How to edit this geometry without everything dependent on it becoming invalid and falling apart

[autodeskEDSDZ]

I have the geometry below (Segments/Sketches/Half) that I would like to change: replacing the parts stroke out red (edges at the top and the two arcs) by the green ones (co-linear lines at the top, lines replace arcs at the bottom)

I can easily do this in this sketch but this geometry is used in Segments/Sketches/Full as source of a circular pattern (to create the upper half) which output is then uses in a rectangular pattern to create the second digit and again to create the 3 2-digit groups. There are also offsets to the geometry from Segments/Sketches/Full in Case-4D/Sketches/Segments that are then extruded.
The output of all this might also be used with constraints and dimensions to position other stuff.

When changing the geometry in 'Half' by inserting the new lines and deleting the old stuff, things in 'Full' become invalid.
When projecting the missing lines from 'Half' into 'Full' and adjusting the objects to be used for the circular pattern, the depending rectangular pattern disappear suddenly. And so forth...

I could not find a way to do this edit without practically reconstruct most of the project, witch would be a lot of work and error-prone.
Any suggesting how to do it?

[dariusz.wedrychowicz · Accepted solution]

No sure I understand correctly what you are trying to achive. However I don't think that's possible. There are to many dependencies also the lines you are tring to remove are projected, so baisically a lot of changes required. But this can be solved differently. Adding lines to sketch without removing anything, then dependencies are intact. Then you need to modifty sketch "Full" and project new pieces of sketch. Next modify the circular patern and  rectangular paterns (inside the "Full" sketch adding the newly projected lines. After doing that roll the histrory marker before the rectangular pattern of extruded (removed) "digit" , extrude profiles created by the lines addition. Move the marker at the end and modify the two rectangular patterns which are after the extrusions you created.

The attached is the file with modifications , only the dimensions should be added in the sketch "Half".

[autodeskEDSDZ]

This is almost what I have tried first. I did not remove anything from Half. In Full I removed the arcs from the circular pattern. Why does removing them from the circular pattern causes the whole rectangular pattern to disappear instead of just not contain the removed source parts?

For future designs, is there a strategy to avoid such problems?

[dariusz.wedrychowicz]

Not sure about the circular pattern. I don't know what's inside of this software. But if I were to guess is is the way the references are made. The rectangular pattern references not to the circular pattern direcly but to the lines it created. So, changes (removed line) to the circular pattern are seen by it as a missing line. Not sure there's a way to reference the pattern instead of lines on the sketch level.

I don't feel like an expert so don't feel comftable giving advice. However not fully understand why you approached this in such a complicated manner, creating so many dependancies. Maybe there's a good reason for that. It would be much faster and easier to create just one "digit" as a one sketch or half of it and then use 3D patterns. Even if you had to draw the sketch from beginning with a good planning only the first extrusion whould need to be "repaired" the rest should update without errors.
But it is easy to say that when you have created a design, much harder to come up with the good solution in the beginning.