About Assembly Pattern

A typical assembly pattern comprises three main elements: an assembly pattern feature, pattern instances directly underneath, and assembly pattern engineering connections.

These specific engineering connections position the original component and the instances of the resulting assembly pattern.

Creating an assembly pattern involves selecting components to instantiate in an assembly pattern either in the tree or in the 3D area.

To customize an assembly pattern, activate or deactivate pattern instances.

Important: If the component to instantiate contains at least an assembly feature with impacts, you can either: Copy all impacts regardless of their action perimeter or Copy impacts that affect the involved representations only.

Consider the following product structure to create an assembly pattern:

• A root product.
• A 3D shape containing the geometrical set, of axis systems or the existing specification pattern (that can be originated in Part Design...)
• A 3D shape to be instantiated.
• An engineering connection to constrain the 3D shape to be instantiated with an axis system or with the Part Design pattern origin.

Once created, the assembly looks like this:

• N patterned instances of the instantiated 3D shape are added with a link to the set of engineering connections.
• An Assembly Pattern feature is created in the tree.
• N+1 pattern engineering connections are created to define positions of each 3D shape instances, including the original instance.

  Important: The pattern engineering connection can be edited and the pattern constraint can be replaced by one or more other constraints using flexibility capability. Delete the Assembly Pattern feature deletes all the pattern instances except the original component.

• Any patterned product instances, including the original instance, can be replaced by another product.

This recommended assembly structure allows you to instantiate the root product in another assembly pattern.

Important: You can automatically define the names of created instances in Assembly Pattern by using Data Setup. See Assembly Pattern Resources: Assembly Pattern Instance Renaming.

The pattern specifications define how instances of the original component are created.

The table below describes pattern specifications according to the type of selection.

(-) Not applicable.

Selection	Rectangular	Circular	User Defined
A point or a vertex	A linear pattern along the direction defined by the point or vertex and the component position. There are two instances by default.	-	-
Two points or vertices	A rectangular pattern along two directions defined by the two points or vertices and the component position. The default number of instances is two per direction.	A circular pattern along the circle defined by the component position and an axis defined by the two points or vertices. There are two instances by default.	-
N points or vertices	-	-	A user pattern which position is defined by N points or vertices.
A line, an edge or an axis	A linear pattern along the direction defined by the line, the edge or the axis. There are two instances by default.	A circular pattern along the circle defined by the component position and an axis defined by the line, the edge or the axis. There are two instances by default.	-
Two lines or edges or axes	A rectangular pattern along two directions defined by the two lines, edges or axes. There are two instances per direction by default.	-	-
A plane or a planar surface	A rectangular pattern along two directions defined by the plane or the planar surface. There are two instances per direction by default.	-	-
A revolute surface, a face, a circle or a circular edge	-	A circular pattern along the circle defined by the component position and an axis defined by the selection axis. There are two instances by default.	-

The Specification Flag lets you understand and manage the assembly pattern definition.

The Specification Flag is displayed along with the assembly pattern in the 3D area.

This flag displays the assembly pattern icon and name.

Clicking the arrow below the assembly pattern name lets you access the following commands:

• Create rectangular specification using GSD command : creates or modifies the current assembly pattern using a Generative Shape Design rectangular pattern definition.
• Create circular specification using GSD command : creates or modifies the current assembly pattern using a Generative Shape Design circular pattern definition.
• Create user defined specification using GSD command : creates or modifies the current assembly pattern using a Generative Shape Design user defined pattern definition.

The Keep link / option lets you link or unlink pattern instances using a pattern engineering connection.

By default, the option is turned on: .

This panel is dedicated to the creation or edition of assembly pattern.

This panel contains the following sections:

• Pattern inputs: component and specification or reference element,
• Options for the associativity,
• Advanced options for impacted component and flag display,
• A legend for colors associated with elements.