Visibility States in Lookup Action

[Colin-Pearson]

Hello folks.  I apologize for beating this horse so dead, but I can not figure out much with dynamic blocks.  All tutorials I can find seem to gloss over things like "stretch frame", which point you choose to start from, etc.  These things don't appear intuitive, but I'm working through them.  

I've got exactly what I want to happen in my head and I now THINK the faux visibility states chosen by a LOOKUP ACTION will get me there... but I need help world!  I've read a bunch of @Anonymous 's posts and I feel like they ALMOST get me there.

WHAT I HAVE:

I have a wire rope sling.  Picture a metal rope with an eye/loop at each end.  These come in many diameters of the rope and overall lengths.  I have already drawn front and side views of the eyes in about 15 common diameters and made blocks of all those.

WHAT I WANT: 

I'd like to move past the manual copy/paste/put-in-the-right-place scheme that I have been using for a while now and make one dynamic block that let's the user choose and/or enter several things:

1) Choose the size (diameter) of wire rope.  I'm hoping that once I get all views of all sizes of the eyes into one block, I can handle this with a LOOKUP.

2) Enter the overall length.  I'd like to be able to type in say 144 and the two eyes at the end will automatically move to 144" apart.  I've actually got this working correctly with two example diameters (1/2" and 2") that are in my block right now.

3) Automatically extend the double parallel lines from one eye to the other.  I also have this working via a STRETCH action applied to a LINEAR parameter, but it's only with the 1/2" example size in my block.  

4) Automatically space the double parallel lines the correct distance apart.  In my example, I actually drew the lines 1/2" apart since they represent the 1/2" diameter wire rope.  I'd like for those to be automatically adjusted based on a diameter chosen from a drop-down.

5) Offer 4 visibility states for each diameter of sling chosen.  If you picture the eyes (loops of metal rope at each end of the rope) ... now think about them from the front - I've used the letter "O" to represent the loop as viewed from the front.  If you think about the eye as viewed from the side, I've used the letter "I" to represent this sidelong view.  So my visibility states that allow the  the "left" and "right" eyes to be turned facing front ("O") or sideways ("I") are chosen by my 4 visibility states named O-O, O-I, I-O and I-I.  This works in my block, but again only for my 1/2" example size.

This sounds like a lot to me, and I'm going to have to work through this relatively slowly to make sure I get it.  But, I WANT TO GET IT, rather than have someone send me a working block.  I would REALLY appreciate any guidance that anyone could offer, and apologize if I don't catch on that quickly.  Actually, the thing that made me want to do this is that someone DID send me a "working" block like this, but it has problems and since I couldn't figure out what they had done, I wanted to build one for myself.

THANK YOU AGAIN VERY MUCH AND HAVE A GREAT DAY Y'ALL!!!!!

[Libbya · Accepted solution]

If you have a linear parameter that does not have an action associated with its endpoint that is not its basepoint, or if it has two grips and does not have an action associated with both points, it will display the exclamation point.  Selecting the exclamation point will select the associated parameter.  

[Colin-Pearson]

@Libbya  I just want to say thank you again.  I've read a bunch of your answers already to other folks and the amount of knowledge you're spreading is great.  I know you know how frustrating this can be trying to learn new things (or learn new things about something most of already know some things about) and your help has been invaluable.  Thanks, cheers, and happy Friday!

[Colin-Pearson]

@Libbya, this precision thing is still confounding me a bit.  I set LUPREC=8 but that didn't seem to have any effect.  All of my Parameters A, B, D, E  and SlingDIAM now exactly follow their corresponding columns in the Block Properties Table but for some reason EyeLENGTH only kinda follows it.  It's close, but not the same.  Any ideas?

[Libbya · Accepted solution]

When I look at your block I do not see the discrepancy.  If you are concerned about the distance displayed by the white rotated dimension, its precision is set too low and the displayed value is rounded off.  The actual distance of the EyeLength and the value in the block properties table is the same.

[Colin-Pearson]

OMG.  I had already checked the precision setting int the Drawing Units and the precision setting in DIMSTYLE, but I had overlooked the Roundoff setting in DIMSTYLE.  I knew it had to be something like that but just couldn't pinpoint it.  This was just for peace of mind, knowing that nothing was off about the way I went about constructing this block.  It's way beyond the precision I would need or expect from a real-life one of these objects.  My mind is at rest now, thank you AGAIN for all of your help!