Editing Roofs and Roof Faces

[cwailes]

I have a roof where I am in the middle of editing the roof faces, groups and so on. My question is this: When I ungroup a roof object and start messing with the faces to get them the way I need, 1. why does the attic space disappear? How do I get it back? 2. I no longer have the buttons (control points) to manipulate whether something is a gable, eave or dutch gable roof, how do I get that back? 3. Is there a way to manipulate a face and be able to see the other faces, so I can make sure everything lines up correctly? When I ungroup a roof object it breaks it up into many faces and I only see and can edit one at a time. 4. Once I ungroup a roof object and then go in an edit a face, is it still a roof face or do I have to do something else? Does anyone have a sample file I can pick apart where you have manipulated a roof object and its faces. Please help!!

[Chad McNeely]

There's 3 basic ways to go about building a roof.

1- Draw a poly around your exterior bearing walls and use the "Create Roof" command, and then edit the result to suit. That sounds like what you have done, except you ungrouped instead of entering the group (cmd-[ or cntrl-[).

Upside- quick and easy, creates lots of accessories that are time consuming to manually draw.

Downside- not all geometries are possible, indeed less than 1/4 of my projects can be completed with the Create Roof command.

2- Draw the 2D version of the individual roof surfaces, and use the Roof Face command to turn each into a, um, roof face.

Upside- max flexibility. If the roof can be built from planar surfaces, the roof face command can create the geometry.

Downside- You have to figure stuff out for yourself, such as -gasp- actual hip and valley locations, and then draw it all accurately.

3- Hybrid: Do #1 first and get as close as VW will allow, letting it provide the gable walls and fascia components for example, and then ungroup to further modify as required.

To your point about editing roof faces:

create new guidelines/polys with the entire roof in view, group and copy to the clipboard, and then when you edit each roof face, paste-in-place the guide info, modify the roof face poly, delete the guide, and exit the group/face.

[Damon Design]

Chad's descriptions are right on.

I am usually using the hybrid method-an additional step I incorporate is to duplicate the roof group that was created by the "create roof" command, place that in a separate class then ungroup the original and refer back to duplicated roof group and perhaps duplicate and ungroup it again to borrow the parts that are created in the "create roof" command that are not available on the "roof face" command and then use in the ungrouped and no longer as editable roof faces that I am working on.

[cwailes]

Ok, I tried editing the existing roof object with the 3D edit and it give me the error (The position of the selected design layer viewport is locked). If I go to modify unlock it still says the same thing, but it tell me in order to edit roof object you must exit group and ungroup the roof object. What am I missing?

[Damon Design]

I don't have VW08 with its design layer viewports, so there may be a nested level of editing that I don't know about but you should be able to select the roof object-the complete roof that was created by the "create roof" tool and ungroup-prompting a warning dialogue box-and then hit OK. Then the roof turns into separate roof faces.

I always keep a duplicate if I need to change to be able to change the whole roof object quickly by changing building geometry or other factors and then ungroup again for final tweaking.

[Tom G.]

Having used the Create Roof tool and adjusted the parameters as far as you can go, if you need more editing you have to ungroup*. Now you will need to edit (by double-clicking on**) each roof face which will take it to an editing pane where the face returns to its 2D polygon state. Stretch, add or subtract nodes (corners) as needed.

Let's say you tipped a roof face but VW created a hip that shrank away from the others and now you want to stretch that hip back to match the higher group.

Assuming you've now Ungrouped all, look at the drawing in top plan and draw a line, or measure, from the short face to where the face should end up. Copy the line into memory. Dbl click on the short face and when it appears on the editing pane, paste-in-place the copied line. Stretch the poly to this new point. By repeating and adjusting the pitch, both in side view and top, using copied lines and locus points, you should be able to knit the roof together successfully. Be sure to remove all reference points from your editing pane prior to exiting back to the model.

Tricks: I temporarily color faces of my roofs in order to help distinguish one from another. You can also create a new layer called Compare, or some such, where you send the roof segments, doing the adjusting there, which will keep the clutter of the other roofs out of sight. This is especially helpful with large, complex roofs. The old-school 2D and 3D Section tools are especially fast at allowing you to see how to adjust and fit.

I found that Ungrouping a roof with the attic box checked did not cause the loss of the attic. You may have inadvertently deleted it?

*You can try editing in 3D by using the 3D Edit tool and moving the shape, or adding additional roof faces. This will not cause an ungrouping. Note that even when you ungroup, there are still a few choices left to you on the Object Info palette.

**Older versions of VW will require you to use the Modify>Edit or Edit Group command vs a simple double click.

Edited March 9, 2008 by tguy