rafter preference box

[whitecap]

dear mr./ms. wizard,

when i am creating rafters from my already created roof and i would like to change some of the preferences, how do i recall the rafter preference box.

i am trying to surround a simple gable with a lower pitch "covered porch" roof. this only seems to create vector script errors.

my thought was to create them seperatly and then join them. the desired result would be a rafter framing plan of the entire roof "as one".

any hints, thoughts or ridicule would be appreciated.

thanx whitecap

[whitecap]

are you guys there today?

[jfmarch]

When I've tried to model some special rafter conditions, I've made than out of walls. I draw them in plan, set the elevation on the info palette, and then do a multiple duplicate. If they are sloping, I rotate then in elevation view. I've done this on a couple trellis and shed designs. I've also made them out of extrudes, but walls work easier. In than way you can show your roof object sitting on top of your "wall" rafters. hope this helps....

[whitecap]

thank you gentlemen for the replys,

robert, before i go too far with the individual rooof faces, my intention s to create a hiped wrap around, as you understood at a different pitch. the question now is where i assume the roof faces overlap, how do change that to a hip, before you frame it?

jim,an interesting approach. how do you achieve the plumb cuts, or vertical ends, of the wall at either end or both?

whitecap

[Robert Anderson]

Do you want to do an "L-shaped" porch? This may be one of those cases where a picture is worth 1000 words. Briefly, what you can do is either make two "mitered" roof faces from two 4-sided "mitered" polygons, or draw an L-shaped poly and create a roof from it, then set 4 of the 6 faces to gable (but don't enable gable walls to draw).

[whitecap]

hi robert,

in attempt to keep things extra simple for my training i drew a square building, so the four sided hiped porch/shed roof will have all corners mitered. i have started playing with it; first the polygon with 45'd corners,mirror and duplicate, then i intend to frame it.sound like that will work?

pilot error in the extruded beam line dimension is creating some backtracking. but i think i get it.

thanks again

whitecap

[jfmarch]

When I've used walls for rafters, it is for general visual information. If you want to show cuts or funky rafter ends, you probably have to do extrudes....

[Robert Anderson]

I'm getting a little lost here. "Whitecap", I assume you are using VectorWorks Architect, since you mention rafter objects in the first place. You don't need to be using roof faces unless you're doing something special (unusual) with the roof -- otherwise, just use the roofer (combined roof) object and frame from that. Without pictures to confirm, this is really difficult. This sounds like a simple problem, almost trivial.

[whitecap]

robert,

i am not sure if i should take offense or laugh.i guess this is the ridicule i asked for.

sorry to be "trivial"and drag you into my confusion, but it was you who suggested roof faces!

when i tried to achieve framing with the two pitch roof,the gable from poly and then the surround from a seperate poly the framing was less than acceptable.many extra members.

maybe just the original question is appropriate,how do i recall the rafter preferance box?

thanks,jeff

[ 10-24-2002, 01:02 AM: Message edited by: whitecap ]

[Robert Anderson]

This one's pretty easy.

1. Create your gabled roof using the Roof from Poly or Roof from Walls command.

2. Create your shed add-on roof using the Roof Face command.

3. Select the roof and frame using the Rafters from Roof command.

4. Select the shed roof and frame using the same command.

That's if I understand you correctly. The other possibility is that you simply want to extend some rafter tails to make a porch roof without changing their pitch. In this case, simply select the rafter objects created from the Frame from Roof command and open the Object Info palette. Now change the Overhang parameter of the selected rafters to cover your porch.

HTH.

[Robert Anderson]

That one's truly easy. Simply select the rafters and their properties will be displayed in the Object Info palette. Change any values you want in the OI palette and the changes will be reflected in the rafters.