4 Replies Latest reply on Jun 25, 2014 9:11 AM by Mike Price

    Table driven pattern using two "X" direction dimensions

    Mike Price
    Mike Price Jun 24, 2014 2:14 PM

      Hi all,

       

      I have the following sketchtwo dim pattern.jpg

       

      I want to create a pattern of the extruded feature of this.  I want to setup a table though that will pattern the extrusions based upon a pair of dimensions that correlate with the 2.013 and 2.421.  Then I would have many extrudes that would have different points associated with the 2.013 and 2.421 dim's.

       

      I cannot find a way to do this.  These would be independent bodies.

       

      Thanks.

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        • Re: Table driven pattern using two "X" direction dimensions
          John Burrill
          John Burrill Jun 24, 2014 2:41 PM (in response to Mike Price)

          Well a table-driven pattern isn't going to help you here since they only control the location of the duplicated bodies, not their underlying geometry.

          In your position, I would look at creating a linear pattern with Vary Instance enabled and keying the overrides for your individual instances into the grid in the property manager.

          It doesn't look like it supports design table configuration yet, but if you have a lot of values to input, it would be worth investigating.

            • Re: Table driven pattern using two "X" direction dimensions
              Mike Price
              Mike Price Jun 24, 2014 3:44 PM (in response to John Burrill)

              Hi John,

               

              A couple of observations.  Vary Instance doesn't seem to work with patterning bodies.  I also have hundreds of instances......

               

              If I can change the individual instances, surely there is functionality to change them on a global level, true?  Maybe through VBA somehow?

                • Re: Table driven pattern using two "X" direction dimensions
                  John Burrill
                  John Burrill Jun 24, 2014 10:19 PM (in response to Mike Price)

                  No, you're right about that.  Instead of bodies, you'd have to create a back-plate that your extrusion could merge with, pattern it as a feature, varying the pattern and then create a cut a cut feature to remove the back-plate

                  I suggested the vary instances option because it sounded like you were looking for a way to do this within the normal SolidWorks modeling paradigm so that you could edit the results later on.

                  Vary Instances was just added in release 2013, so the ability to control it's parameters with design tables or by other means hasn't been added yet.

                  Using the application programming interface like VBA, you could indeed programatically copy a base feature and modify its sketch dimensions using the information stored in a spreadsheet to generate the hundreds of varied bodies you want.  You might check in the API group to see if anyone can help you with that