I am working on a family that has a nested family inserted in it. The nested family has multiple types. Now I know you can control parameters within a nested family from the parent family but I want to do the oposite. I want to read parameters by type from the nested family and use that value in a formula in an array. Is this possible? It seems like it should be easy to do, the information is there but I can't seem to make it work.
Solved! Go to Solution.
Solved by DParkRMAK. Go to Solution.
I've attempted numerous methods involving Reporting Parameters, but to no avail. Any change to the nested family (including Type) seems to break the associated with the Reporting Parameter. This is assuming that you are trying to extract Parameter Values from a nested family, but I think you may be able to create a parameter formula that is driven by the nested family's Type name.
@Anonymous wrote:I've attempted numerous methods involving Reporting Parameters, but to no avail. Any change to the nested family (including Type) seems to break the associated with the Reporting Parameter. This is assuming that you are trying to extract Parameter Values from a nested family, but I think you may be able to create a parameter formula that is driven by the nested family's Type name.
Thanks for the input. I have tried everything I could think of and was wondering if I was missing something. The parameter formula using the type name was going to be my last resort. It seems that this kind of thing should be possible since the information can flow to the nested families. Why not the other way?
That would be a great thing. I went through a whole mess of trouble trying to create a Shared Family for a light fixture ballast that would be nested in the Lighting Fixtures and drive their electrical values. That would allow us to define/modify the ballasts on a project-wide basis, but alas, I was unable to achieve success in my endeavors...
I ended up just making a different type for each dimension I need for the array.
What I am working on is a line based detail family for roof decking and roof edge details. Stretch out a line and the array fills in the roof deck sections. I have a detail family with about 20 different metal roof deck profiles and it would be nice to be able to read the width of the detail to fill in the spacing for my array formula. I ended up streamlining the deck profiles down to a few. I can group them by detail width with a type per each size and then refine the style of deck with the family type parameter.
It would be so much easier if you could just read a parameter from a nested object.
I was dealing with this the other day. If the nested families are "Face Based" then you can attach them to either a referance plane or other face in your family or attach them to the faces of other nested families already loaded. For example if you were building a simple bolt family that had a bolt, washer and a nut. Instead of having a variable that defines where the washer should go, or where the nut should go, you could attach the washer to a referance plane, and attach the nut to the back of the washer (which is nested)...thus avoiding the need to read in the thickness of the washer from the nested family. This way if the washer moves...so does the nut...automagicly. Make sense? Dear autodesk, we would like the abilty to read data from nested familes. This would have been a lot easier if that was possible.
Hi,
Has this issue been resolved yet? Is it possible now to read a parameter from a nested family so that it drives other parameters in the host family?
This would be very very powerful...
Nothing has changed regarding this issue (as of 2014). I agree that this would be powerful, but unfortunately only to a few. I would not expect the status of this to change, at least anytime soon. I'd love to be wrong, though. In the meantime, you can visit the AUGI Wishlist and either vote for this or add it if it isn't there, and/or use the link below (which is frequently provided by Autodesk personnel here) to submit your feedback directly to the Development team.
Autodesk Product Support"The following link is setup for you to submit feature requests, or feedback, directly to our Development group:"
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=1109794
ok tks..
i've sent my wish