Mastering Feature Patterns and Linear Sketch Techniques to Complete Structural Wall Designs

In this video we are going to explore the feature pattern for the first time. We're also going to complete all of our main walls in our playground. All right, so in the last video we created width planes which allow us to run a sketch on the center of an element and then extrude in either direction simultaneously.

So let's go ahead and do that now. Go to this first width plane we made and begin a sketch. All right, I'm going to move this to the side so I have a better vantage point.

Let's grab this rectangle tool here and just draw an arbitrary rectangle. We'll establish a collinear relationship with that edge and that line. This edge and this line and this edge and this line.

All right, this is going to be set at our narrow board width. All right, and then one last time let's review a sketch pattern. We've done this a few times before but we're going to do it one more time here.

So let's go to linear sketch pattern. We'll go down to entities to pattern, select all four lines. Direction run moves left to right, so we'll bring that down to one and then collapse that menu bar.

And in direction two let's create a few more instances. In this case I want to make five. Let's give them a little bit of space and let's go ahead and close it out for now.

What I want is for these boards to tuck all the way up just underneath this deck. So I'm going to grab one of the lines on the bottom of one of these planks,  hold shift and grab the line of the top of this instance, make them collinear. Wonderful.

And then now that we've created that sketch, let's go ahead and make it 3D with extrude boss base. And for this, let's make sure that this drop down menu is set to mid plane so that we extrude in either direction simultaneously. The total thickness is going to be set to equals board thickness.

We'll uncheck merge result and we'll close the green check mark. Wonderful. There's nothing new in here that needs to be painted green, so we'll leave that alone for now.

Now let's do the same thing but with a linear sketch pattern. So the first thing I want to do, I'm going to go to this piece right here,  this footer right here and start a sketch on that board. While it's still highlighted, click convert entities.

And let's go ahead and convert the entities of this face as well. All right. Now with that done, let's go to solid bodies, highlight the top body,  hold shift, highlight the bottom body and hide them all.

We're just working with this sketch right here. Tapping N will get us to normal. All right.

Now let's highlight everything here and make it for construction. Grab the midpoint here with the center line, this midpoint with the center line and then the midpoint of this line we just created. Let's do the same thing over here.

Center line, midpoint, midpoint, midpoint. Wonderful. Now we've set ourself up to create our actual entities.

We'll grab the midpoint with the center rectangle and grab this midpoint with the center rectangle. The width of these rectangles are going to be equal. This line and this line will be collinear.

There we go. And then this line and this bottom line will also be collinear. Now these are our narrow boards, but they're moving vertically.

We actually want to set the smart dimension to the board width. Or rather the board thickness at 1.5 inches. Beautiful.

Now that we've done that, let's make our first extrusion. Extrude boss base. And for this, make sure it's set to blind and it's moving upwards.

This is going to be our narrow board. We'll assign the narrow board width. Go ahead and click out of it to see it populated.

Excellent. Close that with the green check mark. Make sure that merge result is unchecked.

All right. Now let's go ahead and hide or I'm sorry,  let's go ahead and show all those bodies that we just hid. Great.

Now what we want to do is pattern these two boards all the way up so that they terminate just underneath this plank deck. All right. So first things first, let's make sure that we're in the features tab and we'll go to linear pattern.

All right. And just like before, the first thing we want to do is select the entity we want to pattern. And in this case, it's going to be these two bodies.

We go down here to bodies, check that box. And then with it highlighted, highlight this body and this body. All right.

Now direction one doesn't say X axis or Y axis. It needs us to fill that in ourselves. Let's highlight the box.

And what we're going to do is select a line that represents the direction we want those bodies to pattern. Any one of these vertical lines will do. Just go ahead and pick one.

Beautiful. Now it's going to be patterning up and down. It's really clustered together.

So let's increase the space a little bit so we can see what we're working with. All right. Right now it's showing two instances.

We can increase the number of instances that way and close out the pattern and that would be our pattern. But instead, what I first want to do is establish where the very last instance is going to live and then decide how many instances I want to be in that pattern. So to do that,  we have to check out of spacing and instances and check up to reference.

It's going to ask us,  where do you want this pattern to end? Well, I want it to end at that surface. Now it says, okay, well, we'll end at that surface. But what aspect of your first instance is supposed to connect with that surface? We check this box, selected reference.

And the thing we want touching that top surface is this top surface of our plank right here. Select that surface. You can click outside to see how it populates.

There we go. Make sure that our number of instances with this box is set to five. There we go.

Now you can see that the pattern ends right underneath that plank. There are five instances. And the part of the plank that touches,  the part of this board that touches that underside of the plank has been assigned as this top surface.

All right. Now that we're happy with that,  let's go ahead and close it out. Before we do, let's go down here to options.

All right. And make sure there's nothing that is going to merge our results. Looks like no.

We'll go ahead and close it out. Beautiful. All right.

Let's do this one more time by creating a wall right here. So I'm going to start a sketch on one of these surfaces here. All right.

Let's go ahead and draw an arbitrary rectangle. I'm going to grab this line here and this line and make them collinear. Then why don't we just grab that vertex here and this line and make it coincident.

