Default offsets at zero work better than anything else. Not sure why you cannot use zero.
Older Creo 2 releases had some serious patterning problems. Knowing that, I am still on M040.
Look up Copy Geometry...
...or resort to importing an IGES saved version.
Everything PTC is known as "touchy"... but never unstable 
Seems like offset 0 remains the same surface.
Workaround could be: offset +1mm and the "offset approcimate" it back -1mm 
I know paterning in surfacing can be a pain 
I see no other way than what you tried now with the approcimate offset.
Ssome ideas that you could trie are. (if posible)
Trie to avoid the tangentional lines, use splines instead of lines and arcs
Create reference patterns, instead of patterning the colmplete surface, pattern the features seperately using ref pattern.
Or if nothing helps create them seperatly and dont use pattern. then you can tweak the features to avoid the patch intersection.
Stefaan
Dean,
Yes you are right, i will model something new regardless of technique used. What i meant was that if i can add a feature, that is actually not a modelling feature it would be great. In short, i want to use the already created geometry and make something out of it, like "i want to use one of the pink icons and not a blue one". I do think we are talking about the same thing , and that we understand each other
Regarding patterning a surf first and then boolean it, that could work unless like in this case when the feature i want to pattern is a "offset expand" feature. (sorry for not giving you all the info regarding this model) When making that feature, i get a geometry that i want to pattern using reference pattern and most of the times it works, but sometimes it fails. The failing of the pattern can most often be connected to when a instance gets close to an intersection or something like that. If i copy the surfs made out of the expand feature, i cant make a ref pattern (logic) so thats not an option here as i see it? (thats another question) .
Thanks for your effort in trying to help!
//Tobias
Yes, now i´m describing 2 issues here. And i think that they are related in that way that if i can solve the single patch surface thing.
please take a look at the pic below:
IF... the green surface where made of, let say 5 different surfaces, (that are made by boundaryblends using curves and so on) , then it would have intersections between the quilts , and it would have patch lines (now i just made a quick style surf to show my actual problem) . Then i want to use "offset expand" to make the geometry i want to pattern, in this case "the stars" . (i could use use "offset- with draft feature" to get drafted sides on my stars, but i think those 2 works the same way techically speaking) . As you can see, it works just fine in the pic below, but when "the green surf" is more complex, then sometimes the pattern just wont work. I do believe that if the green surf is as clean as possible, my chances to get the pattern to work will increase.
So in that way , to answer your nr1 and 2 , i will begin with nr2: "You will have to create a uniform surface that duplicates the topography without the discrete faces" . That´s exactly what i want to do, but i would like to achieve this not by modelling a new surf, i would like to know if there is a command that i´m not aware of, or a technique for doing this without actually create a new surf. The closest i got is to use "offset"-"special handling" and "approximate")
So, nr1: one solution that comes to mind after reading your post is that i perhaps could make the "stars" in a separate model, and then import it somehow using publish, and relate it to a c-sys thats patterned (could first create a datumpoint for the c-sys location and first pattern the point, and then the c-sys to ref to that, then perhaps the imported geo could be patterned in someway using reference pattern....or.., i dont know, could work...maybe. 
, but then i will get an unwanted connection to a separate model.
I could off course change the way of making the stars, and just model them using an extruded surface thats related to a point and then ref pattern it, and solidify... ? (here an udf would be nice)
//Tobias
Hi ron,
Please elaborate your thoughts . The thing is that i want to get a single patch surf out of already created parametric surfaces. The surfaces thats alreday crated is made of several sweeps (old scholl "variable section sweep), some boundaryblends, and/or isdx surfs thats merged together in to one single quilt, but then i want to get rid of, or atleast cloce to, the patchlines. I cant see how grouping the features could help, but maybe i´m missing something!
//Tobias
