KOMPAS-3D v23

Geometrical array is a such an array that when you create it, only faces and edges of objects being copied are actually copied. Operations and their parameters are not copied. Thus, a geometrical array is created and rebuilt faster than usual arrays.

A geometrical array can be created only when you copy objects of Operations . In this case, in the section Array Parameters, there is a toggle switch Geometrical Array.

To create a geometrical array, set the Geometrical Array toggle switch to the I (enabled) position.

Requirements for creating a geometrical array

A geometrical array is built in the following way:

1.copies of faces of the source operation are created and placed in the model according to the specified array parameters,

2.copies of faces are knitted in a single surface with faces of the existing solid to form a new solid.

A solid can be formed within a surface provided that the surface is closed. Therefore, if faces of array instances do not form a closed surface with faces of the solid, knitting with the formation of a new solid is impossible. In this case, when you confirm the operation a message stating a damaged solid topology is displayed, and the geometrical array is not created.

During creation of the array, you can see the faces that are copied in each case: they are highlighted in the graphic area, see Figure 1.

Fig. 1. Copying an element of the same shape located differently in the part:

a) from faces A, B and C, only faces B and C are copied, therefore building a geometric array will be impossible;

b) all the three faces are copied and the geometrical array will be built

The figures below show examples of building arrays of operations for deleting and adding material in parts of various shapes.

Fig. 2. Copying the cut element:

a) the geometrical array will be created;

b) the geometrical array will not be created as a face is missing in the front part of the cut copy

Fig. 3. Figure 3. Copying a glued element:

a) the geometrical array will not be created as a face is missing in the top part of the jut copy;

b) the geometrical array will be created

Besides the main condition of the closed solid surface described above, the following conditions should be met to built a geometrical array:

•The array instances should not intersect with each other.

•All the copied operations should either add or delete material. If both types of operations are selected, the array is created only for operations of the type of the first operation in the list to be copied, not for all the operations.

•If the model contains multiple solids, operation copies should be glued to (cut from) the same solid that the source operation is glued to (cut from).

Form and dimensions of geometric array instances

Geometrical array can contain only instances of the same form and dimensions. In this regard, pay attention to the following features.

•If the original object is obtained by bumping to a surface, then when creating a usual (not geometrical) array each array instance is bumped to the same surface that the object being copied is. As the result, instances may have different heights and edge forms. When creating a geometric array, each of the instances will be an exact copy of the source object.

•If the shape and dimensions of array instances are changed using tables of modifiable variables, creating a geometrical array is only possible when all variables and their assigned values are deleted from the table. Thus after setting Geometrical array toggle switch into I (enabled) position a message about variables to be deleted appears on screen. By pressing Yes button, you can delete the variables and start constructing a geometric array, or you can press nan and abandon creating a geometric array.