Bugs: Rectangular pattern direction setting is broken

[graham.wideman]

This concerns the model (body) Create > Pattern > Rectangular function and dialog.

As it currently stands, it is inordinately difficult to actually set two directions, apparently due to incorrect dependencies between the current state of the dialog entries versus the model window UI behavior and affordances.

Details:

1. Create > Pattern > Rectangular

2. Select body

3. In the dialog: Pattern Type: Body

4. Select Directions field

5. With mouse, select an edge or an origin axis line, to indicate the first desired pattern direction

At this juncture, the UI pops up a data-entry strip, prompting the user to enter among other things a distance for the pattern,

However, if the user does that, the UI will no longer accept a second direction selection, even though the blue selection highlight in the dialog is still on the Directions field. Frustratingly, attempting to select model features for the second direction only results in odd behavior of the pattern in the first direction. And likewise for trying to click on the origin axis lines.

Instead, the only way to be able to set a second direction is to change the Distance field to zero.

The Edit Later case is worse:

The situation is even worse if the user attempts to open and edit a previously-created pattern that was set to one direction.  I have found no way to get that into a state where it would accept a second direction (even by "X"ing the Directions field). The UI also doesn't even show the origin axis lines in this "edit later" scenario.

Graham

[jhackney1972]

I do not see the "Bug" you say you are experiencing.  Take a look at the attached Screencast and see if I am doing something different.

[graham.wideman]

Thanks jhackney for taking a look. If I proceed as you did, I see the same thing as you.

However, in your video, you never actually selected (chose) the second direction.

You first selected the red (X) direction, then later accepted and used the green (Y) direction that Fusion provided by default.

So the problem I'm reporting is inability to actually choose the second direction. In your example, that would be at  0:18. At that juncture, try changing the second direction to blue (Z) instead by selecting the origin Z axis line. That's the step that doesn't work. (Along with variants such as selecting a model feature for direction, or the later edit situation.)

[jhackney1972]

The Fusion 360 Rectangular Array command is a true "rectangular" array, with the ability to array in two axes on one plane.  The two axes available are determined by the first axis selected.  It is not intended to be a "cubic" array.  To do that you would use the Rectangular Array command a second time and select all the bodies of the first array and select an axis is the second desired plane. 

So if you desire to switch the axis plane of your original array, the only way to do this is to create any array of your first single axis array in the second plane, in your case the Z axis.  See my Screencast (no sound)

So basically you have an array of an array.  I do not believe the command is broken or contains a bug.

[graham.wideman]

> The two axes available are determined by the first axis selected. It is not intended to be a "cubic" array.

I agree that this function does not support three axes. However it does indeed support selecting an arbitrary choice of two axes. Those axes can be from the three orthogonal origin axes, or from any lines (edges) in any direction in the model (and possibly others). Those two directions do not have to be orthogonal to each other. And they don't have to be in any particular previously-used drawing plane, though obviously the two selected directions indeed define a plane.

But the UI requires that you select those two directions before setting any other parameters, such as number of repetitions or spacing.

So, the second axis is not determined by the first axis. And...

> To do that you would use the Rectangular Array command a second time

...you don't have to create a 1-D pattern followed by another 1-D pattern in order to get a 2-D grid of bodies with your choice of axes. I suspect users may think that's the case due to the problems I'm reporting in the UI for this functionality.

[davebYYPCU]

I have come across what you are saying, 

my testing has worked as expected, 

start Pattern, select the both directions before distance or count.

Might help.....

[TrippyLighting]

---

@graham.wideman wrote:

...

However, if the user does that, the UI will no longer accept a second direction selection ...

---

If you select the "Directions" field again in the UI and hold down the CTRL (Windows) or CMD (macOS) key it should allow you to add the second direction to the selection.

[graham.wideman]

@TrippyLighting  Ah-hah! That's a key piece of the puzzle. Initially the UI accepts plain left-click to select (or deselect) the two directions (before setting other settings). However, later it requires Ctrl-left-click to remove or add directions. It turns out that even at the initial stage, the UI also accepts Ctrl-left-click. And Ctrl-left-click is widely used for "add to selection" so that's not unreasonable. It's just less discoverable due to the UI initially accepting click without Ctrl for first and second selections, and that doesn't work later.

Nonetheless there are some related things that don't work properly.

1. Even when the Directions slot shows "1 selected", sometimes the model view displays a 2-D array with some arbitrary default other direction. [Note 1]   However, in this state the UI does allow actually selecting a desired second direction.  (Ie: Despite there already appearing to be a second selected direction.)  So, not a show-stopper, just confusing and liable to lead users to think that the second direction is predetermined.

2. When reopening and editing a previously-created pattern, I could not find a way to get the origin axis lines to reappear to allow selecting or changing.  If they were previously chosen as the directions, then just those direction lines appear, and can't be individually deselected (but can be deselected with the Direction "X"). And there seems no way to get all three lines to appear for selecting.

But overall, @TrippyLighting 's comment is a good step forward.

Note 1. The unexpected second direction seems to appear in circumstances like the following. 

a. Select two directions, with Quantities > 1 and Distances > 0.

b. Deselect the directions (eg: using Directions "X")

c. Select one direction. The dialog retains the settings for the second direction, and applies them to the unexpected second direction. So the view shows a 2-D array.

[jw.hendy]

This is probably too late to matter, but I'm not satisfied with the above. Maybe it's not a "bug," but it's certainly a massive usability hindrance. For example, I initially wanted to pattern in only x, but upon editing I cannot add a second direction. This includes both control clicking (won't pick up the second axis even though they are displayed) or even x-ing the directions entirely and trying to start over.

In my opinion it's pretty clear this doesn't function in an accessible/intuitive manner. In all other areas of Fusion if you re-click the a box, you get to pick things (new, adding, etc.). In this case, it requires the magic condition of doing it before you do anything else, which makes no sense. I found the only way to edit was to guess which axis would  yield the two directions (unspecified/un-indicated without trial and error) that I wanted. For example, clicking x gave me x and y, but clicking z gave me z and x.

[runforitman]

Just experienced this bug. Very confusing.