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Unread 29-01-2014, 18:04
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BA SW BA SW is offline
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Re: Creating a belly pan diamond pattern

The fill pattern posted by roystur44 is a really useful tool but there is another way of doing it that has pros and cons.
I have created a part in SolidWorks that uses equations to position the pattern and spread it out evenly in the part. This is similar to the fill pattern but it lets you choose how many vertical instances and how many horizontal instances you want. For example you might want the pattern to appear horizontally more often than it appears vertically. The fill pattern will fill the given area with the pattern evenly and will not ask you how many instances you want vertically or horizontally. Instead, it will ask for the distance between the instances. I used hexagons in the pattern but with this part you could create anything that fits into a circle of a given diameter. A fill pattern will let you choose shapes but it will not tell you the maximum diameter these shapes can be before interfering. The equations in the part I made calculate the maximum diameter that can be used for the pattern without causing an overlap. If you do create your own sketch for a pattern, delete the relations in the last sketch that reference the edges of the hexagons I used and add your own relations. You can also create a pattern of different shapes. For example, you could have a pattern of a square and a pattern of a circle by modifying the second sketch of the pattern. Also, this part can create a fraction of a pattern along the edges. The fill pattern will ignore an instance if it does not fit into the given space. Alternatively you could tell the fill pattern to go out past the boundaries by using a negative value and then extruding a sketch around the boundaries to get the same result. This might be clearer if you open the parts I have attached.

If you do use my part, right click on the equations folder and choose manage equations. I have added comments next to them explaining what each number does.

As a side note, if you are using hexagons for a fill pattern you probably want an angle of 30 instead of 45 like roystur44 used for the rectangles.

Download for fill pattern and patterned part with equations:
patterned parts.zip

Last edited by BA SW : 29-01-2014 at 18:06.
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