I'm a long time SW user, and one that uses most of the wonderful functionality of the program, from boundary surfacing to sheet metal. In general I'm a big fan of the program, but sometimes....
If anyone wants to waste a good couple of hours, or if any lecturer at a drafting academy wishes to pointlessly occupy their students on a day that they would rather visit the local pub, then simply try to recreate a 'engine turning' finish on a part (otherwise known as Damascening).

I had such a requirement today, and it almost drove me up the wall. If you're not sure what I'm referring to, then Google 'Images of engine turning'.

I had the requirement today of creating such a cosmetic appearance on a part - easy stuff, right? Create a sketch with multiple concentric contours and then a tiny cut extrude to simulate all the brush marks.
No - simply because SW doesn't allow you to effectively vary the instances of a linear pattern when mirrored or repeated in a different axis.

I know this sounds like a gripe (and it is), but go on - give it a try. I'm genuinely interested in what responses will result.

If anyone wants to just sound off and tell me what I should have theoretically done, please don't bother - the chances are very good indeed that I know more about SW than someone who would post such a reply.
But if anyone can be bothered to genuinely attempt to replicate the problem, then I would really appreciate the feedback. I've completed the task, but it really got my back up, in terms of SW ineffectuality.

It has to be said that the job was done on my 'craptop', as opposed to my seriously powerful office desktop, which didn't help one bit as every feature took forever to rebuild - but still, there are some serious issues with SW, which is fundamentally a single thread/process program - the amount of data it compiles for a simple part is just ridiculous.

K.I.S.S.

 

Solidworks has decal function that will put an appearance finish on a surface. You may have to make your own decal to get the look you want, but it should work. Look for surface finishes in the appearance property manager.

AceEngineer

 

Hi,'Ace'

I'm going to break my own rule and reply to the type of comment that I said I wouldn't reply to in the original post, and I'm doing so solely because I believe your advice and comment is sincerely well intentioned, if slightly off the mark.

I assure you that I'm fully aware of the decal function in SW - I've been using it for the past 15 years.

That doesn't change the simple fact that I would still have to recreate the same drawing as before and then replicate it with a linear pattern to form the decal.

It's also pertinent to note that a decal will not provide me with the surfaces required to generate accurate ray traces for rendering.

That's my whole point with regard to this little rant - SW lacks flexibility in this regard. It should be eminently possible to create random instances and repeat spacings of a single feature and a initial linear pattern. It doesn't, so my request was to get some innovative input from other SW users who have actually attempted the task themselves - I assure you that it's more complex than you would initially assume.