I started a project assuming that SW Animator rebuilt between frames, and therefore would run an equation every time that added one to the quantity of a patterned part in my assembly.
I have a single part with a component pattern that is in two directions, and both values are set to 1. There is an equation in the assembly that adds qty 1 to the pattern instance integers for each pattern direction.
Now, I'm looking at this part in iso, nearly filling the screen.
The intent was that each frame would render, and then there would be a rebuild, the equation would add qty 1 to the pattern directions, thereby making 4 parts, and a view path would zoom out slightly, showing all the parts nicely centered in the viewport, rendering each file to Photoworks targas.
This would repeat until there were 50 x 50 parts or more, basically looking like multiplying rabbits.
It seems SolidWorks won't do this.
I'm on 2003 SP 5.1
My VAR tried it on 2004 with no luck either.
This is a workaround for another plan I had, which was a curve driven pattern of the same part, on a 2d spiral, starting from the center outward I was going to drive the curve driven pattern the same way, and render the animation the same way. This wouldn't carry my PhotoWorks materials from body to body so I tried another way:
I created a hidden base part with a hole I added to a curve driven pattern on a spiral, then I was going to use that part in an assembly, modifying the instances of the curve driven pattern, and the assembly was to add parts in the new holes with a derived pattern of the parts. This wouldn't work either.
If anyone has any other ideas, I'd be grateful.
--Matt Schroeder