Disolve the pattern?

[RogerInHawaii]

I created a sketch that included a Rectangular Pattern to replicate some circles in the sketch. I finished the sketch.

I later went back to edit the sketch and chose one of the replicated circles and chose to delete it. That resulted in the following warning:

As far are I can tell it's advising me to either suppress the instance or "dissolve" the pattern.

Well, when I was initially creating the pattern I certainly could have used the Suppress option to eliminate one or more of the instances, but there appears to be no way to get back to that pattern creation option, since there's no "timeline" within Sketches. And I can find nothing that lets me "dissolve" the pattern.

So, do I just ignore the warning? Or is it telling me that IT (Fusion 360) either suppressed the instance OR maybe it dissolved the pattern?

[jeff_strater]

this action suppresses the instance from the pattern.  If you only partially delete the geometry, the rest is removed from the pattern, and becomes free geometry

[RogerInHawaii]

That doesn't clarify it for me.

Is the warning messsage telling me what IT did? It sure seems like it's advising ME to do something.

If it's telling me what IT did then shouldn't it be explicit as to whether it suppressed an entire instance or just modified what gets replicated in the pattern?

Sorry, but I'm still confused.

Let's say I initially created a circle and a square, selected to create a pattern using BOTH the circle and square, perhaps ending up with three identical instances.

1) I later delete the circle from one of the instances. What's the impact of that?

2) Instead of deleting just the circle from one of the instances I delete both the circle and the square, effectively getting rid of the entire instance. What's the impact of that?

[etfrench]

Try it and see if the pattern icon is removed.

[g-andresen]

Hi,

Even if you have deactivated the history, you can edit the sketch.

However, you then have to remove or add resulting bodies manually.

günther

[RogerInHawaii]

There is no pattern icon. This was a pattern done within a sketch. There is no history/timeline of the various operations done within a sketch. The only icon that appears in the timeline is the sketch icon.

[RogerInHawaii]

OK, I had never noticed that Pattern icon or the "Edit Pattern" option (by clicking on that pattern icon)  within a sketch before.

I just now played around with it a bit and it appears to me that the Pattern Icon ONLY appears (during the initial creation and editing of the sketch) with the very FIRST pattern that you add to a sketch. I added a couple of additional patterns and no such Pattern Icon appers for them and there appears to be no way to get the Edit Pattern option for the  additional ones. 

I did a Finish Sketch and then brought it back up again and THEN the Pattern Icons appear for ALL the patterns in the sketch.

So, this would apprently help me for when that warning message pops up, which happens when I just go in to a sketch and start deleting lines and such, without regard to the fact that they may be part of a pattern. Perhaps that warning message could say something like,

"The item you are trying to delete is part of a sketch pattern. You should consider clicking on the pattern icon for the pattern and select the Edit [ Rectangular or Circular] Pattern option if you wish to Suppress individual instances within the pattern".

And maybe include the actual Pattern Icon in the message so user knows what to look for. Maybe also be clearer as to what happens if you proceed with just deleting some PART of an instance.

There is just so much to learn about Fusion 360. The way many (me included) learn how to use it is just by using it, which means that warning and advisory pop-ups play a large part in the learning curve. The better the those messages are, the more informative they are, the better for the user.

[Fabbunny69]

Hi @RogerInHawaii,

I just came across the same issue and it seems that what is meant by 'pattern icon' is actually 'pattern constraint icon'.

Make sure constraints are on in your 'sketch palette' and click on the 'pattern constraint icon' in your drawing to bring up the original pattern parameters.

Constraints stay in you drawing until you remove them, no connection to the time line.

Thanks for raising this issue it helped me a lot, especially @g-andresen little screencast.