trim and the minimum offcut you keep. The settings are remembered and reused by the cut sheet’s stock plan pages.
Can the laser shop read the DXFs?
They are plain R12 DXF in millimetres with LINE, CIRCLE and ARC entities on layer 0 — the most universal flavour there is. Bolt holes and slots are true circles and arcs.
I already own Standard. Do I need to rebuild my models?
No. Pro opens the same files; frames, plates and joints made in Standard are recognised and the Pro tools work on them straight away.
What does the drawing side need?
Nothing extra. The descriptions are ordinary component properties; switch on the Description column in the Parts List and balloon as usual.
Feedback
Tell me what the shop still does by hand
Most of Pro started as somebody describing a step they still did outside Fusion. Bugs, missing profiles, a report the shop wants — send it with the email your Fusion account uses.