Can you exclude elements in a pattern using Pro Program or other methods?

[Nick_W]

If I have a part with a large pattern of holes in it, is there a way to turn those holes off or on using Pro Program, for different family table instances of that part?

So if this is my generic part.

and I want one instance of this part to look like this..

and one instance to look like this

Is there a way to do that in pro program so I can just create a parameter and turn those specific locations off or on?

Thanks!!

Nick W.

[DavidBigelow]

I don't think that is possible to embed Pro/PROGRAM logic within a Pattern where it remains a "pattern"... typically you get an error like "pattern member should have the same condition as the leader".

It looks like you can do this with a Pattern Tables...  Which is pretty slick...

https://www.ptc.com/en/support/article/CS25675

The brute force way would be to create individual/unrelated features with unique names and references, generate a Pro/PROGRAM logic block around each feature and then use a parameter to suppress what you need.   A bit painful to setup -- but works great in the end.

Dave

[Nick_W]

Pattern Table was the direction I thought I might have to go if something like this didn't exist.  Thanks for the input!!

[KenFarley]

A way I've done this kind of thing is to put the pattern in as the full grid, then add features to "fill in" the holes I want excluded. I almost hate myself for doing this kind of hacky stuff, but it works. For your situation, you could have a "filling" feature for each configuration, turn them on/off as needed, etc.

It's not an elegant pure pattern solution, but it will work reliably. All on the assumption that you're dealing with simple geometry like your example showed.