this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2023
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FreeCAD

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Your own 3D parametric modeler.

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FreeCAD is an open-source parametric 3D modeler made primarily to design real-life objects of any size. Parametric modeling allows you to easily modify your design by going back into your model history and changing its parameters.

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How to polar pattern a revolved surface? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Hi everyone,

I have some prior experience with Solidworks, but I wanted to try out a FOSS alternative. I've been messing around in FreeCAD for a couple hours and I have the following question:

How do I polar pattern a revolved surface?

I want to accomplish something similar to what is described in this video (12:14 to 13:44).

My ideal workflow is as follows:

  1. Create sketch (e.g. square)
  2. Pad sketch to create body (e.g. cube)
  3. Create new sketch (e.g. line)
  4. Revolve sketch to create surface (e.g. disc)
  5. Polar pattern the surface to create multiple (e.g. 4) discs
  6. Slice apart cube by 4 discs to yield 9 separate bodies

I'm stuck on step 5. Is this possible in FreeCAD? If not, are there any recommended workarounds to achieve the same result?

Thanks in advance!

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If the surface polar pattern is referenced to a revolve line such that the disc patterns do not intersect with the cube, FreeCAD will throw an error because you can't have multiple bodies within the same body entity.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Thank you so much for your reply! Not sure why I didn't see it until now!

If the surface polar pattern is referenced to a revolve line such that the disc patterns do not intersect with the cube,

I don't think this should be an issue, as the axis I'm referencing for the polar pattern should result in all patterned discs intersecting the cube.

FreeCAD will throw an error because you can’t have multiple bodies within the same body entity.

Not entirely sure I understand this part. Are surfaces considered bodies, or are only things with volume considered bodies?

I'm having difficulty creating my polar pattern in the first place. The default behaviour of the polar pattern tool seems to be to pattern my cube, rather than my disc. If I manually remove the cube from the features list and select the disc instead, the following message pops up:

None of the three options seem to result in the behaviour I expected, which would be something like this:

Any advice?

Thanks!