Hexagonal Array? A challenge...

[tomnewsom]

I'm modelling a water feature. It's a wide platform several meteres wide. On top, half-buried in screed, are loads of 135mm diameter, 100mm high, cylindrical glass blocks. The water will flow between the blocks. There are two 1m diameter holes punched through the platform, and an edge channel to catch and return the water. These boundaries include an overlap to hide the edge of the glass blocks.

The cylinders themselves will be layed out in a hexagonal pattern. Can I create an arbitrary flat surface, covered in repeating families in a hexagonal pattern, without copying and pasting 100's of items?

I have my doubts :(

[clog boy]

You could make one linear array, copy-rotate it around the center of the platform 180deg, then copy-rotate all of that 90deg along it's own center and then once more 45deg. Quickest way I can think of.

[tomnewsom]

The angles are 60 and 120 degrees, not 90, as the grid is hexagonal
Arrays aren't that great - as soon as I delete some blocks to allow the hole to come through, the aray function is lost.

I think manual copy and paste is going to have to be the way :(

[clog boy]

The angles are 60 and 120 degrees, not 90, as the grid is hexagonal
Arrays aren't that great - as soon as I delete some blocks to allow the hole to come through, the aray function is lost.

I think manual copy and paste is going to have to be the way :(

ahk mixed it up with octagonal.
Alternate option: disable Group And Associate. You can break the chain easier that way, but objects will lose relation.

[jeffh]

I'm modelling a water feature. It's a wide platform several meteres wide. On top, half-buried in screed, are loads of 135mm diameter, 100mm high, cylindrical glass blocks. The water will flow between the blocks. There are two 1m diameter holes punched through the platform, and an edge channel to catch and return the water. These boundaries include an overlap to hide the edge of the glass blocks.

The cylinders themselves will be layed out in a hexagonal pattern. Can I create an arbitrary flat surface, covered in repeating families in a hexagonal pattern, without copying and pasting 100's of items?

I have my doubts :(

The conceptual massing tools might be able to do it. You could create the surface and then apply the hexagon pattern to it. Then create a curtain panel family for the hexagon with geometry ony at the nodes of the hexagons.

P.S. I gave this a shot and it worked fine. Attached is an image of the result.

[tomnewsom]

The conceptual massing tools might be able to do it. You could create the surface and then apply the hexagon pattern to it. Then create a curtain panel family for the hexagon with geometry ony at the nodes of the hexagons.

P.S. I gave this a shot and it worked fine. Attached is an image of the result.
Not bad! I'll give that a go.