You'll be OK with the low curvature surface pictured but remember asthe curvature increases you will have issues with increment spacing and may end end up having to create multiple patterns or individual elements. As you have a curved surface it is unlikely you'll get a Fill pattern to run robustly, a Dimension pattern is generally the best option - most power, most flexibility - but you do have to watch your referencing. Remember that any references you create have to be satisfied for every instance in the pattern - this is the most common reason more complex patterns fall over.
create a point on the solid surface ref to vert planes
create a revolve on a plane thru the point - make sure you only use the point as a sketch reference, delete all other refs
Group the set of features used to create the feature - in my case, the point, revolve with internal plane and sketch, fillet
Dimension pattern the Group - if you add a dimension from the group of features you can vary it within each instance by an increment - I've added the radius of the revolve section in direction 1 and increased it by 0.5 for each instance
Then simply extrude > cut the overbuilt pattern
By projecting a curve on the surface, creating a point on the curve [ata distance from the end of the curve]and then patterning the point along the curve you can achieve a contant, absolute distance between your instances but this will only be in one direction. You may be able to pattern the pattern but I never got to the bottom of the rules for when you can do this - sometimes you can sometimes not
Sean