I'm going to grab the midpoint here and follow along to create a vertical line. Then I'm going to grab this line, hold shift, grab this vertex. And assign a midpoint relationship.

Beautiful. What we're doing is we're creating that next footer plank. Okay.

So let's go ahead, get these two lines and give this the appropriate width,  in which case it's the narrow board width. We'll close that out. Go to features and we'll extrude this to the global variable board thickness.

Uncheck merge result and close it out with the green check mark. Now we can start patterning from this plank to the top or rather to the bottom of this beam here. Okay.

So just like before, let's start a sketch on that new face. We'll go ahead and convert that entity. I'm going to highlight the entire thing and make four construction.

I'm going to set a center line starting at this midpoint to this midpoint. And then create the midpoint of that line we just made. Grab the center rectangle, start at that new midpoint, bring it up to that line.

Smart dimension. Set the width of this board as our global variable board thickness. So set the thickness of that board rather.

Close it out with a green check mark. And we're going to extrude it to make our first instance. You might have guessed by now that that thickness is going to be our,  rather that width is going to be our narrow board width.

We uncheck merge result. Close it out with a green check mark. Now we have our first instance ready to be patterned.

Let's go to linear pattern. Just like before, the first thing we do is grab what the instance is going to be. So check bodies.

Select that body. For direction one, we need to establish that it's going to be vertical. So let's pick a vertical line to assign as the direction.

It's moving the wrong direction right now, but that's okay. Let's go ahead and build the pattern. It's checked up to reference.

Great. That's what we want. Now we have to assign what that reference is going to be.

It's going to be the bottom of this beam. And we need to assign what aspect of this first instance is going to connect with this green surface. So let's highlight that box and select this top surface.

Go to this button, which is the number of instances, and we'll set that to six. Beautiful. You can see it's patterning six instances.

There we go. We might have to check out of the box to see it populate. And it's stopping right where we want it to stop.

So that's good. Let's go ahead and close it out with this green check mark. And there we go.

Now that we've built the structure, let's go ahead and build the planks that are going to conceal these support beams. All right. So that'll be easy enough.

Let's just start a sketch on this face. Create a corner rectangle. And again, you can just draw it arbitrarily first.

Create a collinear relationship here. A collinear relationship here. This footer board and that line will create a collinear relationship.

And then this is going to run more or less to the top. Actually, let's close this out. I'm going to check the distance between these two lines.

Looks like it's half an inch. Now our planks, the thickness of our planks is three-eighths of an inch. We can actually fit it right in this crevice, which is the design intent.

So I'm going to go ahead and grab this line here and this line here and make them collinear. All right. Now that I've done that, let's extrude this feature.

And for this, we're going to do plank thickness, which is 0.38 or three-eighths. Uncheck merge result. Click the green check mark.

All right. We just created a unique piece. So let's go over to our appearances tab.

Highlight, edit appearance and grab this body. Beautiful. Now we need to do that again here.

It looks like it might be the same width, but it's actually not. This one is going to be smaller in width. So let's go ahead and create a brand new plank.

All right. And just like before, we'll start with a corner rectangle drawn arbitrarily. Let's use collinear relationships to fit that rectangle right where it needs to be.

Okay. And then we'll grab this edge at the top of the footer, make a collinear relationship there. It looks like it will fit in the same space, but just to be super sure, I'm going to grab this line, hold and get a measurement.

Oh, delete that. Get a measurement between that line and this line. It's half an inch.

Perfect. This is going to nest right in that space just like before. So I'm going to grab this line and this line, make a collinear relationship,  go to features, extrude boss base.

It does have our previous dimension set, but again, this is a trap. Don't allow this to move forward the way that's currently set. We need to use our global variable.

We hit equals and go to plank thickness and then uncheck merge result. All right. This is a new body.

We'll highlight it, make it green. And then we need to create a board here and a board here. And we can actually do it at the same time because they lie on the same plane.

So let's go ahead and highlight this face and create a sketch. Let's draw two arbitrary rectangles. And they're going to be the same width.

We can assign collinear relationships on the right side and the left side. All right. Save us a little bit of time.

Grab the top edge of that footer and the bottom line of that rectangle. Make them collinear. Grab the top edge of this footer and the bottom line of that rectangle.

Make them collinear. Grab the vertical line here, the edge of that beam and this line. Make that collinear.

And then the same thing on this side. Great. Now, this is going to just tuck right here at the top and nest in this little space.

We'll grab that edge and that line and make them collinear. And this is going to fit between that little space just like we did before. So let's grab a line that represents where that will terminate.

That line here. Hold shift, grab this line, make them collinear. Close it out with a green check mark.

And let's go ahead and extrude this. Again, this is the right thickness, but it's not how we want to type it in. We want to put the equal sign.

Go to plank thickness. We use our global variable. Uncheck merge result.

Make sure it's moving the right direction, which it is. Click the green check mark. Let's go ahead and color those green.

Because they're both unique. And save your work. We just got a lot done.

Thank you. That's it for this video. In the next video, we're going to review solid body and volume management.