Patterning

[patmat2350]

I HATE this. 

I've seen this in numerous operations, this example is Patterning Along a Path. I set up the operation, F360 gives me a preview showing exactly what I want, yay; I hit "OK", and the oh-so-useful COMPUTE FAILED error pops up. 

Why Fusion, why???????????????

Here I have an old-time tugboat pilothouse, it needs vertical grooves cut into the lower band- wainscoting.

I make a cutter. Wanted to pattern the solid, but it doesn't follow the surface in the front curvature, it splays out. OK, I'll just pattern the face along my path, then extrude the 100 faces in the right direction:

 

Pull back, I see the preview pattern, just as desired:
(actually not exactly, I forgot to change Identical to Path Direction for these pics)

 

Hit "OK", and FAIL.

 

Grrr...

 

[Warmingup1953]

I feel your pain...But...have you tried to make a pattern on path of a Solid Body that can be used as a Combine cut tool?

[laughingcreek]

I imagine you would want to change the orientation-

also, patterning a feature (like  extrude) will give you some other compute options (optimized, identical, adjust) that might help.

without seeing a file, not much else to say

[patmat2350]

As above, yes, but there is no way to control the pattern of the solid parts so that they follow the surface. The tool needs something like rails in a loft, or a reference surface to follow as with the sweep tool. 

And laughingcreek, yes thanks, also as mentioned above.

[patmat2350]

But yes, the pattern tool DOES kind of work on patterned solids... just the wandering of the pattern shown here makes it useless.

Pattern splays out as it wraps around, there is no way to reference the surface I want to cut.

But again, the main point is not this patterning problem in itself. It's this behavior that I see over and over again with F360, where a preview can be successfully displayed, but then the operation fails and gives the useless "compute failed" error.  

 

[laughingcreek]

The preview is just a partial compute to give a rough visual.  The tool doesn't know there's a problem tell it fully runs.  You see this with every too (extrude, revolve,sweep, etc).

The pattern problem your seeing with the objects drifting off the path is happening because the path doesn't start in the center of the object being patterned.

[patmat2350]

Thanks, but not sure I buy the "center" argument. The 3D curve has a "normal" if you will... a vector pointing to the outside of the local curvature. This normal gets corkscrewed in space for a non-planar curve, such as what I'm trying use for the path. If the patterned feature references that local normal, it is going to go wonky on us.

Yes, a sphere centered on the 3D curve won't care!

But this gives me an idea for yet another work-around:  I'll cut a plane through the target body, take an intersection to generate a planar path... should work, at least in this case...

[Warmingup1953]

I didn't spot the compound curve!

[patmat2350]

The amazing thing is that craftsmen made this stuff by hand, with compound curves everywhere.

A different boat: