Does SW have the capability to create a pattern on a complicated surface? (Feature or in a assembly)
Envision the grip of a - say a toothbrush - I need to put a semi circular "bump" feature patterned evenly across surface of the rubber material.
I'm no ID guru, but I'll have a guess. If the bumps are simple enough, start by offsetting a copy of the surface to the height of the bumps. Make a pattern of a simple extrude. Use the surfaces to make a surface cut of the pattern, then apply a ton of fillets, etc. as req'd on the bumps. If the bumps are to complex for that, then you may be out of luck. I could be wrong, of course.
The types of patterns that you might guess would do this, like sketch or table driven, actually just project everything into the XY plane or will only accept co-planar data points. The only way I can think of that actually works, but is a little messy is to use the new "spline on surface" function in 2005 and then do a curve driven pattern. You may not get the level of control you're looking for, but it might work. I made a spherical surface body and patterned it as a body on an egg-crate type surface.
I've put the sample part I made up on my site,
matt
"Jacob Filek" wrote in news:%Bj7d.397$pw4.304@trnddc01:
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