SolidWorks 2010 Bible

Part II: Building Intelligence into Your Parts

Circular Pattern

The Circular Pattern feature requires a circular edge or sketch, a cylindrical face, a revolved face, a
straight edge, an axis, or a temporary axis to act as the Pattern Axis of the pattern. All the other
options are the same as the Linear Pattern — except that the Circular Pattern does not have a
Direction 2 option and the Equal Spacing option works differently.

Equal Spacing takes the total angle and evenly divides the number of instances into that angle. The

name equal spacing is a bit misleading because all Circular Patterns create equal spacing between

the instances, but somehow everyone knows what they mean.

Without using the Equal Spacing option, the Angle setting represents the angular spacing between

instances.

The Vary Sketch option is available in Circular Pattern as well. The principles for setup are the

same, but you must select an angular dimension for the direction. The part shown in Figure 8.13

was created using this technique.

FIGURE 8.13

A Circular Pattern vary sketch

Curve Driven Pattern

A Curve Driven Pattern does just what it sounds like: it drives a pattern along a curve. The curve
could be a line, an arc, or a spline. It can be an edge, a 2D or 3D sketch, or even a real curve
feature. An interesting thing about the Curve Driven Pattern is that it can have a Direction 2, and
Direction 2 can be a curve. This pattern type is one of the most interesting, and has many options.