Visibility Parameter

[asaastad]

I hope I am just missing something, but I am trying to apply an on/off visibility parameter to a void extrusion in a column and a beam family. When I select the extrusion and go to the Element Properties the only options I get are for the start and end offsets, but in the extrusion they are cutting I have all of the standard element options available to me. I obviously don't expect a void to have material options since it is nothingness, but it would be nice to determine if they are visible or not. It seems the only solution would be to make an extrusion to match the shape of the void extrusion and thickness of the face being cut and apply a parameter to that... which seems like a pretty bass-ackwards solution.

What I am doing is making some Unistrut families and I would like to compile the different pierced channel options into one family so if it needs a different slot, or none at all, etc I can just change the type like you should be able to.

[Andre Carvalho]

You can try adding parameters to the void extrusions to control when they are extending (and therefore cutting) the beam or not. And then have different shapes of voids doing the same. You can control them using a formula Yes/No to select which shape will be cutting and when.

I hope it helps.

Best regards,

ANdre Carvalho

[NKramer]

Unfortunately voids cannot be turned off and on in the conventional method. I end up attaching the void extrusion to a length parameter and then flipping it in and out of the modeled element via a yes/ no parameter; where the yes=1' and no =-1', etc.
It adds another parameter but ends up working the same way when it comes down to user input.

HTH
Nick

[asaastad]

Thanks for the advice. Those suggestions would be fine for just the visual representation, but I'm short tempered and I think working with a family set up like that would result in a mouse going out my office window or something. One thing I do not want is to have all of those snap points from all the different opening sizes floating around and I don't want to make them not references because I need them to be there on the slotted tracks. I think I am just going to copy the base members and create separate families for each variation as I need them. I guess I'll just have to wait for void objects to be allowed to have on/off parameters and update my families then.

[captjim]

I've also found it inconvenient that there is no visibility (invisibility) parameter for voids. C'mon Autodesk, help us out here.