Change 'base' work plane of family

[jnoordzij]

Hi,

is it possible to change the 'base work plane' of a work plane based / face based family from its reference level to another work plane reference plane? 

Thanks in advance

[Ilic.Andrej]

Yes

[jnoordzij]

Thanks for your reply but this is not what I meant.

I want to change which plane inside the family will be aligned with the work plane or face that you choose as a host.

So standard it takes the reference level. But what if i want to align from Center front/back for example?

I hope I made it more clear now. Do you know if this is possible?

[Ilic.Andrej]

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I want to change which plane inside the family will be aligned with the work plane or face that you choose as a host.

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You can't change how the family itself relates to the host while working in a project. There has to be a straight forward relationship between the family and the project. The family editor needs to assume what will be the host and everything else needs to be set according to that. This is why we have different family templates and need to make a good choice for what we are trying to do....

What made you desire this? Maybe you have some problem that can be solved in a different way....

[jnoordzij]

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What made you desire this? Maybe you have some problem that can be solved in a different way....

I think I made a bad decision at the start, which I would like to change now without having to remodel the entire family.

The family that I am talking about is a facade sheet metal element that can be applied either vertically or horizontally. The horizontal and vertical version are slightly different, but they are so much alike that I tried to make them both from 1 family. My idea was to set up the family as work plane based, and to align its reference level to the front face of the facade (the host). Then, by rotating 90 degrees , and using different types, I would have a vertical or horizontal version. 

But after some time I found out that the small difference between the horizontal and vertical version was not possible to solve within 1 family. So I made a split between a horizontal and a vertical family.

And now I am regretting that I am missing the functionality where I can host the vertical family to a level, and then define its vertical position using 'offset'.  I would love to have this functionality back available, as it works so solidly. 

So, that is why I would like to 'change back', and why I'm asking. 

Sucks if you can't get back on a bad decision without having to start over...

What would you consider 'best practice', when contemplating the 'base' / 'set up' of a new family ?

[Ilic.Andrej]

From what you wrote, I assume this could be a wall based family. There you can create the offset from level....

I really don't know other differences between the horizontal and the vertical version. Lets say that they are no different at all.... The dimensions are: a x b

The horizontal version:  a>b

The vertical version: a<b

But, lets say you don't like this cause you don't want to confuse the user. a>b period (no matter how the element is positioned, "a" will be always longer than "b").

So what you do is mask out the parameters. 

This is how you group all parameters:

Group 1: The parameters which serve users

Group 2: The parameters which drive the reference planes. The parameters are constrained by formulas and they are not the subject of the users attention.

In this example:

Group 1:

   [length] a

   [length] b

   [Yes/No] Vertical

Group 2:

   [length] X

          formula:    

          if(Vertical,b,a)

   [length] Y

          formula:    

          if(Vertical,a,b)