Angular Reporting parameters in Adaptive Component Family

[Anonymous]

Hello, I have read all the forums that I could possibly find but I still haven't managed to make my Adaptive family work as I want.

What I did was I created a 2 point adaptive family as my "profile" so that I could schedule its length and cut its ends with certain angles.

Then I loaded this "profile" to my 4 point adaptive family and attached its ends to the adaptive points so that my "profile" would stretch together with the corners.

I want my profile ends to be cut according to the angles of my corners. So I made formulas with angle instance parameters (not reporting) that would cut my "profile" ends. It works fine in the family when I stretch the corner points, but when I load the family to a project the actual corner angle is not the same as my instance parameters. I tried making reporting angled parameters to be used in my formulas but I get an error message saying  "A reporting parameter can be used in a formula only if its dimension references are all to host elements in the family."

Could someone tell me what am I doing wrong?

I have attached my 4 point adaptive family ("Corner test.rfa").

[Alfredo_Medina]

It seems that you could simplify this by using a rectangular SECTION profile, not a TOP VIEW profile with angle cuts at the corner. That would eliminate the need to do formulas to cut those corners. 

[barthbradley]

It's not clear to me what you are trying to do, but maybe this will inspire you.  

[Anonymous]

@Alfredo_Medina could you please explain more in detail what you mean by using a SECTION profile and why do you think I am using a TOP VIEW profile?

My 2 point adaptive mullion family "Profile test" is extruded using a generic face based family (rectangular profile) and then I created void extrusions to cut my mullion ends at certain angles to have a nice connection at the corners. See image Profile Test

I am nesting my mullion profile to the 4 point adaptive family so that I could schedule my mullions length in the project (it is very important that I get to schedule correct mullion lengths in my project)

[Anonymous]

@barthbradley it's a good idea to create a calculated parameter to schedule my cut angles, but that is not what I am going for.

What I want to do is to create an adaptive family that I could easily add to my curtain wall (curtain system) corners. My company is designing unitized elements. I have a difficult shaped building and I need correct profile lengths for material takeoff for orders. See image "Project corner"

I have created a 2 point adaptive mullion family with reporting Length parameter and nested it to my 4 point adaptive corner family. Since I created void extrusions to cut my mullion families' ends I want my mullions to be cut correctly when I add my 4 point family to the project.  I created angled measurements and gave them instance parameters, and according to those parameter values my void extrusions are cutting my mullions. The problem is that I need those angled parameters to be Reporting to be used in my parameter formulas that are driving the cut angles. Because if I leave those parameters as instance (not reporting) they do not capture the actual angle once I add my 4 point family to the project. See image "Project test corner angles"

I'm sorry if I'm being too complicated, but I hope it is understandable of what I am trying to achieve.

 

[Alfredo_Medina]

What I meant is that the only profile needed is the section profile (rectangular), not the other intermediate step where you create a family that is one side of panel. You could eliminate that step, and load the rectangular section profile family (a generic model family, work-based) into the family that has 4 adaptive points.  

Something else you could eliminate is the angular dimensions, unless you need the angles. But I understand that you are using the angles  in formulas to calculate the lengths. Well, in that case, just put dimensions to get the distance between the adaptive points, instead of using angles. If those dimensions are shared parameters, you can get those distances in the project, in a schedule.

[ToanDN]

Why the complication with all those angles and formula? Why not create just one solid form from the profile and one string of all line segments instead of 4 different forms?

[Anonymous]

I know I can create my frame using a sweep profile, but I need a nested profile family because we will use a optimization generator reading all profile lengths in the project. And I have 3 different section profile types here.

I have managed to create a 6 point adaptive family for my corner elements. My profiles are being cut somewhat how I want.

Sadly I couldn't make reporting angled parameters to be used in my formulas driving profile cuts. But I can write my values manually, which is not terrible but I would like to avoid it.

 

Fits well in my corner between 2 curtain systems

 

   

[FAIR59 · Accepted solution]

You can make reporting (Length) parameters for the distance between 3 points

and then use the cosine-rule to calculate the angle

[Anonymous]

@FAIR59 Thank you a lot! This could be a good workaround. 

Though, It overcomplicates things in regards to just having a working angular reporting parameter, maybe Autodesk could fix this in the future.

[Alfredo_Medina]

That´s what I was saying on the second paragraph of message #6 above. Did you read it?

[Anonymous]

@Alfredo_Medina Yes I have read you message, but I must have misunderstood what you meant.  

"Well, in that case, just put dimensions to get the distance between the adaptive points, instead of using angles. If those dimensions are shared parameters, you can get those distances in the project, in a schedule." 

I understood that you mean that I could use the length parameters to get my profile lengths in the project schedules without using the nested profile family, but not use those lengths to calculate the angles in between them 😅