Roof with different eave heights - how to?

[StefanoT]

At our office we're trying to shape a 2-sloped roof with different eave heights (attached image & vwx file)... with no success.

The "Roof face" command is not suitable starting from a polyline/polygon with four vertexes each with a different height; as well as rotating a roof face on a plane different than the layer plane is also not allowed.

 

Any suggestion/help? Since we're working in an advance stage of design, we're not that keen on using/switching to auto-hybrid objects: it would mean loosing all roof/slab/wall constrains (components, etc.) plus we're a kind of scared by the interaction among auto-hybrid and wall peaks.

 

Thanks in advance for any help/suggestion.

roof face - different eave heights.vwx

[Diego - Resuelvector]

You can't create it from 1 roof face alone, I think the best way will be to make 2 roof faces

[Taproot]

If the roof is one plane, you can  make the roof face tool work so long as you compute the actual angle of the slope of the roof relative to horizontal. With a bi-directional roof pitch the slope arrow for the roof polygon will need to be at an angle rather than perpendicular to the polygon perimeter.  You can calculate the angle using trigonometry (or a lot of trial and error)...

Edited October 20, 2018 by Taproot

[StefanoT]

thanks Taproot, I see the point, I’ll give it a try: I guess I could use geometry rather than trigonometry, although not that sure about it.

 

Diego: nope, not that true, but thanks for your kind reply: the issue is not a geometrical issue (the roof is one plane, with 3+ vertexes all on the same plane), but it is related to the “roof face” tool: the best would be having the possibility to create a bidirectional roof pitch, e.g. generating/controlling the roof face from vertexes and/or having an option to control both angles/slopes.

 

I understand this is not such a common issue, nevertheless it would be nice to have higher flexibility on the roof face tool and/or the possibility to generate a roof via “direct” modeling rather than inserting geometric data. I’ll try to submit it as a request, with a wider overview on the tool.

Edited October 20, 2018 by STR

[BG]

We have done a lot of roofs like this, and it is just a matter of working out the roof plane direction and pitch. You can create a 3D object of the roof plane first to work out both of those.

[mike m oz]

Diego, a Roof has to be a planar surface.

 

When I plot what you have drawn with those dimensions with 3D loci and then draw a nurbs surface using those points I don't come up with a planar surface.

 

[StefanoT]

Thank you all for your kind suggestions: attached the issue solved with the workaround suggested by Taproot & BG (no trigonometry, geometry only).

Still think that a "how-to-model" approach on the software side, rather than a "data-input" approach, could make the roof face tool as easy to use as some other VW 3d tools.

 

roof face - different eave heights - solved.vwx

Edited October 23, 2018 by STR

[Taproot]

Well done!  I'm glad you were able to persevere to a solution.

 

[Diego - Resuelvector]

Great solution!
Congrats!

[BennyAdam]

hey guys I have a question related to this topic. I want to create a roof in vectorworks with not only different eave height but also with different ridge heights. Does any one have a suggestion how to solve this? I have created the form of the roof as a generic solid but in sections it obviously does not show the structure as it is not a real roof but just a simple 3D-model. I also created the same form with the 3D-poly tool but I dont know if I can create a roof out of the 3D-polygon like it is possible with the normal polygon tool. I also tried to create the roof by drawing it piece by piece with the roof face tool, which worked partially but was not very accurate. I would be very greatful if someone could help me with this problem. Thanks in advance.

 

[Jonathan Pickup]

it appears that the roof will have different slopes as well as different eaves heights.

 

What was wrong with the roof faces? 

 

Can you share a plan and elevations? 

[StefanoT]

Hello everyone, for us this was a couple of years ago and it has now a physical twin.  The critical part of it was the roof face tool UI/UX, where generating a roof face with a slope not perpendicular to any of the facades required drawing quite some construction lines to deduct all the geometrical data/parameters that had to be provided as inputs in the roof face UI. An enhancement would be the possibility to define a roof face selecting 3 different points or 3d loci, not by parameters but via direct modeling.

 

If I remember correctly, two more critical things - at the time we submitted them both via local distributor and VW US as bug  - were 1) geometrical constrains of wall/roof components joins 2) roof face texture that could not be rotated.

 

Here goes the built project, a good one for the #madewithvectorworks hashtag 🙂 https://www.b22.it/en/projects/son-center-cascina-san-carlo/

 

 

Edited September 12, 2023 by StefanoT

[BennyAdam2]

roof versions.vwx

thanks Jonathan for the quick respond. The roof faces worked like I saied but I couldnt figure out how to be precise with it, so the ridge heights didnt always had the height they should have supposed to be. But for better clarification I will attach the vwx file with the roofs I drew.

[Benson Shaw]

@StefanoT thanks for showing the completed campus and design images. Superb!

-B