regeneration of part with large pattern

[krow72]

Have you tried to add the radii to the sketch for the rectangular cut? That would make it one feature, not 2 to be regenerated. Just a thought!

 

[tracy]

I would try deleting your pattern, ungrouping the features, and then patterning each feature individually. I've found this to improve performance when it hangs.

Yeah, none of the features are grouped. They're all patterned individually, but since the rectangle is patterned (I've tried direction and dimension), and the rounds are on the rectangle, they reference-pattern, referring to the rectangle.

 

[tracy]

Have you tried to add the radii to the sketch for the rectangular cut? That would make it one feature, not 2 to be regenerated. Just a thought!

Yes, I have, and that didn't seem to reduce the regeneration time. It seemed to still think there were gobs of features to regenerate. The only difference was, when it was done once, it didn't start over again on the rounds (this was on a smaller 10x10 pattern, just to try).

The longer I think about this, the more convinced I am that it's just going to have to chug through the regeneration. The width repeats are all accounted for, but I'm adding length repeats 10 to 20 at a time, and saving between regenerations, just in case the sucker tries to go out into the weeds, again. The major pain about that is that it is wanting to regenerate every time I go to save, too. I think that I'll delete the family table, for the time being. That may help. It will be easy enough to put it back in when the whole pattern is completed.

 

[Jacoolo]

my private investigation proofs one thing - if Turbo Pattern is considered ==> copy geometry, not features!

with this approach(Copy Geometry not Features), it realy does not cate where/how you create rounds(internal/external), because at the end you should copy final quilt, not features which build it.

I have nice comparison. I created simple example - rectangle plate and geometry to cut which consists originaly of 10 feats:

a) I made a Pattern(38x23) of 9600 instances(because I selected whole group) and it tooks 13 min, not to mention next ref pattern to Solidify > Remove material

b) I copied only quilt of merged features and then I made a pattern of it (ca. 900 instances) it tooks 1 minute and extra one to remove material

What I had done in addition:

1)I decided to separate pattern of instances from original model, because itself(the model) it can be enough complicated regarding the time of regenaration

2) Copy geom of base surf to extra model

3) making Tubo pattern(copy geometry not features)

4) Copy geom of patterned geom back to native part and Solidify remove or Cut out by Component

Above has unfortunately many disadvantages:

* it is complicated
*it is time consuming
*it creates circural references. This however can be avoided by removing the patternded goem not in native part, but in the extra one made by Copied geoemtry from the nativer model

you can also save patterned geometry as STEP file, load it and use to cut out - funny, strange, but it could help to avoid pushing Pro/E to regen everything too long

 

[dross]

Yeah, none of the features are grouped. They're all patterned individually, but since the rectangle is patterned (I've tried direction and dimension), and the rounds are on the rectangle, they reference-pattern, referring to the rectangle.

You should be able to direction pattern the rounds as well.

 

[dr_gallup]

You should be able to direction pattern the rounds as well.

It makes no sense to do any kind of a round pattern except reference. Rounds need to reference edges (or in some cases surfaces). You can't even pattern a round unless it already references a feature that is patterned.

 

[Captain Kirk]

Screens, Perforated Plate, Expanded Metal= Pattern Cosmetic Scetch , adjust Material density.

 

[dross]

You're right. I was thinking of times that I made overcut corners on rectangular pockets by using and extruded cut in order to speed up the regen times by doing a directional pattern on the extruded cuts.
My work quite often consists of parts with thousands of cavities with overcut corners to allow square cornered parts to fit into the cavities. These cavities are usually less than 50 mils square and require mucho time to regen.

 

[mjcole_ptc]

Why Ref Pattern shows as default choice.

Tracy,

Just a thought and some further explaination as to why Reference Pattern comes up Automatically.

What is the controlling feature for the Reference Pattern. If you patterned a point used by your hole feature for a pattern. You can show and use the points as a representation of where the holes are suppossed to be.

