I am trying to create a pattern on a cylindrical surface, starting at the simplest possible: a pattern of lines, inclined at 45 degrees. So I constructed a tangent plane to the cylinder surface, created a sketch of the first line, made a pattern of lines with 9 elements, and then got stuck -- there was no way for me to get to the OPTIONS part of the pattern, to set Follow Surface Shape and Follow Surface Direction etc. I did my homework in the sense that I watched a few YTube tutorials, but none of them were into simple things, they just dealt with more esoteric stuff that lost me after the first few minutes... If someone can point me to a good tutorial for projections on cylindrical surfaces (document or YTube), I would really appreciate the help.
My end result is to be able to draw different patterns of lines on pipes or elbows or any other rotational parts, so that when one goes to a "No Hidden" type of diagram, a pipe does not look just like two black parallel lines. Problem being that when you have multiple parallel pipes, spaced out at a distance about equal to the diameter of the pipes, everything becomes a set of equal-distanced parallel black lines over white space, making it difficult to tell which is the empty space and which is the part.
ACCEPTED SOLUTION
Accepted Solutions
The way I would do this, assuming I am understanding your question correctly
Create sketch of one line.
Then use Edit project, (select the line, select the surface to project on to
The pattern using directional, select a plane normal to the direction you want to define the direction of the pattern and give a dimensional increment.
The way I would do this, assuming I am understanding your question correctly
Create sketch of one line.
Then use Edit project, (select the line, select the surface to project on to
The pattern using directional, select a plane normal to the direction you want to define the direction of the pattern and give a dimensional increment.
Got it!! Isn't it a beautiful thing?!? Such a wonderful feeling of satisfaction after being in the dark and then starting to know what you are doing! Thank you very much, I got bogged down at the beginning, when I hit "Project chains" vs. "Project a sketch" vs. "Project a cosmetic sketch".
Not having even the faintest what projecting chains entails, I chose "Project a sketch" and from there on it was a terrible mess, no idea how I got out of it, just kept hitting cancel through all the subsequent windows until I was able to get back to Properties.
Then I chose "Project chains" and it worked -- I got my first line on the cylinder. The second struggle was with Patterns, took a while to figure out I needed Geometry Patterns vs. Patterns, because I kept getting the pattern in the tangent plane, with only one curve on the cylinder surface.
But in the end I got it, thank you again!!
Colin,
If you project your original curve onto the curved surface you can then pattern the projected curve (see images below). This should get you what you are asking for:
Mike
As long as you are on a cylinder, make one projected line and copy it. Then pattern it by direction.
You can also pattern by axis.
Select the feature (or pattern in this case), select pattern, the drop down arrow will give you all pattern options. Axis is one of them.
You just need to select an axis to pattern about and tell it how many patterns you want and what angle for the pattern increment.
