If you have attended one of our essential courses, you are familiar with Geometry Pattern. If not, it’s very important to understand why Geometry Pattern can save you loads of time in modeling. In this Video Tech Tip, we will explain how to use the Geometry Pattern in SOLIDWORKS.

Patterning is complex – the more complex the pattern, the more SOLIDWORKS is working in the background to make sure everything is robust and changeable. One of the great things about patterning, is that it patterns the entire feature. This means it patterns even the end conditions of an extruded cut. Sometimes, this is helpful and we have a cut that is offset from the bottom surface of an irregular shape. Other times, this is not helpful and we have 500 of the same holes that are identical.

Geometry Pattern tells SOLIDWORKS to ignore the intelligence in the feature itself and simply pattern the geometry that it creates. This will ignore the end condition of the feature, like the cut we described, but can save tremendous time. One simple click and this part goes from about a 25 second rebuild time to under a second. Since we’re using sheet metal, we know the material thickness is the same, so the same cut will work every time.