Extend roof without ungroup, or Roof Face dormers

[Christiaan]

The ability to put dormer windows in Roof Faces would be welcome. Or (at least in the particular case that prompted me to make this wish) the ability to extend sections of a Roof object without having to ungroup it first.

[Guest]

You can stretch a roof face or a ridge with the roof selected and use the 3D reshape tool.

[Christiaan]

Didn't know that Katie, thanks. But, as far as I can work out, it doesn't solve my problem unfortunately because I only want to extend one face of a roof. See attachments.

1. Roof before modifying

2. Roof stretched and not correct

3. Roof ungrouped and extended (but can't insert Dormer window object)

[Guest]

Which roof face in the images do you want to stretch and in which direction?

[Christiaan]

I use the word "extend" because stretching (as you describe above) seems to leave the eaves at its original height. I want to extend a piece of roof down past the main eaves height. Couple more images attached to clarify.

[Jonathan Pickup]

2 steps,

extend the roof,

change the bearing height of the eaves

[Christiaan]

Okay we're getting warm!

Unfortunately I couldn't get the main ridge to stay where it is (or at least end up back in its original position). Kept getting roof to complex errors.

I've attached the polygon shape if anyone's interested in having a go.

Edited June 13, 2007 by Christiaan

[Guest]

You can drag the roof ridge using the 3D reshape tool, just like the other edges.

[Christiaan]

Yeah I tried that but it won't work. I've attached the polygon shape to my previous message if you're interested in trying it.

[mike m oz]

Leave as a Roof object:

- Extend eaves down on that roof plane by increasing the eaves overhang.

- Insert the Dormer.

- Draw a polygon for the section of roof you want removed on the RHS so that roof area does not extend down. Cut this from your drawing.

- Select the Roof Object and on the Modify menu choose Edit Group.

- When inside the Group Paste in Place the polygon and then Exit the Group.

This will give you what you want. Increasing the eaves overhang of a roof plane works across the whole bottom edge because it is a single entity. Hence the need to remove the section of roof you don't want extended down.

[Christiaan]

Leave as a Roof object:

- Extend eaves down on that roof plane by increasing the eaves overhang.

Yes, that is exactly what I needed. Silly me. Unfortunately, for the bit if the roof I need to extend it won't work; keep getting the 'too complex' error.

Increasing the eaves overhang of a roof plane works across the whole bottom edge because it is a single entity. Hence the need to remove the section of roof you don't want extended down.

If I understand you correctly this isn't the case with my instance. It's seems to work in isolation from the eaves further down the roof.

[Christiaan]

Done it! What I had to do was extend all eaves for the entire roof and then go around putting them all back again, except for the one I wanted extended. In fact it was even more complicated than that; I had to extend all eaves by half as much as I needed, put them all back and then extend the eaves that I wanted extended to the full amount needed.

Thanks Mike. Chocolate fish! Now I just need to see if I can insert a Dormer.

[Christiaan]

, can't put the Dormer in. It wants to insert the Dormer behind the building line (main wall line) and won't let me put it in front of the wall line using a negative 'building line offset'.

[Christiaan]

One thing I've noticed is that the roof tool doesn't like steep pitches; keeps crashing if you try.

[Christiaan]

Purged file attached for those interested.