Design Like Nature: ToffeeX’s New Patterning Feature For Engineering

Introducing Patterning in ToffeeX

Nature often designs with patterns. Whether it is the hexagonal tesselation of a honeycomb, the branching structure of leaf veins, or the fractal patterns of corals, repetition and periodicity have all evolved over millions of years to optimize for efficiency, strength, or transport.

It is no surprise, then, that engineers design with patterns too.

Whether it is a lattice to increase stiffness, a complex heat exchanger core, or a heat sink, repetition and symmetry aren’t always aesthetic choices. They are also key strategies for performance and reliability.

Topology optimization tools have never attempted to capture this principle. Traditional solvers explore vast design spaces with little guidance, producing impressive but sometimes unpredictable or unmanufacturable geometries. The process can feel like a black box: numbers go in, geometries come out, but there is no concept of what may have happened in between.

A New Way to Control the Optimization Process

With the new Patterning feature, ToffeeX users can embed repetition, symmetry, and periodicity directly into their topology optimization problems:

Define repeating motifs across grids, volumes, or radial symmetries
Create scalable, predictable structures without sacrificing performance

To be clear: this is not implicit modelling with TPMS structures.

It is physics-driven generative design guided by user-defined constraints and intention.

Users can now specify arbitrary grid sizes, volumes, and pattern repetitions directly within an optimization framework, unlocking new opportunities for innovative design. They can embed their intuition and engineering knowledge in a generative solver to produce manufacturable, high-performance, and application-specific patterned structures.

A 3x3x3 heat exchanger core design with the new Pattern Design Constraint

Real-world topology optimization problems are vast and non-convex, riddled with local minima (they do not look like your textbook optimization problem!).

By introducing Patterning constraints, engineers can:

Find stable optima faster and avoid local minima
Reduce dimensionality and focus on smaller scales
Generate manufacturable designs with regular, scalable patterns that translate into real-world products much more easily

The Pattern Design Constraint offers users a way to combine their intuition with a physics-driven generative design solver. By embedding repetition and periodicity into the optimization process, ToffeeX enables engineers to design smarter, faster, and more efficiently without compromising on performance or manufacturability.