I haven't had any luck trying to do anything other than a reference pattern on something that WANTS a reference pattern.Tracy

Reference pattern will automatically come up as your first pattern option when a feature your "to be patterned feature" references has been patterned already.
If you did reference a pattern feature it would also help to make the original pattern have the Identical option set for it. Reference Patterns have two options Feature & Group try both out.

I'd suggest making a pattern test config for this specific problem. If you have several Full Round features it may just be simpler to do a seed boundary surface copy for your Turbo Pattern so the rounds don't need to be created multiple times, or have additional Refference patters for the rounds so the cut feature pattern can be shown and if the original rounds are suppressed or Ref Pattern round is resumed there is less hasles to go through.

Identicle Regens the Fastest, then Variable is second fastest and General is slowest.
For identicle to work the size and depth of all features in pattern must be identicle. so if you had a variable thickness plate the identicle pattern would fail.

Michael
a.k.a. (a)trajpar

 

[tracy]

my private investigation proofs one thing - if Turbo Pattern is considered ==> copy geometry, not features!

with this approach(Copy Geometry not Features), it realy does not cate where/how you create rounds(internal/external), because at the end you should copy final quilt, not features which build it.

I have nice comparison. I created simple example - rectangle plate and geometry to cut which consists originaly of 10 feats:

a) I made a Pattern(38x23) of 9600 instances(because I selected whole group) and it tooks 13 min, not to mention next ref pattern to Solidify > Remove material

b) I copied only quilt of merged features and then I made a pattern of it (ca. 900 instances) it tooks 1 minute and extra one to remove material

What I had done in addition:

1)I decided to separate pattern of instances from original model, because itself(the model) it can be enough complicated regarding the time of regenaration

2) Copy geom of base surf to extra model

3) making Tubo pattern(copy geometry not features)

4) Copy geom of patterned geom back to native part and Solidify remove or Cut out by Component

Above has unfortunately many disadvantages:

* it is complicated
*it is time consuming
*it creates circural references. This however can be avoided by removing the patternded goem not in native part, but in the extra one made by Copied geoemtry from the nativer model

you can also save patterned geometry as STEP file, load it and use to cut out - funny, strange, but it could help to avoid pushing Pro/E to regen everything too long

I will have to try this. I have not done a lot of copy geometry, so I will have to play around with it.

Thanks!

Tracy

 

[tracy]

It makes no sense to do any kind of a round pattern except reference. Rounds need to reference edges (or in some cases surfaces). You can't even pattern a round unless it already references a feature that is patterned.

Yes, on these rounds, they will ONLY reference pattern. On other patterned features, even if it defaults to reference, I can choose other types of patterning.

Tracy

 

[tracy]

Screens, Perforated Plate, Expanded Metal= Pattern Cosmetic Scetch , adjust Material density.

Yes, that would be nice to do. That made me think of something, just now. Since the only "real" reason I have to generate this screen pattern is to create a DXF for the manufacturer, I can probably just as easily create a DXF from a cosmetic sketch as from a pattern of extruded cuts. I will try that out tomorrow morning.

Tracy

 

[tracy]

Tracy,

Just a thought and some further explaination as to why Reference Pattern comes up Automatically.

What is the controlling feature for the Reference Pattern. If you patterned a point used by your hole feature for a pattern. You can show and use the points as a representation of where the holes are suppossed to be.



Reference pattern will automatically come up as your first pattern option when a feature your "to be patterned feature" references has been patterned already.
If you did reference a pattern feature it would also help to make the original pattern have the Identical option set for it. Reference Patterns have two options Feature & Group try both out.

I'd suggest making a pattern test config for this specific problem. If you have several Full Round features it may just be simpler to do a seed boundary surface copy for your Turbo Pattern so the rounds don't need to be created multiple times, or have additional Refference patters for the rounds so the cut feature pattern can be shown and if the original rounds are suppressed or Ref Pattern round is resumed there is less hasles to go through.

