Very complex parts

You should experiment with different approaches to making this pattern

I don't know exactly how does your screen looks like, but I had some project that needed square netting

Here is what I did

1. When I cut extrude square from sheet of material and then pattern it (let's say 100 x 100) it took longest time to update

1. When patterned the same square only in X direction 100 times than pattern the pattern in Y direction I noticed little improvement in update time

2. But the best way to do this was:

Instead cutting out the holes, create the netting from each string, extrude square (cross section of the string) 100" long in X and than Y direction, and pattern each one 100 tines in X and Y

This method will speed up the update time significantly

And it makes sense SW has to calculate only 200 features unlike 10001 in first example, and if you can substitute triangle for cross section instead of square or circle for the string it would be even faster

I hope this helps

Thanks. I've tried some different methods with varying degrees of success. One thing I did not mention is that I do not need the final model to be parametric. So, at times I have done something like the following:

Model a small portion of the array in a part. Bring this part into an assembly and pattern it so that it represents a larger portion of the final part. Export that as a dumb multibody solid. Open that solid, combine bodies, and again export as a dumb solid, this time single body. Bring the single body dumb solid into a new assembly and again pattern it so that the array continues to grow. Repeat until I have the final array.

In some situations this works, but sometimes the geometry is not conducive to this kind of approach, and obviously it's less than ideal. However, using this approach I have made parts in a few hours that would have taken days if I left everything fully feature-based.

Do you need all those holes for a visuel effect or is it to be exportet to a lazor-cutter or similar?

If you need it to be cutted, simply just make the sketch on the surface, but do not make the cut feature. On the drawing you can "show sketches" and if you were to export it will still show. At least thats how we do it with all our sheet-metal parts which has loads of holes (patterns, letters etc.)

If you want it for the visuel 3D effect for some use? You will have some problems. The pattern feature is very heavy and dividing it into smaller pieces will speed it up some. So fx if you made a row of the holes 1 by 1, and then made a pattern along one axis for each of them. It really comes down to how much time you want to use making each hole as a single feature compared to making them all in a pattern. There is defo some rebuild/handling time to save... But it will still be heavy.