Jump to content

Complicated Roofs


KWiley

Recommended Posts

Vectorworks has told me that they are aware of limitations and are planning to reengineer the roof tools sometime in the future.

 

Some of the issues we have as of now is 

 

1. When drawing a roof slope with a bell and a square eave cut, VW seems to join the bottom of the roof instead of the top so it's a major pain to try to get corners to match up and does not work with the connect/combine tool. I think the angle change of the miter after the bell is what it can't figure out. 

 

2. When 2 slopes with different pitches meet in a corner, there's no way to control the fascia angle or "eave cut". 

 

3. VW measures the eave overhang to the bottom of the roof instead of the top. For example, if you want a 16" overhang using a 12/12 slope with a 5.5" rafter, it actually comes out to 12.111" since its measuring to the bottom. This causes us to have to adjust the overhang on every single roof face every single time.  

 

4. Dutch Hip roofs are very limiting when using the create roof tool. Dutch Hips could easily be done with Roof Faces if #1 wasn't an issue getting corners to join. 

 

5. When you have a wall protruding through your roof and you fit walls to objects, it would be nice if the framing (Top Plate) would hold at its set plate height and only the wall component (like brick) would drop down and fit to objects.

 

Workarounds

 

1. We can achieve a bell by using the Create Roof tool for example with all faces at a 12/12<Ungrouping the roof, deleting the faces we don't need, and pulling the faces down to the bearing point<Then creating a Roof Face on the side with the bell for example at a 18/12. You can't Connect/Combine the 12/12 bell to the 18/12 roof face cause the intersecting point is below the bearing line so you have to just let them overlap each other, this can be framed in the real world but not in VW. Sometimes this requires some editing in the annotations to cover unwanted lines though. 

 

For complicated roofs as a whole and to achieve everything we need to, our workaround has been to create our own rafter profiles, we have profiles of all our different pitches, some with bells, some with different overhang lengths, and all with the soffit already drawn in. We then just extrude the profile into a solid, grab it by the seat cut, drop it on the top plate, and push pull the solid roof faces and intersect them. We then use a combination of the Stitch & Trim and the Slice tool to trim off all the intersections. The only way to get a seamless look this way though is to add the solids together after their trimmed, we thought this was fine at first but have found that its almost impossible to break a roof apart after its added altogether if you have to make changes. This has forced us to revisit using the VW roof tools.

 

I would love to hear of any other issues or if anybody has solutions or workarounds for the issues I've listed. 

 

I think a quick fix for now would be if VW could make the Connect/Combine tool work with solids and Roof Faces. Also, if they could let us use the slice tool on a roof face without turning it into a solid. We then could use a combination of roof faces and solids together. 

Edited by KWiley
  • Like 2
Link to comment
  • 1 month later...

We should be able to have a list of roof styles;

Gable

Hip

Dutch Hip

Bullnose

Etc...

Hip Returns - Return Length, Return Pitch, Return Overhang

Full Hip Returns - Return Length, Return Pitch, Return Overhang

 

This would reduce the amount of time to create different Roof Faces, as it should be.

That being said, we should always have the ability to create Roof Faces on an individual basis.

 

We need a balance of Universal Roof Styles (what is typically done in the Industry) & Custom Roof Styles.

Just because we can design custom roof faces does not mean that we should have to by default.

Maximize productivity is one of Vectorworks Mantras.

 

With editable parameters for each, including for Cantilever style framing whether it be by Ceiling Joists or Trusses,

so one does not have to figure out what elevation (offset) to set the rafters.

 

We at our company use cantilever style trusses.

Edited by taoist
  • Like 1
Link to comment
  • 4 weeks later...
  • 5 months later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...