Help with custom component and constraints!

[WillE1984]

I need to create a component with an adjustable height. When the height changes the back bracing should as well. I have had a problem because I do not know how to constrain the back brace and maintain the same brace angle. See attached image.

[Justin Marchiel]

i tell everyone that it is easiest to constrain a reference plane, then the geometry to the plane.

Try that and see what you get.

Justin

[WillE1984]

I tried constraining the angled brace to an angled ref. plane but I did not know how to constrain the height of that angled ref. plane at the intersection of it and the front of the column. I have attached another image. The red lines represent the ref. planes. I circled in blue the area I am talking about. The height of the intersection of those two ref. planes needs to change based on the column height. I just can't seem to figure it out. Am I missing something obvious?

[Justin Marchiel]

try a reference line instead of a plane.

justin

[DoTheBIM]

I've tried similar object definition constraints and could not get it to work either... reference plane or reference line. I had to resort to trigonometry formulas. Revit doesn't seem very intuitive when it comes to angled contraints... depending on the application. I almost submitted this to factory, as it seems something could be improved greatly here, but I couldn't put it into words. Does anyone know of a tuturial or have an explanation to help with angular contraints like this?

[aaronrumple]

Like this...

[DoTheBIM]

That should work for Will. What if a user didn't care what the angle was but did want to define the width and length like attached. I happen to have a project that will have this application. It's funny I can accomplish this with reference planes and lines in a family (without locking anything) but not in a project I guess cause I don't have the reference line tool available in a project. even just trying to constrain a regular line gives me fits. First it's difficult/cumbersome to get it constrained and then when you do flex it... it doesn't obey it's constraints. It's like it the angle of the line has precedence over the constraints.

[WillE1984]

Thanks! I had almost everything set up correctly. I also just discovered you can only align geometry to ref. planes in the draw mode.