curve driven pattern - flip direction?

[nrollins]

Hi all,

I have a curve driven pattern that is propagating in the wrong direction.  I rerouted my sketch to the other end of the curve and all is good - but in a more complex example, and for future reference, how can I simply flip the direction?  I checked and unchecked the option "follow curve direction" - that seemed not to affect the pattern.  I would have thought that I could click the yellow arrow, but that does not work.  Any hints?

Thanks!

-Nate

[cmerani]

Using Creo 3.0 this is a real problem and you are not the only one experiencing it.  I use point patterns every day but the curve never seems to work for me.  Hopefully someone will see this and help us out because there has to be something we are doing wrong.

[rburgess-2]

Not sure if it matters but, I usually create a stand alone sketch in the part. I then reference it in the "curve pattern" via "project" in sketcher mode. However, I am using Creo 4.0 and all I do to change the start point is <r-clik> on the end of the sketch I want to use as the origin. (see attached screencaps)

[cmerani]

Thanks for the response.  This method is very close to how I have worked around the issue.  It would be nice if anyone could figure out how Creo determines the direction of the curve though.  I just cant seem to ever make out why it decides which direction the curve follows or why it would project it off of the curve in the first place.  It is very confusing and extremely frustrating at times.  Again, thanks for the input!

[John.Pryal]

When sketching the curve to be patterned along, be mindful of the pattern start point. In my experience the first point clicked on screen becomes the start point. So, if you were to pattern along a horizontal line & clicked left to right when sketching the line then the left hand vertex would be your start point.

John

[cmerani]

Thanks for this explanation.  I will have to do some testing with it.  It sort-of makes sense but I cant for the life of me understand why you would want a curve pattern to generate somewhere toher than on the curve.  Wouldn't you just move the curve where you want it?  It would be nice if one of the developers from PTC could explain what their intended functionality of the curve pattern is so that we can all understand it better.  Sometimes it is not realistic to have to go back into a sketch, delete the line, and re-sketch it because the pattern generates in the wrong direction.  This becomes a serious problem if other child features are referenced to that sketch.... and before someone says, just add another sketch on top of the old one for the pattern, why do we want to add features just for the sake of getting a pattern to generate the correct direction.  Some models have a model tree with so many features it can become extremely difficult to track down these sketches later, especially when you drop them on a layer and hide it so that every time the model is opened you dont see those sketches.  Anyway, rant over.  Thanks

[John.Pryal]

You are preaching to the converted. I agree with you 100%. It is ridiculous that we face these issues when using pattern curve but it has always been this way. It is things like this that really let the software down! This is such a fundamental feature that could be & should be better.

John