Rooflight Object

[Christiaan]

It's long past time for a real Rooflight Object, no?

 

3D skylight symbols are horribly slow and clunky things to work with, especially in the early stages of the design process.

 

VE-101614

Edited February 17, 2021 by Christiaan

[line-weight]

Yes!

[JRA-Vectorworks-CAD]

@Christiaan I totally agree with this. The Current workarounds for creating roof lights, especially customer ones is simply too clunky and unreliable. We need a roof light tool that is totally parametric like windows, and ideally more directly editable by dragging and resizing. I would love to see windows and doors one day have direct stretching capabilities too rather than always typing in numbers. Please get a roof light tool on the development program along with other major roof improvements to the roof toll as it has now become the weakest link, and lets face it every building has a roof! I would love to see gutters added as a roof option and rainwater pipe tool, instead of having to custom model all of this.

[KIT KOLLMEYER]

I'm struggling with skylights again on a new project. Honestly, I'm surprised VW hasn't fixed this. The current options are to either deal with the inadequacies of the skylight objects included. Or cut a hole and create your own skylight object (this is what most people do). But why not have a parametric skylight tool, just like windows, with styles and everything, that automatically rotate and insert into the roof object? We need them to work with schedules, just like windows also. I agree with @Christiaan and @JRA-Vectorworks-CAD that this is way past due.

[line-weight]

It's a bit of a joke that when you look at the VW promo website it has stuff like this:

 

 

 

 

and meanwhile in the real world here we are wondering why we can't even have a proper rooflight tool. Not to mention a working regular window tool.

[Jeff Prince]

@line-weight don’t worry, the photogrammetry and cloud tools are about as well developed as the current skylight tool 😉

[Tom W.]

I am surprised given the amount of discussion about this there is nothing on the Roadmap??? I just assumed given how far behind the Skylight is compared to other features it would have been actively worked on but no mention...?

[JRA-Vectorworks-CAD]

I have been hoping for more roof improvements and a parametric roof light tool for years. As this is such a common features of most buildings, I do not understand why is it not being addressed?

Why we are on the subject the current Dormer tools are totally ancient and basic and I always have to advise clients to manually model dormers from separate walls, and roof faces and windows. Does anyone actually use the current dormers for anything other than a quick deisgn?

 

I have been using the downspouts, gutters and custom beam plug-ins from AFDesign - Andrea Facchinello and they are excellent, and if developed further with full integration they could be a very good solution.

 

I would love to know what the future plans for really focussing on the roof tool, fascias, gutters, accessories and roof light are?

[Christiaan]

13 minutes ago, JRA-Vectorworks-CAD said:

I have been using the downspouts, gutters and custom beam plug-ins from AFDesign - Andrea Facchinello and they are excellent, and if developed further with full integration they could be a very good solution.

I use those too, they're really great.

[Tom W.]

7 minutes ago, JRA-Vectorworks-CAD said:

Why we are on the subject the current Dormer tools are totally ancient and basic and I always have to advise clients to manually model dormers from separate walls, and roof faces and windows. Does anyone actually use the current dormers for anything other than a quick deisgn?

 

I would never use the Dormer tool. At least with roof light symbols you can model your own + they will insert + you can just about get what you want (apart from Top/Plan representation) but the dormer: no way.

 

I am quite happily modelling rainwater goods, ridges, flashings, fascias, etc separately but I understand why other people would prefer the option to include them with the Roof.

 

I would love it if the Roof/Wall interface were improved: the way components interact with each other. I can generally get what I want but it is a lot of work + be great if offsets could be edited interactively in a dialog rather than set by a fairly complex set of interconnected parameters...

 

I have also consistently had issues with carefully-configured roof clipping settings being lost when a model is referenced into another file which is a real pain (seeing your walls sticking out through the roof or the roof components sticking out beyond the walls). This was accepted as a bug some time ago but not sure what the progress is...

 

Is @Matt Panzer the one to ask about this?

[JRA-Vectorworks-CAD]

When I do Vectorworks 3d BIM Training with clients and we work our way up the building, slabs, walls, doors and windows are always well received, and they are impressed. However when we get on to the roof and they start asking about dormers and roof lights, it's always slightly embarrassing to show them how far behind the roof tool is compared to the other main architectural elements. While we are on this topic, why not focus on below ground walls and foundations in the future.

