How to draw complex hole patterns

[geddhed]

Hello!

I am a Solidworks user, and I have done various hole patterns in the past, but it is slow and painstaking if it is anything beyond a fairly standard pattern.

What programmes / what methods do people use to create complex patterns?

Examples below:

Many thanks in advance.

Ged

[AlexLachance]

Try "Fill Pattern"

https://help.solidworks.com/2020/englis ... erview.htm

[SPerman]

Hole patterns with lots of instances are very slow in SW. I thought there was a thread on this forum, but it may have been the old one.

[CADNurd]

Hole patterns with lots of instances are very slow in SW . . .

Anyone know if that's also true for xDesign? Would be an interesting test.

[AlexLachance]

Anyone know if that's also true for xDesign? Would be an interesting test.

xDesign doesn't have Fill Pattern yet so to do complex patterns must be painful

[DanPihlaja]

Hole patterns with lots of instances are very slow in SW. I thought there was a thread on this forum, but it may have been the old one.

I believe that this is a copy of the post that you are referring to:

https://forum.solidworks.com/thread/201949

[AlexLachance]

I believe that this is a copy of the post that you are referring to:

https://forum.solidworks.com/thread/201949

Dang Dan! That was some quick finding!

[SPerman]

Thanks, Dan.

[MattW]

The two methods I would look at for the patterns shown would be curve driven pattern and sketch driven pattern, and I would guess for sketch driven pattern, at least, you will need a way to calculate sketch points outside SW and import them. It looks like the patterns shown use a combination of techniques to generate them and probably weren't generated in one shot. And, it is an interesting question.

[MattW]

I am wondering if some of those patterns aren't actually generated by a pattern or pattern like feature, but something more like a macro.

[DanPihlaja]

Honestly, for a lot of those, I would go with a graphical representation rather than an actual feature with holes.

[geddhed]

Sorry for the delay. I always forget you don't get email notifications on this forum

Thanks for the replies so far.

@AlexLachance - I don't think the fill tool is capable of any of those patterns unfortunately. Fill tool is quite a blunt tool (unless I am missing something?)

@MattW Could be curve and sketch driven, but this would be very slow, almost impossibly slow in many circumstances.

@DanPihlaja - Yeah sure, but what method for graphical representation would people use to create such accurate and organic patterns?

I think there must be some way / add on for things like this to be done in a fairly automated way. I don't believe that they were manually created.

I have done some research since this post and found that Rhino has an add on called grasshopper which does parametric equation driven patterns. That would be a hole bucketload of learning to get to grips with though.

I also found this interesting bit of research which actually highlights really well the issue / gap solidworks has. Unfortunately the solution / tool they created was an addin for inventor, which I have no access to.

(a) A pattern created by using the fill-pattern tool in SolidWorks. The pattern does not follow the containing boundary.
(b) A pattern created by our tool. The pattern follows the boundary.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/a-A ... _309888640

[AlexLachance]

Sorry for the delay. I always forget you don't get email notifications on this forum

Thanks for the replies so far.

@AlexLachance - I don't think the fill tool is capable of any of those patterns unfortunately. Fill tool is quite a blunt tool (unless I am missing something?)

@MattW Could be curve and sketch driven, but this would be very slow, almost impossibly slow in many circumstances.

@DanPihlaja - Yeah sure, but what method for graphical representation would people use to create such accurate and organic patterns?

I think there must be some way / add on for things like this to be done in a fairly automated way. I don't believe that they were manually created.

I have done some research since this post and found that Rhino has an add on called grasshopper which does parametric equation driven patterns. That would be a hole bucketload of learning to get to grips with though.

I also found this interesting bit of research which actually highlights really well the issue / gap solidworks has. Unfortunately the solution / tool they created was an addin for inventor, which I have no access to.

Screenshot_5.png

(a) A pattern created by using the fill-pattern tool in SolidWorks. The pattern does not follow the containing boundary.
(b) A pattern created by our tool. The pattern follows the boundary.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/a-A ... _309888640

You need to tweak the settings a bit to have it follow what you want. Here's an example I just made. Maybe it won't follow what you desire though.

Sorry for the frenchness

If you go into more complex patterns the fill pattern might not be what you're looking for, or it might require multiple fill patterns with different sliced zones defined. I've never created complex patterns on SolidWorks so the fill pattern has always done what I required when I needed some sort of pattern for air to go through. Just to be clear, the fill pattern can become quite heavy if the pattern has a lot of instances.

Will you use your model to produce the parts or is it only for visual display? If only for visual display, then I would go with the solution mentionned by @MattW , which is to create a visual representation using an appearance.

[geddhed]

Thanks @AlexLachance

That is actually quite a nice method. I just tried it and it killed my PC so will try again later when I have less programmes open.

Yeah fill pattern is great for many circumstances, but I'm designing car grilles at the moment and it just wont cut it when you compare to competitors.

Initially it is just concept stuff but eventually I will have to do something to be prototyped and tooled. So will need some proper CAD data eventually.

So initially yes just for visual display. Knowing what to use is tricky though as the complex hole patterns in other cars aren't just random. They reference the boundary and seem to be mathematically created.

I can create some things in illustrator and photoshop but that will only get me so far.

Thanks for your help though. It's a tricky one to solve!

[TTevolve]

I had a part with thousands of holes one time and went thru what the OP is. There is no good way to do it, but at least now the fill pattern helps some, I didn't even have that back when I did it.

I transferred it into Autocad and did the drawing and flat layout for the laser machine there in 2D. I had an area defined for the pattern in the SW part so I knew where it was in relation to other parts.

[zxys001]

When I need to do these, it's almost always manually setup something to get me exactly what I need.

[SPerman]

If it were me, I would attempt to iterate through the curves and geometry in Excel. IMO, it's easier to create, massage and pattern the equations driving the geometry.

From there I would write a macro to build a point table where the curves cross. (Probably easier said than done.)

The final step would be to take this point table and import it into SW to drive the hole location. I'm assuming that is possible, but I've never tried it.

Here's a screen grab of a simple and poorly executed example. (All of this was done in SW, just to show the intersecting geometry concept.)

[SamSpade]

There are software programs and services that will create hole patterns to match an image if that's what you're looking to do.

'Image2punch' & 'Grasshopper' for Rhino

[mgibeault]

I know that Bose and B&O use Rhino+Grasshopper to develop these patterns. But designers, particularly in the automotive industry, are very finnicky about the appearance of these holes and can spend days refining a pattern.
In this thread you'll find grasshopper definitions that will help you start with minimum fuss: https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/perfect- ... dary/86390

[geddhed]

Thanks for all your replies.

@zxys001 Yeah, that's the way I've always done them, but with this recent project and the size of the grilles it's gone beyond the limits of what I can do manually, especially at the concept stage
@SPerman Thanks, I will look into this as I have never used tables at all in Solidworks before.
@SamSpade Grasshopper seems to be the one. Thanks
@mgibeault Great, this is really good to know thanks. I thought there must be something out there that was helping to create these patterns and a few people have suggested grasshopper now and nice to have that confirmation that those 2 companies are using it. Gives me faith that learning it will probably be worth the effort as the grilles they produce are lovely.

Thanks everyone for chipping in with your thoughts, appreciate it.

Cheers

[mgibeault]

You could contact Gustavo Fontana (gustojunk) on Rhino's forum. He worked at Bose and designed countless speaker grilles. He now have his own design agency; https://www.linkedin.com/in/gustavofontana-fresco/