Modeling roof ridge and hip cappings/tiles

[Christiaan]

• Is there a better way to do this?
• Can I control the orientation of the profile to be consistently correct, instead of having to adjust it after making the extrude?

 

 

Edited August 18, 2022 by Christiaan

[Tom W.]

If using EAP use a NURBS for the path then place a Working Plane on the end. It will automatically be perpendicular to the path. Then look at working plane + keep your profiles as blue symbols + they will insert onto the plane. Insert the profile in the correct position relative to the path then when you run EAP the extrude will be correct first time.

 

Another thing I do is use hybrid symbols with a 1m long length of ridge that I can scale asymmetrically in the OIP after insertion. Insert the symbol in 3D + align it to the ridge. This has the advantage of giving you the Top/Plan representation plus correct class assignments whereas EAP method you have to assign classes + convert to autohybrid 

 

 

[Christiaan]

Excellent thanks Tom. Scaled symbol is a great idea too, think I'll do that.

[Christiaan]

Actually what I might do is 3D symbols, scaled and aligned and then create an auto-hybrid. That way I can use the symbol method for the hips as well.

 

It's a shame we do have a 3D rotate tool that would allow us to rotate and snap an object in 3 planes.

Edited August 17, 2022 by Christiaan

[Christiaan]

Here's another method, using the 3D polygon for path.

 

 

 

[Tom W.]

The slight advantage of using a NURBS path is that the Working Plane will align perpendicular to the path regardless of the view orientation or whether you have some perpendicular geometry to align it to. So when you come to put ridges on the hip roofs for example

[Christiaan]

3 minutes ago, Tom W. said:

The slight advantage of using a NURBS path is that the Working Plane will align perpendicular to the path regardless of the view orientation or whether you have some perpendicular geometry to align it to. So when you come to put ridges on the hip roofs for example

Ah, yes, okay. And you can see that the method I used didn't quite work as anticipated... 

 

 

[Tom W.]

Where is this house? I'm getting Hampstead Garden Suburb vibes...

[Christiaan]

Haha, indeed. Chorleywood. Not actually our design. I'm modelling this from planning drawings. The kind of 2D drawings where the roof plan doesn't match the elevations and the elevations don't match each other.

[TomKen]

I did this using the framing member tool with a custom profile.  

[Kevin K]

Yeah, it really would be nice to have this function embedded in the roof tool..to include hip/ridge items. Perhaps in VW 2046?  🙂

 

Christiaan, another approach that is a bit more realistic than having one long extrusion, etc.......is to :

1) create/extrude a single piece of whatever material/shape you want

2) Snap a 3d polygon to the angled slope of the hip portion of the roof(also one at the ridge)

3) then select the 3d poly and the item created for the individual use the "duplicate along path" tool and configure it as need be pertaining too repetitions, etc

 

In adddition :

a) you will need to, depending on the roof slope, etc, do a little quick math to slightly rotate the extruded piece representing the individual roof tile, that will run up the 3d polygon in the correct orientation

b) once you have one edge, just mirror and duplicate to the other hip roofs, obviously

c) in the example I provided, that extruded piece needs to be slightly rotated in an elevational view, so that the pieces overlap as they run up the slopes.

 

This may sound like a lot of work, but honestly it all happens in seconds once you math out the items I mentioned.

In my example, I didn't create a symbol for the individual piece of roof tile, but that would probably be a good idea 🙂

I attached a screenshot as well as a file so all my text above will hopefully make more sense.

The file has the individual roof tile included as an example.

-Kev

 

Hip-Ridge V2022.vwx

 

 

[Tom W.]

Or as a compromise you can use a Tiles texture to simulate individual ridge tiles in a single object:

 

 

[michaelk]

In this part of the world we use a lot of 2 piece mission tile roofs.  

 

To get the edges of gables and ridges I use the Repetitive Unit tool with a symbol that is a "cheater tile". It's basically a sweep or a tile that sweeps 360º instead of 180º.  That solves the orientation problem.  (Learned this at my user group meeting from a variation of a method @The Hamma was using 🙂). The benefit of the Repetitive Unit tool is that you can edit the string of tiles or shingles with the Reshape Tool and you can cheat it a little by making the first spacing different from the rest of the objects.

 

Then for the field I use a Surface Array with a symbol for the tile with the array set to be by a specific distance, to trim the edges, and to not display the surface.  I'm basically ignoring the 2nd piece of the 2 piece mission tile - the upside down piece underneath.  Maybe someone knows a good way to do that?  

 

The overhead for all this curved geometry is not trivial, so I usually don't do it until I'm sure the roof is close.

 

But the overhead is worth it if there is a wing of the building at an angle and you want to show the foreshortening of the roof tiles.  It's hard to do that with a hatch in an elevation.  And you get a nice profile on the ridges and gable ends.

