Is there a way of cutting a slew of holes all at once, though a solid? NOT using parametrics freature modeling

Is there a way of cutting multiple of holes, all in one process?   This job gets to be time-consuming if you have a lot of holes cut inside a 3d structural channel for example.

Is there a quicker way to cut many holes at once through a Solid?   I know you can do it with parametrics, which is not an option for me.  

thanks.

v8i  SS 10

  • While I don't know for sure, could you cut one hole and then use it to create an array?

    MaryB

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  • Don't do a lot of this sort of thing, but have you tried creating a selection set, then performing the operation?

    Connect r17 10.17.2.61 self-employed-Unpaid Beta tester for Bentley

  • If it is a smart solid, then preselect all the cutting profiles 1st, then start the cut command. It will ask you to accept the preselected profiles, once you do that you can select the smart solid & it will cut them all at once. If they are on the same cutting plane, you can select more than one smart solid to cut as well, just follow the prompts for directions.

  • Hi Abel,

    Yes, there are several ways to go about this:

    Option 1 - Cut Solid by Curves

    1. Draw holes where requiered
    2. Select Cut Solids by Curves (Terrible tool name as any shape element can be used to cut through the solid)
    3. Select Solid
    4. Select holes either via box selection or individually with Ctrl-left click after the 1st circle is selected

    Demo:

    Option 2 - Subtract Solids

    • Again draw holes where required
    • Select all holes and extrude deep enough to pass through the solid to be cut
    • Activate Subtract Solids
    • Select Solid to be cut (in your case the Parallel Flange Channel or whatever the section is)
    • Select the cylinders either via box selection or individually with Ctrl-left click after the 1st cylinder is selected
    • Left click to complete

    Demo:

    As an additional bit of information, a method which I employ when required to cut a mass amount of holes at once is to join all the cutting elements together with another solid which intersects the cutting elements.

    You might wonder why you would want to do something like that given the already demonstrated methods? Well, simply for reasons when you have to push MicroStation to its limits and punching holes takes a massive amount of time and the Parasolid 3D Modeling kernel is struggling to cope and no doubt screaming "No more!!!" inside.

    Something like this:

    The panels are shared cells to improve performance but simply modelling a single panel took ages to cut all the holes. Not fun but the time was minimised cutting them all at once where I could at least leave it calculate instead of doing 1 at a time.

  • Nice Model! Back in my V8i days I had to make a large number of holes in a weir baffle. Individual punches brought MS to its knees. Brein Bastings advised me to use a Feature Model with a hole array. That made a huge performance difference. I have no idea though if these parametric objects in Connect behave the same way performance wise to the old feature model objects, or if they are capable of creating a hole array along a circular shell object as you show in your example...