Trouble Surfacing Control Grips from Nested Families

[hayden_fulghum_FG]

All,

I'm slowly going crazy attempting to get this camera FoV family to tick all of the boxes I'm trying to hit:

• Driving FoV width and target distance parametrically, up to and including 180- and 360-degree FoV - achieved
• Driving FoV rotation/pan parametrically - achieved.
• Driving FoV offset from host parametrically - not strictly necessary, but achieved.
• The part that's killing me: I'd rather be able to just drag out a shape handle for the target distance instead of modifying the parameter. I've achieved this in the base family just fine, but as soon as I start nesting it and assigning parameters from the host family to control target distance, I lose the grips.

The part that seems to be killing me is the rotation/pan. There's just no way that I can find to re-constrain additional reference planes or lines that doesn't break immediately upon flexing.

I am probably way overcomplicating this and doing it completely backwards, and any help would be deeply appreciated.

[curtisridenour]

Rotation in families can be very frustrating. Please see attached for a North Arrow with the ability to rotate to any positive or negative angle. There are some tricks I learned to accomplish this through trial and error and learning from other users on this forum.

1. It is best practice to rotate nested families.

2. It is best practice to rotate Reference Lines instead of Reference Planes.

3. In annotation families, rotation of circular elements helps when you get to limits like 0, 90, 180, 360 and their negative values. I draw invisible lines as circles that encompass the entire nested family.

4. In 3D elements, align to the work planes associated to reference lines. They have 4 Reference Planes associated to them.

[curtisridenour]

I think i accomplished what you wanted by adding the invisible circle line to the lowest nested annotation family. Try adding this and see if it does what you want.

I also noticed that you created a SCALE factor for resizing the annotation based on the scale of the view it is in. I would highly advise against this method if possible. I would try to create this symbol as a Detail Item if you can. Then you would eliminate the scale factor and it would look correct on multiple scales.

[hayden_fulghum_FG]

I am an idiot. I uploaded the incorrect family. The one I loaded is working fine. I've attached the one that's giving me the trouble below. @curtisridenour thanks for the input regarding the scale factor, but that's actually for the horizontal/vertical offset of the symbol, not scaling it. Provides a convenience factor, instead of having to guess to offset 1/32" or something, you can just put in 1'. but irrelevant to the conversation since, as I stated, I'm an idiot and uploaded the wrong family.

I do think you're onto something though. I've tried controlling the grips via reference lines, but once I get to the top level host family, I can't keep the reference lines both locked to the rotation of the FoV nested family and constrained to the control grip.

[curtisridenour]

I am no expert in shape handles but this might be what you are looking for. I found that having 2 sets of shape handles was really confusing. So i made the Center Reference planes Not a Reference. Then i added some invisible lines and locked them so it can still be aligned.

I added some Controls so it can be flipped along the vertical and horizontal planes.

I cleaned up a little of the logic in the family but not sure if i lost some of the intended function along the way.

one thing i noticed that really made me sad was that no matter what i did, if the shape handle crosses the center planes, the family snaps. i don't know if this is how it has always been. but i assume it is.

All that being said, i would avoid using shape handles for this application. I think you can accomplish more with the versatility of this family if the instance parameters were driven by formulas.

[hayden_fulghum_FG]

@curtisridenour Sorry, I may not have been clear about which grip I was trying to control. Specifically, if you drill down into the base family, you can pull the arc of the FoV in and out. I'm trying to get that grip to function at the top level of the host family. I may have an idea now of how to get it working. Will update this post if it is successful.

[curtisridenour]

Like that?

[hayden_fulghum_FG]

I frankly think this is the closest one could get. the issue here is that the grips don't rotate with the change in angle of the FoV, so if you set it to say, 110, it looks like this:

I've tried something very similar to what you've done here, but if you try to link the constrain the FoV to a rotating reference line, and set the work plane of reference lines that are being used as stretch grips to that rotating reference plane, it loses its mind.

[curtisridenour · Accepted solution]

so like this?

[hayden_fulghum_FG]

You, sir, are a genius. I could have sworn I tried every combination of these kinds of constraints, but I must've been doing something wrong. I'll review, integrate it into the host camera family, and report back with a detailed description of how it works. For now, marking your last reply as the solution!

[curtisridenour]

Glad to Help. I had to think a bit outside the box with the way the Reference Lines were set up.