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brick wall

jkb

New member
Banging my head against a brick wall.



I need to create a brick wall assembly which can be used in other assemblies. I need to be able to delete individual bricks without effecting patterns etc. Is there an easy way to create a quick and easy set of building blocks in a large scale assembly?



I thank you
 
Create a pattern of coordinate systems and drive the pattern with relations. This pattern represents the placements of your bricks.



Create a brick and assemble it to the first coordinate system in the pattern. Create a group containing just the brick. Reference pattern the group.



Now Unpattern the patterned group. It keeps all the bricks, but the pattern is gone. You can delete any individual brick without affecting the placements of the other bricks. If you screw up, you can delete all the bricks and create a new grouped brick pattern quickly.
 
How do you figure out which brick to remove in the table? I've always had a hard time corresponding instances in the pattern on the screen to specific instances shown in the table. It becomes especially difficult with large patterns (hundreds or thousands of instances).



I've settled on using use the group method because I can pick the bricks on the screen and delete them. If there is something similar with pattern tables, I'm willing to change the way I remove pattern instances. Any ideas / insight?
 
Good point. I don't understand the need to use coordinate systems, seems like unnecessary features...
 
jkb said he didn't want to affect the patterns by removing bricks. So the patterns are maintained in the datum patterns, independent from the bricks.



For a brick wall without Wildfire's fill pattern, I would write relations to drive the placements of the bricks as the wall changes size. Essentially, I would create a brick wall template. Change the size of the wall and the pattern updates. By driving a pattern of datum features, you can also change the brick style and size very quickly.



For symetrical features in a single plane, I use datum point patterns. For components in 3D space, I use csys patterns. It is very easy to assemble using a csys and then ref pattern. Plus, if you are really good with relations, you can even rotate each instance in a pattern. But this is only useful for asysmetrical sections and components.



The drawback to using the datum pattern is it can double the number of features to regenerate. I guess you have to weight the price vs. the benefit for each application.



I have a screen template and write-up in my archived files if anyone is interested.
 

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