Rectangular Pattern Onto an Irregular Shape

[chjm655]

I was playing around with 3d printing some chain-mail and was finding the rectangular patter tool quite useful. However, now that I'm trying to create more complex shapes with the chain-mail, I'm running into some issues making the process tedious. Having to make an array then select sections of it to delete is rather slow and inexact, not to mention it lags out my computer.

Is there a way to take an array of solids and delete sections of it sort of like I would cut a sketch shape out of a single solid?

[g-andresen]

Hi,

if you provide images, it will be easier for us to give tips.

günther

[chjm655]

I wanted to cut some shapes out of a sheet of chain-mail but when I try cutting it using a sketch I end up inevitably cutting through chains and would have to go through and delete each one manually which would be very time consuming.

What I've been doing is just selecting portions of the chain and deleting them. This is a very inaccurate process and is very difficult to get right without going in and selecting each individual chain.

I generated the chain-mail using the rectangular pattern tool, and I was wondering if there was something else I should use to generate a pattern in the irregular shapes I want or if there is an overall better approach than what I've been doing. As it is, I want to make several different objects out of chain and it will be very time consuming to do so.