Sub Clearance for a Group of Patterned Features

[[Or...]]

Hello everyone,

I've tried to find information about this on the Knowledge Base or this forum and haven't found it, though I apologize if this has been asked before.

I have a part that looks sort of like the barrel of a revolver. In each bore there is the bore itself, along with a kidney shaped slot at the bottom. Since it is all in the same bore, I created a sub clearance group that they all use, and this works as I expected; the stylus moves from feature to feature without having to fully retract out of the bore. However, things get tricky when I want to apply a pattern to these features since I have 9 bores. I am finding that no matter what I try, the navigation will always measure FeatureA(1), then FeatureA(2) and so on instead of measuring FeatureA(1), FeatureB(1), FeatureC(1), and so on. This takes a lot of extra time since the stylus is constantly jumping from bore to bore. My ideas are:

Applying the pattern with a regular sub clearance group. This causes the probe to move through the part.

Applying the pattern with a sub clearance group that has the "CNC Loops/Macro-Safety Group" box checked. This solves the issue of going through the part, but it is still jumping around, essentially making the clearance group irrelevant as it behaves the same as just the regular CP +Z. I feel that there is more to this feature that I'm not getting.

I could try to measure all the slot features as a curve and extract the points into features later, but that sounds like a nightmare. And I wouldn't be able to measure the cylinder as part of the curve.

The closest thing I can think of is to go to Plan->Navigation->Sort features for optimal navigation, which breaks up the pattern and solves the issue of jumping around the part, but it would still need to retract all the way out of the bore for each feature to avoid driving through the part.

I have a PCM license but no experience in using it. Is there a way to do this without PCM? Am I trying to have my cake and eat it too? 

I appreciate the help.

[[Du...]]

This may help you, 

https://portal.zeiss.com/knowledge-base?id=523014

[[Ed...]]

I like to use the optimal navigation tool. It asks you if you want to break up the pattern.