Why are my variables not working when set for feature driven pattern

brad_phelan

I have the following profile designed using a variable width



In my custom feature I have tried the following

      annotation { "Name" : "Profile", "Filter" : SketchObject.YES, "MaxNumberOfPicks" : 1 }

      def.profile is FeatureList;

       ...

        setVariable(context, "width", 115 * millimeter);

        applyPattern(context, id + "sk0", {

                    "patternType" : PatternType.FEATURE,

                    "instanceFunction" : valuesSortedById(context, def.profile),

                    "transforms" : [transform(vector(50, 0, 0) * millimeter)],

                    "instanceNames" : ["a"]

                }, identityTransform());

        setVariable(context, "width", 315 * millimeter);

        applyPattern(context, id + "sk1", {

                    "patternType" : PatternType.FEATURE,

                    "instanceFunction" : valuesSortedById(context, def.profile),

                    "transforms" : [transform(vector(100, 0, 0) * millimeter)],

                    "instanceNames" : ["a"]

                }, identityTransform());

       
The profiles are patterned



but the two new sketches don't accept the width variable. Any idea what I am doing wrong?

konstantin_shiriazdanov

check if the entity that is refferenced by the "width" dimension is internal geometry of the sketch, i would reccomend put a point to the sketch origin and apply a fix constrain to it. then dimension everything relative to this point/ all the external sketch refferences are droped by feature pattern and it is the main problem

brad_phelan

Ok. That did the trick. 

konstantin_shiriazdanov

check if the entity that is refferenced by the "width" dimension is internal geometry of the sketch, i would reccomend put a point to the sketch origin and apply a fix constrain to it. then dimension everything relative to this point/ all the external sketch refferences are droped by feature pattern and it is the main problem

brad_phelan

 I have a lot of constraints to the origin. Ok I'll try your fix. Thanks

brad_phelan

Ok. That did the trick. 

brad_phelan

@ilya_baran When doing this I would suggest an improvement to applyPattern. Currently I think I have to do a loop

   for(;;;){
       setVariable(context,...);
       applyPattern(context,...);
   }

it would be nice if applyPattern had an extraparameter

variables of type array of map where variables for each instance could be set. 

konstantin_shiriazdanov

I would even request an option of feature pattern to not to drop external sketch references

brad_phelan

Note the 220 calls to generate the below take about 5 seconds. And yes +1 to not dropping the external refs. 

david_gregory

Hi-

Does anyone have a link to a FS that does this setVariable inside a for loop with a pattern?  I want to do essentially the same thing and I'm not getting the array syntax.

david_gregory

Perhaps this is a bit beginner, but I don't quite understand the array syntax in FS.   This is not quite working:

        definition.entities = definition.bodies;
        definition.instanceNames = names;
        definition.transforms = transforms;
        for (var k = 0; k < size(transforms); k += 1)
        {
            setVariable(context, "dCharacteristic", .030*(1 + (k*.002))*inch);
            applyPattern(context, id + ("pattern" ~ k), definition, remainingTransform);
        }

john_mcclary

what error message are you getting @david_gregory ? 
If you click the FeatureScript notices button it will flyout a console output on the bottom of the screen If you toggle on Monitoring you can see the result of the last committed script