Nested families do not join cleanly in project environment

[Sahay_R]

I have a whole bunch of nested solid families in an empty host. The families join beautifully in the family editor, but you can see the join lines in the project environment. All nested families are NOT shared. One solution would be to hide the geometry in plan views and see symbolic lines - YUCK! Is there a better solution at all?

[Avaris. · Accepted solution]

Probably it is not a time-efficient solution, but I thought you can join the geometry of the family in the project environment. This will rebuild the family and join your nested solids. Disadvantage: you'll need to do this for every family in the project environment. I think you need to make also the nested ones shared (don't know if you want that).

[Sahay_R]

@Avaris. - nope, I do not want to do that. For want of a better solution I have hidden the geometry in the view and added Symbolic lines - all this is in the family editor, BTW.

[barthbradley]

@Sahay_R: I may be misunderstanding you, but we have numerous families that are built the way you are describing.  The problem is not with NOT Joining; the problem is with Join behavior. That is, Joined Objects inherit the Line Weight/Pattern/Color of the Parent Category of the element to with which they are being Joined.  Is this what you are seeing?   

Maybe you can post an example family illustrating the behavior you're speaking about?  

[ToanDN]

Works here.  Which category are they?

[Sahay_R]

Aaah, @ToanDN - such an innocent you are. You do realize that such simplicity is not a part of what I do? 

Here's what happened - I modeled an entrance. It was an in place model, and owing to the geometry, I broke it up into parts, modeled them separately as walls, grouped and exported them to their own families, and nested them into a blank family. The family looks great in 3D, and in plan all the geometry joined flawlessly.

And then I inserted the family into my project......

In plan, I could see the Join lines of all the pieces of geometry that were assembled together - which is what was not wanted. Finally, I went back into the families, hid them in plan, created symbolic lines to show the required outline in plan, reloaded the family, and it looks great. Not the most elegant solution.

I really don't care for detail items / filled regions / masking regions (oh, did you know that the masking region I tried disappeared when the family was aligned to a model wall???)/ symbolic lines.

And if you wait till sunup, I would be able to share the family to subject to your erudition...

[ToanDN]

Share it.

[Sahay_R]

The sun has risen. So has my family. Enjoy!

[barthbradley]

Joining faces aren't on the same plane. Faces of "Entry-Top3" and "Entry-Side2" are off by a gnat's eyebrow (Left/Back).

I'm curious why you don't model this as a monolithic element?  This could easily be sculpted out of a single extrusion.   

[Sahay_R]

@barthbradley - sculpted using voids? For some reason, the one and only void that I have in teh family is not doing its job - I had to make the required cut using a void in the project.....

[barthbradley]

---

@Sahay_R wrote:

@barthbradley - sculpted using voids? For some reason, the one and only void that I have in teh family is not doing its job - I had to make the required cut using a void in the project.....

---

Yes. Sculpt a solid with voids. Like whittling a piece of wood. Why mess with it in the project by adding additional cutting voids. Keep it all in one family. 

[ToanDN]

Faces do not align perfectly.  Align them and you will be fine.

[Viveka_CD]

@Sahay_R Just looking at your family - looks like there are many pieces to the side the main entry.

For example, can the side can be one single extrusion and the top can be one extrusion?

[Sahay_R]

My dear, sweet, and lovely people - you err in identifying the problem - THIS is what I see when the family is inserted into a project- 

The only reason why in the family you did not see all these intersecting lines was because the part families had been hidden in plan and an outline was created by a symbolic line. My bad, I should have given you the raw version of the file.

@Viveka_CD - the reason why the sides of the entry were broken up into two was because each piece has a different height. 

[barthbradley]

my view with 4'-0" cut plane

[Sahay_R]

duplicated - for some reason

[Sahay_R]

@barthbradley - try this - this is the bad family -

[barthbradley]

It seems this one's got a bunch of detail lines in Plan View. 

[ToanDN]

I would advise using the symbolic line to present the cut profile unless you model them all in one family.  Even in such case, if you join the header with the pillars, when you see it on a plan view in a project, you will see the header projection even though it is above the cut plane.  

[barthbradley]

---

@ToanDN wrote:

I would advise using the symbolic line to present the cut profile unless you model them all in one family.  Even in such case, if you join the header with the pillars, when you see it on a plan view in a project, you will see the header projection even though it is above the cut plane.  

---

I don't see the header projection above the cut plane.