Gunter Koch wrote:
<snip>
Of course I agree, that it would be nice to implement some means to warn the user of multiple possible ref patterns and explicitly ask, which to follow, but for such a thing to be worth implementing, we probably do not see this happen often enough.
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Gunter, you said a mouthful here.
I can promise you that this happens more often than not even with very experienced users. Not only the reference pattern, but axial patterns fail all too often for some silly little reference in the feature being patterned.
Most seasoned users have learned that patterns will fail and they simply have to try and try again or manipulate the geometry in some way. A serious waste of mouse-clicks and the source of much frustration. If PTC doesn't already realize that this is an issue, maybe PTC should ask the user community.
A significant pattern enhancement could be a boon to Creo 3.0. Sometimes users just give up asking after a few decades. Can you imagine the response if you tried to take away axis patterns now that its been introduced 
Any time the software has to make a choice, or is unsure, it should ask about alternate solutions. All too often I get a pattern that fails only a few instances within the pattern. A simple little change to the geometry fixes it even if the original, and several of the instances do not fail.
This one in particular was a complete failure. It would not allow me to pattern it with a largerer form tool fillet at the edges of the spherical feature which had nothing to do with the merged edges of the pattern. I spent a half a day to make this feature pattern correctly including several methods in creating the spherical dome. I ended up having to create the form tool feature 10 times rather than patterning a 10th section 10 times on the axis. I probably have 5 failed versions of this very same part all done differently, mostly because the pattern kept failing.
