topic Re: Creating a triangular lattice from squares in Inventor Forum

Creating a triangular lattice from squares

Anonymous — Fri, 22 Dec 2017 17:37:54 GMT

Does anyone know how to make a triangular lattice pattern instead of a square as shown above? I have tried to create a tile with similar dimensions to the squares but the angles are off.

Re: Creating a triangular lattice from squares

JDMather — Fri, 22 Dec 2017 18:28:12 GMT

Can you attach your *.ipt file here?

Are you familiar with the Grill tool?

Re: Creating a triangular lattice from squares

kelly.young — Fri, 22 Dec 2017 19:01:07 GMT

Hello @Anonymous I see that you are visiting as a new member to the Inventor Forum.
Welcome to the Autodesk Community!

It looks like your outer rectangle is a little bit skewed. Can you attach your part?

It is unclear what you want your final triangle design to be, the squares have cut corners, do you want them to meet sharp at the edge?

If you can provide a bit more information about what you're trying to do we can definitely show you how to accomplish that.

Please select the Accept as Solution button if a post solves your issue or answers your question.

Re: Creating a triangular lattice from squares

Anonymous — Sun, 31 Dec 2017 17:58:35 GMT

I am not familiar with the grill tool.

Re: Creating a triangular lattice from squares

Anonymous — Sun, 31 Dec 2017 17:58:06 GMT

Thanks!

So as you can see from the file, the lattice pattern consists mostly of squares. I want to change that so the pattern would be a triangle inside of that rectangular outline. Please tell me if you are confused by what I mean.

Many thanks

Re: Creating a triangular lattice from squares

JDMather — Sun, 31 Dec 2017 19:45:40 GMT

The file you attached was imported from NX.

Can you attach your Inventor attempt here?

Re: Creating a triangular lattice from squares

JDMather — Sun, 31 Dec 2017 22:18:39 GMT

Is something like this what you are after?

Re: Creating a triangular lattice from squares

Anonymous — Mon, 01 Jan 2018 00:04:53 GMT

I haven't done an attempt because I didn't know how to do it to begin with.

NX?

And yes, that is exactly what I needed. How did you do that?

Thanks again

Re: Creating a triangular lattice from squares

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Jan 2018 18:53:19 GMT

I hate to sound pushy, but I need to know how to do this because I need this design by Jan 30th

Re: Creating a triangular lattice from squares

JDMather — Tue, 02 Jan 2018 19:58:08 GMT

How much Inventor training/experience do you have?

Can you create the first sketch?

Re: Creating a triangular lattice from squares

kelly.young — Tue, 02 Jan 2018 21:14:21 GMT

Hello @Anonymous I see that you are visiting as a new member to the Inventor Forum.
Welcome to the Autodesk Community!

After watching the screencast attach your attempt for further review.

I didn't edit the screencast so it's too long, tried to go slow, and mess up a few times so hope it doesn't confuse you too much.

Report back with your attached part see how you did!

Please select the Accept as Solution button if a post solves your issue or answers your question.

Re: Creating a triangular lattice from squares

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 03:04:02 GMT

Awesome. Now I have one question.

How would I create a rectangle from the center of the rectangle as outlined in yellow?

I seem to have this where I can create a rectangle with one edge from the center.

Re: Creating a triangular lattice from squares

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 03:42:43 GMT

Also, whenever I try to do the co linear constraint (seen in 3:33 in the video) I can select the diagonal line as highlighted in yellow but not the line covered in blue.

Re: Creating a triangular lattice from squares

WHolzwarth — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 10:08:57 GMT

Thanks for the Screencast, Kelly. You've spent some time in struggling with the Grill feature

This video is a pretty good example for the disadvantages of mouse grabbing. Sometimes the straight line gets lost.

I've had troubles with Grill in this special case, too, and ended always up in an error message. Therefore I've gone another way, using most definitions in a basic sketch.

How is it working?

- Open attachment (2016 IPT)

- Switch to Parameters

- Set Pattern_Count to a new integer value (I've played with 3,4,5,6)

- Watch the result

Then play with other user parameters.

It's not fool-proof, but it's a start-up

Re: Creating a triangular lattice from squares

S_May — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 10:21:04 GMT

Hi @kelly.young,

good work as always, very good Video...

Re: Creating a triangular lattice from squares

kelly.young — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 18:35:01 GMT

@Anonymous looks like you have a good start. When you're in the Sketch environment there is a drop down for many of the icons revealing fun and exciting options.

When you have overlapping lines you can RMB > Select Other.. to display all of the lines that are in the area.

This also works for the assembly environment when selecting features to constrain to when there is a ton of stuff going on. You can hover close to the line or face, select other, and find the highlighted item in the list easily.

@WHolzwarth I like where your head is at for the parametric pattern setup, that's how I like to do things too where every feature and dimension can be driven without breaking the model.

It's helpful when the boss comes over and says "it has three triangles, I wanted four triangles, what am I paying you for get it right!" Change the form value, it updates, their unsubstantiated fury is dissipated immediately and they saunter back down the hall muttering obscenities to their next punching bag.

The grill command is a bit finicky but when you get it setup right it saves some time eliminating all those commands.

Re: Creating a triangular lattice from squares

WHolzwarth — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 19:47:23 GMT

kelly.young schrieb:

It's helpful when the boss comes over and says "it has three triangles, I wanted four triangles, what am I paying you for get it right!" Change the form value, it updates, their unsubstantiated fury is dissipated immediately and they saunter back down the hall muttering obscenities to their next punching bag.

Kelly, you must be kidding. I've never heard about bosses of this kind.

Re: Creating a triangular lattice from squares

kelly.young — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 20:42:55 GMT

@WHolzwarth I've had a few untenable positions like that in the past. Being skilled but young and inexperienced trying to break into the design profession came with many difficulties. Getting my foot in the door with limited resources and options available wasn't easy. It taught me how to prioritize, design efficiently, and crank out drawings super fast with limited errors. I've been so used to the pressure of meeting deadlines it's hard to slow down now and show my work!

My recommendation to the younger crowd is to let your work do the talking. Stay positive and ask questions on how to move forward. Be proactive about what the next step is, find out what you should be doing to advance, and what will make you more valuable to the company. I started out at smaller businesses with large orders and small lead times, which led to lots of stress. Integrating parametric models that would update the drawings seamlessly lessened my headaches and kept the szef out of my hair!

After a year or two they would settle down a bit, or maybe I just got tougher. It was experience that I'm thankful for having and it made me a better designer, but think my receding hairline might have a source.

Re: Creating a triangular lattice from squares

S_May — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 21:02:52 GMT

Re: Creating a triangular lattice from squares

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 22:03:53 GMT

Thank you for the very helpful video! I am so close to getting it done. I have one more situation before I get out of your hair

Near the end where you are extruding the top edges off

I cannot select the 4 small triangles individually.

I of course, can select the area between the yellow shaded part but can't figure out how to separate that if that is an alternate choice.

Thanks again