Now that I got your attention – yes, the statement is true; we’ve been lying to you all along about -  the SolidWorks Linear and Circular Pattern feature.

Let me explain. I would like to start a discussion about how we’ve implemented pattern features in SolidWorks. More specifically, when you create a pattern feature, whether it is linear or circular and you select the feature to pattern and then enter the number of instances, look closely at what is previewed and then created. For instance if I create a circular plate and then create a hole in one quadrant of the plate, then do a circular pattern by 4 instances, equal spaced, I get 4 holes at 12, 3, 6 and 9 o’clock – right? Wrong! You get 3 instances at 3, 6 and 9 o’clock and your original hole feature. We’ve lied to you all along, it says in the Pattern Property Manager 4 instance, yet you only created 3. What gives? Now, if you are trying this example, do one more thing, leave it on equally spaced 4 instances, and in the viewport, change the heads-up spacing tag to 358 degrees. What happens? -  looks to be like there are three instances now with the last one slightly overlapping the original hole.

Does this cause confusion for anyone? Or is this perfectly natural to do a pattern by four instances of a hole and get, what appears to be, four holes – but only three new ones are created?

The reason that I’m making such a big deal about this right now is that my development team and I are re-evaluating our modeling features to enhance them to make them more useful and productive. One such suggestion is equal spacing for bot linear and circular pattern. I’d like to know what the SW community thinks about this – should we leave the current instance and equal spacing issue as is or should be go with a more “honest” approach and when the user specifies  3 instances, they are creating, for instance, 3 hole in addition to the original hole feature. This would make equal spacing a bit more understandable in that you would specify 270 instead of 360 deg – or would that just be even more confusing?

Regards

Mark