Visiblity settings on masking regions

[datxdude]

I'm pretty new to creating families with Revit, so it's quite possible I'm going about this the wrong way.

I'm trying to create a structural concrete beam family that you can turn a brick ledge on or off. I've learned that even if you make two sweeps, you can not join them and have their visibility settings be different (they will have the same visibility). So my second try was to keep them unjoined, and just put a masking regions over the visible line when the brick ledge was turned on. When I would turn the brick ledge was turned off, I wanted the masking region to hide as well.

My question being, am I going about this the completely wrong way, AND, can you not turn off masking regions with the visibility settings?

[patricks]

Sure you can. When you create a masking region, go to it's properties and you'll see a Visibility check box with a button to assign it to a parameter.

And yes both visibility and material properties of objects with joined geometry has been an issue for awhile and is documented with ADSK. No clue when if ever they'll address it.

[datxdude]

I tried setting the visibility to match the brick ledge visibility parameter. When I turn off the brick ledge, the brick ledge turns off, but the masking regions stays, as you can see in the images I had attached.

[timothy.bungert]

I'm not sure that the masking region is going to accomplish what you want to hide, except in the 2D view in which the region was created.

I think your better option may be to create 2 different sweep conditions: one sweep that has a brick ledge, and an identical one with no brick ledge. Create them so that they exist in the exact same place. Set visibility properties for both such that when one is on, the other is off. You can do this using a Yes/No parameter for each one and a conditional parameter that turns one off if the other is on.

If you can post the family we may be able to offer some better insight as well.

[twiceroadsfool]

You can give them visibility parameters, as was mentioned. Unfortunately, you cant give them subcatagories, which really stinks. So they just respond to visibility of the overall catagory, in VG.

[patricks]

Are those screen caps from within the family editor, or from a project?

I also agree with the different sweeps for the different conditions. Have one parameter say something like "Brick Ledge" and set the parameter type to Graphics. Then have the other parameter say "No Brick Ledge" or whatever you want, and set its type to Other so it will be down at the bottom of the parameter list.

Then put a formula on that No Brick Ledge parameter saying =not(Brick Ledge). That will make that parameter inaccessible (grayed out), and now both will be controlled by the single Brick Ledge parameter only.

[datxdude]

Thanks for the replies. That stinks about not being able to set them to a parameter!

Creating two sweeps right on top of each other was my next route. I'll do that, then.