perforated sheetmetal

[Anonymous]

i'm trying to draw a perforated metal staircase , if i draw a 2400mm x 1200 sheet with 6mm holes 10mm spacings,  approx 29000 holes, (this would be one of many) after waiting and waiting for rectangular array to load, any next move the program crashes

is there something in inventor pro that i don't know about or the program just can't do it?

i'm using 2018 pro

[Anonymous]

Correct, it's to much for Inventor to handle. There are a few options though:
1. Instead of drawing the perforations, assign an appearance that has a look of your perforations. (you may need to search the web or even make your own)
2. Pattern only a small portion of the perforations as a representative look of what you are trying to achieve.

Beedub

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! Could you attach your attempt here? It should work but it depends on the options you choose in Pattern dialog. If your machine has less RAM, you could run out of memory due to the massive number of holes. Share your file here. Forum experts can suggest better workflows.

Many thanks!

[rhasell]

Hi

Besides the solution posted above.

If you absolutely have to do the pattern, then try the following setting. (This will help, but is not the best solution)

[Anonymous]

1. In the appearance browser there's stainless satin coarse screen
which puts the holes in, and you can change hole size and spacing, but it
puts the holes everywhere not where you want them
2. What I don't understand , if you use appearance and it places holes
through your solid without hesitation why can't you draw it
3. Or do a small portion but that's not what I'm after

[Anonymous]

Appearances work by overlaying a picture on the surfaces. In other words, purely visual as opposed to a feature.

I guess you need to ask yourself whether you REALLY need the actual perforations or can you get away with a representation.

In most cases a representation is sufficient. If you need nice renders of your piece then you'll need to live with the performance hit.

[Anonymous]

Hi, using optimised makes it work but that's about it

I don't have a drawing ,it keeps crashing ,just draw a rectangle ,extrude
5mm add some holes

I have 16GB of ram, my friend 64GB, no difference to outcome, sorry I tell a
lie he got one fold

What I don't understand, if you use appearance and it puts holes through a
solid with no hesitation why can't you draw it

cheers

[Anonymous]

need to be able to draw it for fabrication purposes

[Anonymous]

Have a read here:
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com.au/2011/04/textures-bump-files-and-ral-colors-for.html


Essentially the appearance is not making holes, it is making the picture of the hole devoid of colour, thus making it 'see through'.

[Anonymous]

yes but you won't get much further than that

[rhasell]

Can I ask why you are working with a full size sheet?

If you are making a stair case, why don't you just make one step tread plate, and pattern the holes on that?

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! When it crashes, did you submit the crash report? If yes, please send me an email (johnson.shiue@autodesk.com). I would like to take a look at the report and understand the crash better. In the meantime, please attach your file here so forum experts can help take a look.

Many thanks!

[mcgyvr]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

need to be able to draw it for fabrication purposes

---

Not gonna happen in Inventor without major slowdowns at best...

If you need to render then use an appearance..

If you are having a custom perforation pattern then I would suggest creating a sketch in Autocad or Inventor that just shows the intended pattern and use that..

If off the shelf then just specify the material and don't add the holes at all.. 

Or a few other workarounds..

The software in general does not handle stuff like that so its best to use a workaround of some sorts..

If it a one off then just deal with the slow processing times but if you use that file often then seriously.. do not do it.. 

[dgorsman]

When you say "... for fabrication purposes", what *precisely* do you mean?  Are you generating a data file to send to automated equipment?  Or...?

[SBix26]

---

@Anonymous wrote:
1. In the appearance browser there's stainless satin coarse screen
which puts the holes in, and you can change hole size and spacing, but it
puts the holes everywhere not where you want them
2. What I don't understand , if you use appearance and it places holes
through your solid without hesitation why can't you draw it
3. Or do a small portion but that's not what I'm after

---

1. You may want to assign this appearance to just a particular face rather than the entire part-- select the face, grab the appearance drop-down menu and select the coarse screen you mentioned above.

2. An appearance with a perforated texture does not place holes through your solid.  It only places a picture of holes on the faces you select; it's an illusion, but a very useful illusion.  But be careful: if you ask Inventor for the mass of such a part, you will get the wrong answer, because the holes do not actually exist in the model, just in the appearance. And the reason why putting the actual holes in the solid brings Inventor to its knees is that maintaining data for each of 29006 individual faces (the six faces of your original cubic solid plus all the holes) costs a lot of memory and processing.  If your holes are hexagonal instead of round, multiply the 29000 by six, and that's just for faces.  I don't know whether edges and points are maintained separately or not.

One thing to be careful of here is terminology.  You have referred to 'drawing' your steps and 'drawing' holes, but what you are actually doing is modeling (3D), not drawing (2D).  The drawing comes when you create an .idw or .dwg, and it's Inventor that is actually doing the drawing of your model at your direction.

Hope this helps clarify things,

Sam B
Inventor Pro 2018.2.3 | Windows 7 SP1
LinkedIn

[Anonymous]

probably should re phrase crashes to not responding or program freezes thus no error report

still researching this further with some success

i'll let you know outcome