topic Re: pattern on path - spacing distance confusion in Fusion Design, Validate & Document Forum

pattern on path - spacing distance confusion

QuinnCampbell — Mon, 05 Sep 2022 21:03:24 GMT

Can anyone tell me what the pattern on path spacing measurement is actually referencing?

I am trying create a pattern of these 3/32nd long faces along a path with 3/32nd inch between each face.

As you can see from my images below I currently have a spacing of .3" in the function (because if I enter 3/32nd I get crazy overlap) but when I click complete it and measure im getting

.159" from start to end or

.253 from end to end, or

.066 between internal faces.

As you can see .3" is nowhere to be seen so what is that even measuring?

Ideally i want .09375 between each face.

Thoughts?

Re: pattern on path - spacing distance confusion

jhackney1972 — Mon, 05 Sep 2022 22:28:37 GMT

It would really help give you the best answer possible if you attach your model. If you do not know how to attach your Fusion 360 model follow these easy steps. Open the model in Fusion 360, select the File menu, then Export and save as a F3D or F3Z file to your hard drive. Then use the Attachments section, of a forum post, to attach it.

Re: pattern on path - spacing distance confusion

davebYYPCU — Tue, 06 Sep 2022 00:36:11 GMT

Then ideally use 3/16, (0.1875) centre to centre or start of one to start of next one.

BTW the Measure Tool will not measure along a path, but the Pattern tool does.

Your example .3, will be influenced but the start position offset if any, and any curve in the path.

I did see a thread here (about a month ago - but time flies too,) that mentioned the PoP tool uses the centre of the body’s mass for something to do with the alignment, which seemed weird to me at the time.

Might help.....

Re: pattern on path - spacing distance confusion

QuinnCampbell — Tue, 06 Sep 2022 02:31:31 GMT

Sample file attached. its not my exact one but it does demonstrate the issue.

There is .09375" long face that I would like to pattern along an organic spline.

I would like there to be a .09375" gap between each face in the pattern

The pattern currently is set to .3" distance (arbartry number to demonstrate point).

I realize since its a straight line on a spline the measurements won't be perfect since measuring with the measure tool is a straight line but....

The with the gap between faces with .3" setting none of the gaps measure .3"!

So where should I be expecting the "spacing" measurement to be from/to??!?

Also, if you notice in my file there are 2 pattern along paths with the same settings, 1 with a "starting point" of .039" and a second with a "starting point" of .035"

The .039" start point was auto assigned, and follows the path correctly.

The .035" start point I must have accidently dragged and does not follow the path correctly. I would have expect this to start the pattern shorter or futher down the path, not mildly offset from the path all together.

What is the "staring point" actually calling for?!?!

Thank you for any help you can provide, I'm getting very frustrated by this....

Re: pattern on path - spacing distance confusion

davebYYPCU — Tue, 06 Sep 2022 03:06:49 GMT

KIS(S)

I trimmed the path to centre point of the first plate,

Start point Zero, spacing .1875, works as expected.

As I said the alignment and start point are for mathematical gurus, beyond my paygrade

Might help....

Re: pattern on path - spacing distance confusion

wmhazzard — Tue, 06 Sep 2022 03:32:03 GMT

The spacing is from one body to the next, say from the left edge of one to the left edge to the other. If you want to set the space between bodies, then you have to add the width of the body to the spacing value. 1" wide bodies with 1/2" spacing gives 1.5" spacing value along the path.

Re: pattern on path - spacing distance confusion

QuinnCampbell — Wed, 07 Sep 2022 03:17:57 GMT

That seems the case when the path is set to 0 and starts at the center of the body. But when the path starts before the body like in my demonstrations then it seems the spacing is a meaningless number. Am I correct?

Re: pattern on path - spacing distance confusion

wmhazzard — Wed, 07 Sep 2022 03:44:03 GMT

You are correct. It looks like there are several bugs with pattern on path. If you set the start point to zero, the spacing will be correct and it won't move the original body.

The other bug is that the bodies don't follow a spline when the start is zero.

@jeff_strater

Re: pattern on path - spacing distance confusion

johan.rutgeerts — Wed, 07 Sep 2022 07:37:32 GMT

This has been documented multiple times. I spent a massive amount of time digging into this, see this thread and this thread.

In the end, the response of @Phil.E was "This is a long time issue with pattern on path. It is known and logged already. There is a team working on pattern issues like this. I cannot, for legal reasons, state what the progress is or when a fix will be released. The other post has all the available workarounds from several highly regarded experts."

That's half a year ago.

@Phil.E and @jeff_strater I'm sorry to be negative, but the way Fusion 360 bugs and UX defects are being handled is really sad. They're basically not being addressed at all. I understand a lot of new functionality is being developed each day, but it should not be one or the other. You need both developers working on new projects, as well as developers working on fixing issues.

Imo. the only way to efficiently deal with this is to:

Either: have dedicated programmers working on resolving issues, and only on resolving issues,
or: don't have dedicated people, but define dedicated time slots during which the programmers have to work on resolving issues, and only on resolving issues.

If you don't do it that way, Cool Project X and Very Necessary Feature Y will always be of higher priority.

Re: pattern on path - spacing distance confusion

Phil.E — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 17:40:32 GMT

@johan.rutgeerts

I appreciate your time and effort to let us know about this again.

But I need to mention something: Jeff and I are not decision makers, nor do we set priority, nor do we have much influence over how things are prioritized.

Re: pattern on path - spacing distance confusion

zhainline — Sat, 23 Mar 2024 19:07:01 GMT

Phil.E, not to be rude but is there any movement on this? How long do we need to wait? This feature is infuriating and a very poor reflection on Autodesk's ability to fix issues. I would be happy to provide some uncomfortable (for them) verbal motivation to anyone in your organization who needs it in order to resolve this.

Re: pattern on path - spacing distance confusion

Phil.E — Mon, 25 Mar 2024 15:03:04 GMT

This is reported as FUS-152595, and sent to the team. Thanks for the reminder.

Re: pattern on path - spacing distance confusion

eric3XF3R — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 14:58:31 GMT

Hi. First time poster here. I'm also pulling my hair out with this aspect of Pattern on Path and would like to add my name to the petition. 🙂
FWIW, the way Cinema 4D handles this sort of thing is, to my mind, perfect and intuitive.
Thanks for all you've done already to make such a robust piece of software!

Re: pattern on path - spacing distance confusion

TheCADWhisperer — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 15:06:56 GMT

@eric3XF3R

Can you start a new discussion thread with a link back to this one and Attach your *.f3d example file?