Driving the TableTop thickness from the load placed on it
Review:
In Unit 3 Rules, the first Rule that you created for the Table Design was the load. You gave it a number Data Type and the selected the Cached and Parameter Flags . You then created another Rule, thickness, and specified the following Formula:
if (this.Load < 300) {return 3} else {return 6}
In Unit 4 Children, you added the TableTop Child with the height Formula of this.thickness
If you examine the current height value for the TableTop, you’ll see that it is currently 3, because the Table’s load value is the default 250. Based on all these dependencies, when the load on the Table changes, the thickness of the TableTop will change.
Changing the load
Let’s see what happens if you make load greater than 300.
1.Select MyTable in the Model Tree
2.Select the Child Tab in the Context Window. Note the load of the TableTop. It is 250, resulting in a thickness of 3, based on the formula you entered when creating the Table's thickness rule.
3.In the Child Context, in the Rule Editor set the Table’s load value to 350 and click Apply. Note the results in the Graphics Window:
TableTop0 and LegPair0 are visibly thicker when the load is increased to 300. Their thicknesses* have been increased so that they can bear the increased mass on the Table. This is because the thickness parameter of both is calculated on MyTable's load parameter.
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* Technically, the newly-augmented design value of the LegPair is on the length of that Model. We did no positioning of LegPair, so to make it appear perpendicular to the TableTop, we truncated its length (by setting it to thickness parameter on MyTable) while directly inheriting (drawing from) the width and height inputs on MyTable.
