Problem creating a big rectangular pattern

[Anonymous]

Hi Everyone, 

I've recently switched to fusion 360 from basic CAD software and I'm attempting to recreate my previous design on a bigger scale. I'm attempting to create a hexagonal, 1 mm wide pattern within certain lines on the board (pictures of my initial sketch and test print are attached). 

I've tried creating a rectangular pattern from hexagons on the sketch, to then extrude an area within the line. However, to cover the whole board I need to create a pattern of 3600 hexagons and every time I attempt it - Fusion crashes. I've tried it with a sketch, then with bodies and planes. I've tried grouping multiple hexagons together before I pattern. I've also tried a few other methods of creating this pattern from the forum. Also tried on a Mac Book Pro and a brand new desktop PC. Nothing seems to help, anytime I exceed roughly 300 hexagons in total - Fusion stops working properly. 

It can't be possible that Fusion 360 can't handle designing a 45x45 cm square, right?

Assuming I'm using an inefficient way of trying to create this design.

Any alternative way to reproduce my design? Maybe I don't need to create hexagons at all to be able to do this?! 

Or is this really some sort of technical limitation to Fusion and I will have to create my design in pieces?

Been stuck for 2 days on this, so any help would be greatly appreciated !

[jeff_strater]

first piece of advice:  Don't pattern in sketch.  Any sketch pattern with more than a dozen or two instances is going to be god-awful slow.  So, always pattern in the solid world.  Second, use Face pattern or Feature/optimized pattern (essentially the same thing).  3600 is a lot of instances, so there will be some time involved.  Don't kill the process, let it finish.  It's not the size of the object in CM, it's the number of faces/edges/vertices/pattern instance that will be the limiting factor.  I've done some benchmarks recently of pattern creation.  As a point of reference, I created a set of patterns of hexagonal holes in a plate.  For 50x50 (2500 instances), creation time was about 35 seconds on my computer, for a Face pattern.  For a Feature/Identical pattern, it was over a minute.  For Feature/Adjust, it was 38 minutes!  So the type of pattern matters a LOT.  For a 75x75 Face pattern (5625 instances), creation time was a little over 4 minutes.  So, you should be able to create a 3600 instance pattern in a couple of minutes.  If you share your design, we can try a few things

[jeff_strater]

here's a picture of the 75x75 example

[Anonymous]

Hi Jeff, 

Thank you for your reply ! 

Please find below a shared link to the file and I've also attached a copy in the message:

https://a360.co/37exxjk

I've now also tried a slightly different approach:

I've sketched 4 hexagons, extruded them, and then used rectangular pattern on faces and within roughly 2 mins fusion managed to process and create all of them. I've intended to then extrude them in the opposite direction to cut the existing plane and create my desired pattern that way. Unfortunately, I didn't succeed. I could only select those hexagons one by one and then extrude would work. Anytime I would try to select 2 or more faces Fusion would crash whenever it would try to process the extrude. So technically this method works, but it requires me to manually extrude every single hexagon. 

I'm hoping that there is another way to achieve this result. 

Thank you for your help ! 

Regards,

Max

[TheCADWhisperer]

What is the purpose of this geometry?

It is not needed.

[TheCADWhisperer]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

1. Assuming I'm using an inefficient way of trying to create this design.

2. Any alternative way to reproduce my design? Maybe I don't need to create hexagons at all to be able to do this?! 

---

1. Yep.

2. Pattern Components, Bodies, Faces or Features rather than sketch elements.

[jeff_strater]

could you explain a bit more what your final result is?  Maybe it is just Saturday-morning fog, but I'm not sure what the final result you want to get to here is.  I see that you still did the pattern in the sketch, again, I'd not do it that way, if it were up to me.  I don't know how you want to cut the plane, since the pattern is not oriented over the main chessboard.

I also noticed that you have separate bodies for each square.  If your intention is to cut out this pattern on the chessboard, that will make it difficult, as each cut will have to be done multiple times.  You can achieve the colors by splitting the face and using face color, rather than separate bodies.

[Anonymous]

This was the geometry from when I tried to project that pattern over the whole board and failed. In the end I need to extrude the space in between the hexagons, rather than the hexagons themselves. And that is where I am stuck. Here is another version I did creating the pattern with faces instead. With the faces created, all I need to do is to extrude them 1 mm down to cut the planes below and that is where Fusion unfortunately fails. 

[Anonymous]

Hi Jeff ! 

Please find below a screenshot which shows partially my desired final result that I had to do manually one by one. 

In the end I want to create a 1 mm wide and 0.5 mm high "mesh" on top of the existing squares limited by the lines of sketch 12 in the file. 

Below you will find a different version of the project where I've managed to pattern faces rather than a sketch. Unfortunately on my Mac this version of the file isn't very usable anymore. If on this version of the file I would select all hexagons and extrude them all by "-1 mm" and "cut" all bodies except "body 237" I will immediately achieve my final result. 

The problem is, I can only select each hexagon individually and in that case it takes about 20 seconds to process the extrude with cut. If I try to select even 2 hexagons, Fusion fails for me (I've left it to process for 15 mins just now after selecting 2 bodies, it's still non responsive). Same problem on my desktop. 

So there must be some other way to create this mesh on top that I'm not seeing, without having to produce over 3000 hexagons. 

I hope I've managed to explain what I'm attempting to do. 

Thank you for the face color tip, will definitely use it next time !

In this case it's not a problem I think, since I'm not attempting to create a mesh on the chessboard itself, but rather on top of it (without having to cut the underlying squares). 

 

 

[g-andresen]

Hi,

this is also how it works (and fast)

günther

[Anonymous]

Hi, 

Oh, ok, I didn't think to try it this way. This definitely seems easier !

Thanks, I will try this tonight !

[jeff_strater · Accepted solution]

I think you are patterning the wrong thing.  If I understand your desired results correctly, patterning the hexagons is the wrong approach - you want a pattern of the stuff in-between the hexagons.  I'm not sure what the minimal/optimal set of geometry is, and my measurements are not precise (that's your problem to solve0.  But, here is the basic approach:

add some more hexagons to the sketch, and some geometry to close off the ends.  Again, not sure what is the minimal set to tile the plane:

then, I moved this sketch onto the chess board (still not quite sure why it was created in space):

Then, did an extrude of just the in-between stuff:

Finally, pattern this using Feature/Optimized or Identical.  Fusion should be able to handle a decent sized number of instances of this geometry (I only did a few, for illustration)

my design added just for reference

[Anonymous]

Hi Jeff, 

Sorry for the delay in reply, been a crazy week at work and I didn't manage to get to this last week. 

Thank you for the suggested solution ! I worked and I was able to finish my project. 

Thank you so much !

Regards,

Max