 

Then we really would have all aspects required for BIM modelling, rather than having to use workaround for below ground and the top of buildings. It would be great if this discussion could be developed further and that a plan was made to address these current weak areas. Does anyone else feel this?

[Tom W.]

2 minutes ago, JRA-Vectorworks-CAD said:

rather than having to use workaround for below ground

 

Can you expand on this? 

[line-weight]

The priority for improvement should be the roof face object. Better rooflights are needed too, but I find that I rarely get a chance to use them anyway, thanks to the limitations of the roof face tool. Those limitations are mainly to do with control over eaves/verges and other edge conditions, including clipping or connecting to walls (personally I'd want manual control of edges properly developed before worrying about automatic connections).

 

For example, as soon as I get into any level of detail I find I need to use separate objects for the exterior and interior parts of a pitched roof. Sometimes that means two roof face objects, in many cases it ends up as directly modelled solids. In either case, automatic hole creation for rooflights becomes of limited use because I can't easily cut a hole through all layers and then have easy control of adjustments to its size or location.

[Christiaan]

2 hours ago, line-weight said:

The priority for improvement should be the roof face object.

My understanding is that this is actually the case. One reason being that roof objects need reengineering to enable the development of better roof windows.

[Matt Panzer]

8 hours ago, Tom W. said:

I have also consistently had issues with carefully-configured roof clipping settings being lost when a model is referenced into another file which is a real pain (seeing your walls sticking out through the roof or the roof components sticking out beyond the walls). This was accepted as a bug some time ago but not sure what the progress is...

 

Is @Matt Panzer the one to ask about this?

 

I found a bug report related to this (VB-187219).

From what I gather, this is more of a file referencing bug than a roof/wall bug and the problem seems to be triggered when the user origin is shifted from the document origin. in the related files.  If you have a case with this issue, can you try resetting the user origin on the files and see if that resolves the issue?

[Tom W.]

32 minutes ago, Matt Panzer said:

 

I found a bug report related to this (VB-187219).

From what I gather, this is more of a file referencing bug than a roof/wall bug and the problem seems to be triggered when the user origin is shifted from the document origin. in the related files.  If you have a case with this issue, can you try resetting the user origin on the files and see if that resolves the issue?

 

Thank you @Matt Panzer + apologies, it sounded like I was asking you about the referencing bug when my question was meant to be more about Roof development in general + more specifically the plans if any for improving Skylight symbols. The only mention on the Roadmap I can see to roofs is this which is pretty vague:

 

 

You have been really helpful/knowledgeable in lots of other areas + I didn't know if roofs were your department too 🙂.

 

But thanks for the info on VB-187219. I'm not entirely sure what you mean when you refer to 'resetting the user origin'. Yes these are georeferenced files so the user origin is miles away as it needs to be, but everything else works absolutely fine - it's just Roof objects which I consistently have issues with when it comes to referencing + it's specifically the clipping settings being lost in translation. This is several projects + several different files. Happy to try anything you suggest but if you're saying roofs aren't compatible with georeferencing then that's not so good...!

[Matt Panzer]

10 hours ago, Tom W. said:

 

Thank you @Matt Panzer + apologies, it sounded like I was asking you about the referencing bug when my question was meant to be more about Roof development in general + more specifically the plans if any for improving Skylight symbols. The only mention on the Roadmap I can see to roofs is this which is pretty vague:

 

 

You have been really helpful/knowledgeable in lots of other areas + I didn't know if roofs were your department too 🙂.

 

But thanks for the info on VB-187219. I'm not entirely sure what you mean when you refer to 'resetting the user origin'. Yes these are georeferenced files so the user origin is miles away as it needs to be, but everything else works absolutely fine - it's just Roof objects which I consistently have issues with when it comes to referencing + it's specifically the clipping settings being lost in translation. This is several projects + several different files. Happy to try anything you suggest but if you're saying roofs aren't compatible with georeferencing then that's not so good...!

 

By "resetting", I meant returning the user origin to match the document origin.

Actually, another detail I should've mentioned is that the problem shouldn't happen regardless of where the user origin is if the roof and its associated walls are on the same design layer.

I realize either of those options are not always ideal.

[Tom W.]

1 hour ago, Matt Panzer said:

 

By "resetting", I meant returning the user origin to match the document origin.

