Dynamic Offset Geometry

[Anonymous]

Hello, my name is Niels and I am a designer of dikes in the Netherlands. My idea/question is about subassembly composer.

 Example subassembly dikeWe love using the composer for our type of projects. Within the dikes there is many types of material that are needed to apply for defending the county from the water, since a large part of the country is beneath sea level. A example of the subassemblies we use is displayed above.

For programming these material layers (offsets of the top) we now use a workaround with 2 auxiliary points to create a intersectionpoint... its a lot of work and it just doesn't feel it is a clean and easy way to do the things.

  Close-up of material layersWorkaround with auxiliary points

Nowdays there is also a tool that is "Offset Geometry". This could be the solution for our problem, if it was dynamic... 

Offset Geometry functionWish: offset distance controlled by input parameterGenerated points are related to origin instead of offsetted points

When using the offset geometry function, points are created from the origin. These are static and our wish/idea is to make them dynamic 🙂

[CivilFlow]

Great idea. 

My work a round has been to use Angle and Distance point type to build the lower offset layers.  You will have to have an auxiliary line (AL1) to reference at first to calculate the side slope angle.  Then you can Define a Variable called SideSlopeAngle with math.atan(AL1) to get the auxiliary line's angle in radians.  Then for the lower offset point hinges you could use Angle and Distance point type where "Angle" will be 90-(((math.atan(SideSlopeAngle)*180)/math.pi)/2) for the Right Side hinge point and "Distance" will be Offset thickness / math.cos(SideSlopeAngle/2).

This will keep offsets layers dynamic to upper layers.  I hope this helps in the interim. 

[aflewelling]

Offset Distance only works with a static value. This is not functional.

Please fix the Offset Distance field to accept variable/parameter values. Thank you.

[camden.n.dean]

@aflewelling 

See this post https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/civil-3d-forum/subassembly-composer-offset-geometry-parameter/td-p/10...

You might find it useful.

Also, is that a Taylor Engineering logo that I see?

-Camden