Joint on same shape not only on face or point

[Anonymous]

When creating sheetmetal we use threated rivets to mount the panels together to create the complete bodywork of our machines.

It's a shame that the joint function is not applicable on shapes that are identical like the example below.  It's only good for round holes and points but thats not the case here.

You can also use rectangular/circular pattern to place them if the build-up  allows this but in a lot of cases other component make this not possible and the position is therefore not always perfectly symmetrical.

With a joint this could be done with a few easy clicks now it has to be done with at least 2 constrains per rivet.   Multiply this wit a couple of hundred rivets in your bodywork and you lose a lot of time and money.

[DRoam]

Something that would work well for the situation in your screenshot would be to create your holes in your Part as a Sketch-driven Pattern. Then you would only have to place one instance of your bolt and constrain it to the master hole feature, and then create an associated Pattern for the rest of the instances. If you ever updated your hole pattern, your bolts would update, too.

This wouldn't help you if you had a bunch of bolts throughout your assembly that weren't on the same face or Part. And for those instances, I agree a joint like what you're describing would be useful.

However, the only thing Joint can't do that you need it to do is select the center of the hexagonal hole. It can select the center of your Bolt's hexagonal face because it's an actual face. But the hole's center is a void, and Joints can't currently select those (unless they're circular).

And actually, a request has already been made for this limitation to be fixed. It hasn't gained much attention yet, but adding your vote to it will help: Joint selection options - Center of Cut or Void. I definitely agree that this limitation should be fixed.

[Anonymous]

Hello,

My concern is not the placement of the bolts because the rivet always have a rond form but the placement of the rivets and indeed that's in line with the request you mention.

We use punchtools for the placement of these hexagon cut-outs so they are sketch driven and adapt  when we change the sketch they are in.

I gave a Kudo for the request you mentioned because that's indeed exactly what I had In mind.

Thank you for the kind feedback!