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Is there a way to create a hole(or an extrude/ cut) and pattern it along a non linear trajectory like a spline, edge, or curve? Just to be clear the hole will be Normal to the sketching plane of the trajectory. A solution in either 2001 or wildfire would be super.
Another way is to create your curve and then when you are creating the cut, offset the curve, make the offset a construction, and the place your cuts along the construction curve. The holes won't be equidistant.
Create the hole. Select it and Pattern (either via icon, right mouse, or Edit menu). From the dashboard, choose Fill, and Curve as the method from the other drop down menu. You can select either a pre-existing datum curve, or sketch one in the feature.
I was just trying this new fill pattern functionality out in Wildfire and, either I'm doing something wrong, or it's not a very good tool of you want a reliable pattern...
a. The curve is a 2-D sketched curve (a single spline entity)
b. The solid features are a pattern of protrusions using a fill-curve pattern on the the existing curve. The spacing is set at 100mm. The first pattern member is at the beginning of the curve.
c. The pattern of points was done the 'old' way. The
pattern leader was positioned 100mm from the start of the curve and then patterned at an increment of 100mm.
Shouldn't these two patterns look at least remotely similar in spacing? It appears to me that the fill pattern just uses the 100mm number as a suggestion, because the spacing appears to vary along the length of the curve.
I can make it work with regular polygons like rectangls etc. but for splines it doesn't work. Notice that if you pick an instancec and hit edit the curve shows up but is changing its orientation. This is prob the reason for the error. With a regular polygon it is well defined and constrtained, for a spline it is not.
FROM PTC...
The Fill pattern solution provides a quick, easy way to create a pattern where geometric constraints may not be as stringent as in other areas of the model. For most Fill pattern cases, it is assumed that the relative placement of pattern instances is arbitrary. The ability to make the fill pattern dimensions available in other areas of the software could not be included in Wildfire with an acceptable level of quality and performance. PTC recognizes the power within this function, however, and has made it a priority to include enhancements in the next major release of Pro/ENGINEER that will build upon this.
>>...it is assumed that the relative placement of pattern instances is arbitrary...
...Good to know!
Thanks for the heads-up. Knowing this will prevent future surprises here. Guess we'll stick to the old reference-a-pattern-of-points-along-the-curve technique when we want real control (which is 99.99% of the time).
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