Identicle Regens the Fastest, then Variable is second fastest and General is slowest.
For identicle to work the size and depth of all features in pattern must be identicle. so if you had a variable thickness plate the identicle pattern would fail.

Michael
a.k.a. (a)trajpar

I'm going to have to think about this a bit before I reply in more detail, but I did want to mention that the original pattern is an identical, not a general.

I'm going to try out what you say and see how it works.

Thanks.

Tracy

 

[Jacoolo]

Tracy

just to mention, by default, I do not mean to use Copy Geometry tool when wrtiting: copy geometry not features

There is an example I made for this particular issue. check how I manage the patterned geometry: I copy quilt not group of parrent features, which at the end gives me a lot of time savings regarding Pattern regenaration

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B60eG4B19bE4Zk5wOGNlZ0VjZlU/edit?usp=sharing

 

[tracy]

Tracy

just to mention, by default, I do not mean to use Copy Geometry tool when wrtiting: copy geometry not features

There is an example I made for this particular issue. check how I manage the patterned geometry: I copy quilt not group of parrent features, which at the end gives me a lot of time savings regarding Pattern regenaration

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B60eG4B19bE4Zk5wOGNlZ0VjZlU/edit?usp=sharing

Thanks, Jacek. I will look at this today.

Tracy

 

[tracy]

Thanks, Jacek. I will look at this today.

Tracy

I see what you're getting at, now. You extruded as a surface, merged/intersected the surfaces, copied and patterned, then solidified. I will have to try that. Thanks a lot!

FWIW, my idea to do a cosmetic did not pan out. I still had to pattern in one way or another, and it still took a long time to regenerate.

I still haven't had time to dig into Michael's suggestions, but I will try over the weekend.

Tracy

 

[tracy]

I see what you're getting at, now. You extruded as a surface, merged/intersected the surfaces, copied and patterned, then solidified. I will have to try that. Thanks a lot!

FWIW, my idea to do a cosmetic did not pan out. I still had to pattern in one way or another, and it still took a long time to regenerate.

I still haven't had time to dig into Michael's suggestions, but I will try over the weekend.

Tracy

Ok, I tried your idea, Jacek, but for some reason, Merge is grayed out in sheetmetal. I had such high hopes. I also tried to extrude the surface, pattern that, and solidify, but although it works to do it that way, it is taking a long time to regenerate the extruded surface pattern, too. I guess that makes sense, if I think about it.

Tracy

 

[Hanumanth217]

Make only one instance of the cut with the radii. Then copy the surfaces, solidify and pattern that. See this tutorial for a full explanation. Very robust and MUCH faster.

Turbo Pattern, Free Pro/E Wildfire Video Tutorial, Consumer Product Design/Development, E-Cognition Inc

Hi,

Is there any other option to do this, apart from it..?

 

[SRINIVASANIYER1]

Has anybody tried creating a UDF of the geometry and then patterning the UDF? Just curious.

 

[tracy]

An update: I got the pattern to regenerate successfully. I just had to be patient. Luckily, I had at my disposal an extra machine and license and just let the thing run until it was done. I ended up having to shut down practically everything else, including automatic updates, to prevent the machine from rebooting mid-regen, but I got it, and then was able to mirror the pattern (another long wait) and create a DXF, which was what we were after. The as-designed part (designed by someone else in a different CAD program) was not fully featured in that program, and so the as-built parts did not match the as-designed parts. Now, we have a DXF to give to the vendor so that hopefully we can get parts that match the design intent.

Thanks for everyone's input, and while it didn't directly affect this problem, I did learn a good amount of stuff along the way.

For what it's worth, although I didn't keep an exact tally, I believe the final time investment was somewhere between 48 and 96 hours. It takes roughly a day and a half for an assembly containing two of that part and two other high-feature-count parts (but considerably fewer features than this part) to open.

Tracy