How do I separate these sketch lines into individual buttons with history?

[Beetlegeuse]

Hi. I had some great help earlier and as I have kinda got stuck on another problem.

This is what I'm wondering:
I want to make button holes and have sketched out a pattern, but I need to separate each button with a space between them, like using the offset feature, but I'm not confident in the best approach to achieve what I want. I would very much like to keep history to the original sketch so that way, in case I'm unhappy with the look, I can easily modify it.

I'm adding the file with the following link which hopefully will help out in understanding my problem.

https://a360.co/2FKNa58

[Beyondforce]

Hey @Beetlegeuse,

You just need to make sure, that you are on the History Base Design 🙂

Cheers / Ben
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[Beetlegeuse]

Thanks.

But how do I break up the pattern into individual lines for each button and how do I add a space between the buttons in the best way. I suppose scaling up the pattern and then adding a negative offset would do the trick. But then my question is how do I select each button separately from this sketch I've drawn the way I've drawn it. It is an ellipse with connected lines attached to the ellips. If I try to select lines of each button it won't work as it selects the whole ellips each time.

I did try to add an offset to the lines forming the buttons inside the ellipse and connecting the new lines to the ellips, then using the trim tool. But as soon as I trim I'll lose the control to modify the shape and since of the buttons in an easy way. Would really love for it to be very easily controlled in case I'd like to modify it if it turns out that the buttons are not sized appropriately as I'm planning on printing it.

[Beyondforce]

Can you tell me more about this file? It seems like it was imported as a Mesh, is that correct?

[Beetlegeuse]

I deleted most of the stuff in the file to keep it simpler. The lcd keypad shield is an imported obj yes. Can't seem to use objs as other types of formats where I can snap to it.

But anyway, the issue I'm having is only with the lines and how to break it up into separate buttons all the while retaining its history to this first sketch shape.

[Beyondforce]

Perhaps @jeff_strater could help in this situation!

[Beetlegeuse]

Hi again.

I went ahead and modeled up my buttons, discarding my idea of trying to be able to adjust them based on the history relationship, but it would be cool if I had that option. I also had real big problems using the fillet curve tool. In some cases it didn't work every time =/

What is your impression of the fillet curve tool?

So as I said, I modeled the buttons and then I used these to perform a boolean operation with the lid. The problem now is that the buttons and the holes are the exact same size. How can I create some gap between the two. I could scale the buttons down, but if there's some approach I can do an inset type of operation.
What is your approach if you ever done anything similar to this?

Thanks for all the help. Lovely community!