Getting Roof tile along edges

[SacSurfin']

I've been trying to use Vectorworks for adding roof tile to corners of roof, and have had nothing but problems. To match the roof pitch I rotate from a left or right view, then I rotate 45 from top view and when I go back to front view my tile pitch is no longer the same as the roof and usaully the Z-axis has rotated a little too. How come when you rotate 45 from top it affects all three; X,Y,Z axis's. Besides the roof, the perspective renderings look great. Any suggestions? Is there any way to do this in Vectorworks in a reasonable amount of time?

[CipesDesign]

Hey SacSurfin' (BTW I'd love to hear about the derivation of the screen name....), if I was trying to add tiles to the corner of a roof, I would first draw a 2d poly of the simplest section of the tile (eg: for comp, roof corners I would draw an "L" shape). I would draw this poly in a front (or 'frontal') view, right on my roof layer, so that I was looking directly at the bottom edge of the barge, with the ridge beyond (and above) showing as a horizontal. Then I would extrude the poly to its actual length, (what is that, about a foot? ). Then with the extrusion still selected I would change to the perpendicular view (in this case, if we started with 'front', then I would go to 'left' or 'right'). Next I would rotate the piece to the roof slope and nudge it into place at the bottom of the barge. I would check also from the 'top' and make sure to move the piece over to the correct point (as it would have been created at whatever the "zero point" of that particular axis was and will most likely be WAY far away). Now I would go back to the side (left or right) view and determine the correct x,y values for a 'duplicate array' (many times by trial and error). Once I have done the duplication all the way up the barge, I group all the new pieces together. No I have a long piece of roof trim, and by duplication & rotation I can make all the other required pieces from it. Sorrry to be so long-winded. Hope that helps...

Peter Cipes, PBD

G5 1.8 x 2 / OS 10.3.3/ VWIS 10.5.1

[SacSurfin']

I've made the 2d poly and have extruded and duplicated the array and grouped my row of tile but it's the rotation of the tile in top view that changes all three axis rotation values, I rotate 45 degrees then the tile and roof pitch no longer match, and usaully the z-axis is a little off center also. They work fine in a perpendicular settings, it's just the 45 angled roof tile that bother me. With a roof pitch of 22.62 I rotate the tile in F, B, L, R view to 22.62 but after rotated in top view to 45, it becomes more like 25 or 30.

[CipesDesign]

OK- I finally understand your question! Here's the solution: because the HIP of a roof is (by definition) NOT the same pitch as the FACES (or planes) of the roof, you'll need to create the HIP tiles in a different view. Try this: go to your FRONT view, then go to VIEW>3d ROTATE and rotate only the Y axis by 45?. Now you are looking at the actual angle of the hip itself. (HINT: sometimes with complex 3d wireframe models it is hard to wrap my braint around what it is I'm actually looking at, so I change the line color of the item I need to see to red, or whatever, temporarily)). Let me know if that works...Peter

Peter

[CipesDesign]

Happy it worked for you. P

[SacSurfin']

Yeah, Your idea works great. Thanks Peter

Brian