Hiding symbolic lines

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone.

I have a question about symbolic lines in families: Is there any way to hide them in a project?

For example: I have a smoke detector family, and in its plan view there's a symbolic circle that shows the coverage radius. Once I insert this family into a project, the radius always shows up, but I want it to show just in some plan views, not all of them.

Turning visibility off can be done with parameters, but then the circle won't show up in any plan view. Is there a way to hide the circle in just one single plan view, and keep it visibile in other views?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[jdiala]

Create and put the symbol on a sub category for that symbol. Then use VG to control the visibility of sub category.

[clara_csdrafting · Accepted solution]

Have you tried placing these symbolic lines on a subcategory?  I have found during custom family creation, elements that I want shown in my 3D view for BIM coordination modeling, work great for this purpose -- but then downstream when it comes to preparing shop drawings, I need some elements to show through in specific views or not at all.  Subcategories allows for this versatility, and the concept could also be applied to symbolic lines.

In your family go to Manage --> Object Styles, at the bottom right-hand corner under Modify Subcategories select New, name it something recognizable then select OK, select what you want visibility control over (in this case symbolic lines), under Properties select the Subcategory drop-down and select the name you've created.  After loading the family into your project, adjust Visibility/Graphics settings of your plan views to have your named subcategory checkmarked for visibility or no (will be checkmarked by default).  The place within the VG window to find where your named subcategory ended up will vary depending on what type of family it is, but it will be under the "Model Categories" tab then "Visibility" column, within one of the main categories with "+" to the left of it. 

Good skill!

- Clara P. Sandoval

[clara_csdrafting]

You edited your suggestion!  The original would not work which is why I went into some more detail with mine.  (By the time I hit "Post" I saw a different answer from you.  )

[jdiala]

Yes I have put symbolic elements on sub categories. That was my biggest mistake when I started creating families.

I created sub-categories with the same name on families which used different line types and line thickness. My some of my families didn't look right. Now I created a custom template with all sub-categeries that I need and when I finish the family, I just use purge unused. By this method, I know exactly what to turn off and turn on.

[Anonymous]

Clara,

Thank you for your detailed response. I DID think of using subcategories, but on the VG window I couldn't find the visibility option for subcategories. I was looking for it on the Object Styles window... I didn't consider looking in the model categories tab.