Family with adaptive points: instances lose intended position when updating to a new family version

[victor_ramirez9VSNB]

I have a project with around a hundred building components in which I need to store their XYZ positions in their instance parameters. Originally I used dimension lines that measured the distance between an “Insertion Point (Adaptive)” located at the project origin, and a “Shape Handle Point (Adaptive)” located at the intended position of each component instance.

Now I created a new version of these families which can store their angle (“Alpha”) values. The problem is that, when I try to update the families to this new one, the position of each component instance is reset, and the instances move from their intended positions (where the Shape Handle Point was located) to the project origin point (where their Insertion Point is), as shown in this video:

The “Pin (PN)” command, or creating dimension constraints, do not prevent this from happening, and I can’t manually correct the position of every component instance after updating its family, since I would need to repeat that process around a hundred times (the video shows a simplified file with only two components, for obtaining help easier).

Do you know how I could update the families while preserving the intended position of the component instances? In advance, thanks for your attention! Attached is the project file (2021 version) if useful.

[barthbradley · Accepted solution]

What about making them Shared and Nesting them together?  

...and control which instance is visible parametrically.   

[handjonathan]

Hi @victor_ramirez9VSNB 

Thanks a lot for posting your question to the forums!   Has the solution suggested by @barthbradley helped with your issue?
 
We look forward to hearing back from you with more information so we can help you as a community! 

[victor_ramirez9VSNB]

Thank you very much, this approach worked @barthbradley! Even better, in the end I did not need to nest the new and old families together, because by trying what you suggested I realized that the original family could be updated without the instance losing its intended position. This could be easily achieved by saving the changes to the family without modifying the family name.

What prevented me from updating the family was that I was trying to replace it with a new family version that had a different name. I was able to modify the old family directly by pasting into it the elements that belonged to the new family, and then saving the changes without modifying its name.

And sorry for my late reply @handjonathan, I was not able to respond during the weekend. Thanks to both of you for your help and attention!

[handjonathan]

Awesome @victor_ramirez9VSNB Glad you got it all sorted