 

 

Roof Tiles.vwx

[line-weight]

21 minutes ago, michaelk said:

 

To get the edges of gables and ridges I use the Repetitive Unit tool with a symbol that is a "cheater tile". It's basically a sweep or a tile that sweeps 360º instead of 180º. 

 

Does this cause an issue when you generate sections though?

[line-weight]

20 hours ago, Tom W. said:

If using EAP use a NURBS for the path then place a Working Plane on the end. It will automatically be perpendicular to the path. Then look at working plane + keep your profiles as blue symbols + they will insert onto the plane. Insert the profile in the correct position relative to the path then when you run EAP the extrude will be correct first time.

 

I understand that this is a way to get a plane perpendicular to the path, but it doesn't then guarantee that the profile's rotation on that plane is correct, does it? Or am I missing something?

 

(For example, the ridge path of a roof with the same roof pitch either side of the ridge, would be exactly the same as the ridge path of a roof where there were different pitches each side, but each would require a different rotation of the profile)

[michaelk]

Not for me :-).  The non visible part of the repetitive unit object is just buried in the roof object.  On the gable ends it would actually be several tiles stuck together that sweep a little more than 270.  But this method at least shows a pretty close to correct profile on the gable ends.  And it shows a pretty close to correct profile on the ridge.

 

On an elevation or building section it's more than close enough for the projects I'm working on.  

 

(I think in reality the upside down pieces are built up at the eaves and the exposed pieces are filled in with some kind of mortar - that's way more than I need to show.)

[Tom W.]

26 minutes ago, line-weight said:

I understand that this is a way to get a plane perpendicular to the path, but it doesn't then guarantee that the profile's rotation on that plane is correct, does it? Or am I missing something?

 

(For example, the ridge path of a roof with the same roof pitch either side of the ridge, would be exactly the same as the ridge path of a roof where there were different pitches each side, but each would require a different rotation of the profile)

 

The working plane just means you can quickly + easily insert your profile symbol where it needs to be in relation to the roof. You can rotate the profile as you insert it. It just means the EAP is correctly positioned from the off + you don't need to go back + edit the profile to correctly locate it relative to the path as you do with the standard EAP method. Or have I misunderstood what you're saying?

[line-weight]

30 minutes ago, Tom W. said:

 

The working plane just means you can quickly + easily insert your profile symbol where it needs to be in relation to the roof. You can rotate the profile as you insert it. It just means the EAP is correctly positioned from the off + you don't need to go back + edit the profile to correctly locate it relative to the path as you do with the standard EAP method. Or have I misunderstood what you're saying?

 

Yes I see - I initially thought you meant that it would automatically be in the right rotation as well as correct location relative to the roof. But for sure, you can rotate it when you insert it.

[Gadzooks]

17 hours ago, TomKen said:

I did this using the framing member tool with a custom profile. 

 

Yes @AlanW tackled this back in 2016 with this method - what I thought gave sensible results not too detailed but got the job done (I like getting the job done) and without the hassle of rotation.

 

https://youtu.be/iqh0692yaAc

 

[Tom W.]

I'd forgotten about that method of using the Roof Framer to generate the Framing Members for the ridges - that's a good tip!

[Christiaan]

Do you think this is a bug or is this works as designed (the step at the end where the start of the Nurbs Curve can't be moved):

 

 

Edited August 18, 2022 by Christiaan

[Christiaan]

1 hour ago, Gadzooks said:

 

Yes @AlanW tackled this back in 2016 with this method - what I thought gave sensible results not too detailed but got the job done (I like getting the job done) and without the hassle of rotation.

 

https://youtu.be/iqh0692yaAc

 

Am I right in saying this won't work with Roof Faces?

[Christiaan]

19 hours ago, TomKen said:

I did this using the framing member tool with a custom profile.  

 

This works well if you only have Roof Faces. You can do solid subtractions and make them into Auto-hybrids too.

[line-weight]

2 hours ago, Christiaan said:

Do you think this is a bug or is this works as designed (the step at the end where the start of the Nurbs Curve can't be moved):

 

 

 

 

I can't remember all the details now but this feels familiar to me from the last time I was using EAPs quite a bit - I learned to avoid moving the start point of an EAP's path (I think). The path and profile are quite tolerant of editing after creation, but if you move the start point of the path you get unpredicted results and I think it's something to do with internal origins and the relative location of path & profile (which probably depends on the exact flavour of EAP, whether you have profile locked and so on). Not sure if this is what's creating your issues here but it might be.

[Christiaan]

2 hours ago, Christiaan said:

 

This works well if you only have Roof Faces. You can do solid subtractions and make them into Auto-hybrids too.

I have noticed a delay when exiting or editing Auto-hybrids made of Framing Members, as opposed to EAPs, which is instant.

Edited August 18, 2022 by Christiaan