| CPC G06F 30/17 (2020.01) [G06F 30/12 (2020.01); G06F 30/20 (2020.01); G06F 2111/20 (2020.01)] | 25 Claims |

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1. A computer-based method comprising:
displaying a visual representation of a base geometry as part of a design in a graphics region of a computer-aided design (CAD) software program, wherein the base geometry comprises a co-edge chain comprising a plurality of co-edges connected by co-vertices;
enabling a user to add a geometric entity to the visual representation of the design;
designating a first one of the co-vertices in the base geometry as a reference co-vertex;
calculating a co-vertex descriptor for the reference co-vertex and for each respective one or more other co-vertices in the base geometry, wherein a corresponding one of the co-vertex descriptors for a particular one of the co-vertices comprises an ordered array of numbers in computer memory that represents: 1) properties related to one or more previous co-edges, relative to the particular co-vertex, in the co-edge chain, and 2) properties related to one or more next co-edges, relative to the particular co-vertex, in the co-edge chain;
predicting a location and orientation in the visual representation of the design for one or more copies of the geometric entity based on a comparison of the calculated co-vertex descriptor for the designated reference co-vertex and the co-vertex descriptor for each respective one of the one or more other co-vertices;
displaying, as a suggestion to the user, a visual representation of each of the one or more copies of the geometric entity at a corresponding one of the predicted locations and orientations in the visual representation of the design;
enabling the user to accept at least one of the copies of the geometric entity suggested on the display; and
updating the design, and the visual representation of the design, to include the at least one copy of the geometric entity, in response to the user's acceptance.
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