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Jeff Wilkins
10-13-2011, 12:07 PM
Is it possible to quickly create a circle pattern in corel? For example, my students are designing a robot wheel that will have 36 holes around the perimeter of the 12in wheel to attach the tread. In Autocad it is one click, but they wanted to cut out HSE in the middle of the wheel which is easier to accomplish in corel. The other option is to cut the wheel and holes in AutoCAD and then cut the HSE in corel but I would like to do it all in one file in one software application.

Thank you.

George M. Perzel
10-13-2011, 1:40 PM
Hi jeff;
Sure-easy- set up wheel outline and layout first circle at top-then open transformation-rotate- put in 10 degrees and click apply to duplicate-repeat until all 36 are completed. can also do 12 -select them all-rotate 120 degrees and-apply to duplicate.
Good luck
Best Regards,
George
Laserarts

Lee DeRaud
10-13-2011, 1:45 PM
For some arbitrarily low value of "quickly":
1. Draw two holes spaced 12" apart (or whatever their center-to-center spacing across the wheel works out to) and select both.
2. Copy, paste.
3. Rotate 10 degrees (or 360/Number of holes)
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until the pattern is full.
This works for any even number of holes. If you've got an odd number, double it and delete every other hole when you're done.

(EDIT) Ok, it's official: George types faster than I do.

Lee DeRaud
10-13-2011, 1:49 PM
Sure-easy- set up wheel outline and layout first circle at top-then open transformation-rotate- put in 10 degrees and click apply to duplicate-repeat until all 36 are completed.Hmmm...don't you end up with a bunch of extra wheel outlines?

George M. Perzel
10-13-2011, 1:53 PM
Lee;
yea-delete them
there is also a way to do it without getting the extra outline but I don't remember just now and to figure it out would impact my nap time.
Best Regards,
George
Laserarts

John Noell
10-13-2011, 3:17 PM
Aaron, the admin/programmer here wrote a macro that does that. Called radialarray.gms I think.

Glen Monaghan
10-13-2011, 6:38 PM
For some arbitrarily low value of "quickly":
1. Draw two holes spaced 12" apart (or whatever their center-to-center spacing across the wheel works out to) and select both.
2. Copy, paste.
3. Rotate 10 degrees (or 360/Number of holes)
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until the pattern is full.

I just did something like this earlier today, only it was copying teeth to make a gear. Since you drew two holes on opposite sides of the center per your step 1, you are good to go in step 3. If, however, you start with one hole (or one tooth in my case), then you need to make sure to set the center of rotation, which defaults to the center of the selection (the single hole, tooth, whatever), is set appropriately before applying the rotation.

Also, there's no need to have separate steps 2 and 3, because you can simply skip your step 2 and "apply to duplicate" when you rotate in step 3.

-Glen

Jeff Wilkins
10-13-2011, 8:08 PM
Thanks everyone, I will pass the information on to my students tomorrow. As a work around they exported the file from corel as an idw and added the circle cutouts in inventor (autocad). They look sweet!!! What a laser can do for a robotics team :)

Robert E Mason
10-13-2011, 9:22 PM
The way I do this sort of thing is:
1. Draw the wheel outline.
2. Draw the hole and drag into position
3. Select hole, click again to show rotate handles
4. Drag centre point of hole to centre point of the wheel outline
5. Open transformation window
6. Ctrl-D to duplicate hole, rotate it 10 degrees
7. Repeat Ctrl-D until holes are all round the wheel outline.