Actually, another detail I should've mentioned is that the problem shouldn't happen regardless of where the user origin is if the roof and its associated walls are on the same design layer.

I realize either of those options are not always ideal.

 

Thanks for explaining this. No, not sure how workable either option is but good to know nevertheless.

 

What I've been doing, where it is the Roof failing to clip the Walls, is duplicate the layer with the Walls on + remove the clipping, set the wall heights so the tops are buried within the thickness of the Roof, then turn this layer on in the DLVP + turn the normal layer (where the roof is set up to clip the walls) off. This means I effectively have two versions of the model: the 'normal' version in the source file where I can create section VPs showing the roof/wall component interface + a simplified 'DLVP' version which is only good for internal/external shots or simplified sections where the structure is shown as solid.

 

Where the clipping is set up the other way around + it is the Wall failing to clip the Roof (in the referenced DLVP) I can most often get it looking right by simply turning off the offending components but again, this means the target file is only good for internal/external VPs + simple sections: I can't show any of the component detail.

 

This has taken the thread away from Skylights, sorry @Christiaan, but I do feel like it relates to the overall situation with Roofs performing worse than other parametric tools. @Matt Panzer on the wider question of whether there is work underway to improve Roofs + to get back to the starting point of this thread, to develop a proper Rooflight object, do you have any insights to share beyond the 'continued improvements for more accurate models' on the Roadmap?

 

Many thanks

[_James]

15 hours ago, Tom W. said:

The only mention on the Roadmap I can see to roofs is this which is pretty vague:

I really don't like to come on here and whinge about things but the fact that it's in "In development" means that an update is at best 18months away for VW 2025, maybe 30 months for VW2026? Surely any update is now too late for VW 2024. I hope that I will be proven wrong with the more frequent updates that are made possible by the switch to subscription.

 

Of course it's not my field and there are countless other factors at play but I just can't see how it could take that long to sort out. From what I have inferred on the forum there seems there's lots of 'legacy code' that things have to integrate with which to me is the tail wagging the dog. I saw some clips of Tesla's recent investor day where they said that it took them only 9 months to go from an empty field in Shanghai to shipping the first car out of that newly built factory. Perhaps an unfair comparison but it offers some perspective.

 

I would like to understand more about the challenges of developing Vectorworks features, but I understand why VW staff would rather not come on here and get shouted at by people saying "why bother spending time on X feature when I want Y feature".

 

But anyway, I'm very much in favour of Roof Face modernisation and look forward to parametric roof light objects in the future! If they could incorporate the "wall closure" functionality that walls have that would be great too.

[Matt Panzer]

Regarding the status of roofs and skylights:  Before skylights can be improved, both slabs and roof objects must be reengineered in a similar way that walls have in the past couple versions.  The wall reengineering was a big effort and is still undergoing some tweaks and improvements.  Now that most of the guts of walls have been reworked, we can focus more on slabs and roofs.  Once this is done, getting better skylights and dormers will be possible.  The "when" is always difficult to say but I will say that it's is a very high priority for us.

[_James]

Thanks Matt, i appreciate you taking the time to update us. Good luck with the reengineering! 

[JRA-Vectorworks-CAD]

Thanks @Matt Panzerthat's great to hear its in the pipeline and I am sure lots of suers will have lots of ideas and suggestions.

 

[Tom W.]

Ditto @Matt Panzer thank you 👍

 

What are the issues with Slab objects that need addressing?

[E|FA]

3 hours ago, JRA-Vectorworks-CAD said:

suers

users, no need to bring in the lawyers

[Matt Panzer]

4 hours ago, Tom W. said:

Ditto @Matt Panzer thank you 👍

 

What are the issues with Slab objects that need addressing?

 

The main issues with slabs are technical and not user facing.  I could go into more detail but eyes will glaze over. 😉 

The biggest clue you can see in Vectorworks now is by using  "Convert to Group" on a wall vs a slab vs a roof/roof face.  If you dig deep enough, you'll notice that wall components are now generic solids whereas the other objects have many 3D polys.  Internally, this is a very important change but the idea is to bring these objects very much in line with walls in order to add similar functionality to all of them.  This is far from trivial work to implement and we need to take the time to do it right.

[Tom W.]

Many thanks Matt appreciate the info. Thanks for taking the time to fill us in. Keep up the good work!