Ridges are being drawn however I am still working on valley and hip rafters.
Version 3.2.9b - 08.28.2023 thru 08.29.2023
- Fixed a critical bug with the hip rafter roof module.
Unfortunately I never noticed this error/bug because I usually test the plugin with the advanced options turned on automatically. If the advanced options are turned off and a hip roof is attempted and error will be thrown. This bug fix addresses that issue. I highly recommend upgrading to this latest version.
Version 3.2.9c - 08.30.2023
- Fixed the non-orthogonal rafter framing bug for complex roofs.
I think I have finally resolved the confounded non-orthogonal rafter framing issue (it has been almost two years). It turns out the fix was simply replacing a complex piece of logic with two lines of code, sometimes simple is better.
I highly recommend updating to this latest release. I apologize that it has taken this long to rectify the issue, I was made aware of it about 18 months ago but it has taken me a while to circle back and determine the cause and then the solution. Thank-you everyone for your patience.
P.S.
After testing non-orthogonal roofs this afternoon I realized that it would be handy to have the ability to custom offset the rafter spacing for each roof plane. Sometimes the algorithm is not smart enough to correctly position the rafters exactly where one might want them. I will give this some additional consideration.
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Version 3.3.0 - 08.31.2023
- Added a rafter offset parameter for complex roof framing.
- Fixed a minor bug with complex roof framing for half hip roofs set to custom pitches.
The rafter offset parameter will now allow the user to offset the rafter framing any custom amount (positive or negative) for each roof plane independently.
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What if I wanted to do half of one of those? (Like with the floorplan you gave me?)
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I suppose one could create that bay window roof by using the complex roof module and the SUBTRACT feature, that would work.
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First look at a complex roof with the hips, flying hips and valleys drawn. The framing module still has quite a ways to go but at least this is a start on these elements:
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Version 3.3.1 - 09.03.2023
- Added hip, valley and flying hip rafters to the complex roof framing module.
The first thing you will notice is that the upper ends of the hip and valley rafters are not correctly trimmed, only the bottom ends. Also flying hips are not trimmed on their upper or lower ends. The trimming algorithm for these rafters is the next thing on my todo list.
Unlike the lower end trimming, the upper end will require a much more sophisticated algorithm so it may take some time. The problem really is that there a number of possibilities for termination and the plugin needs to be be able to check for all of those possibilities. No one said complex roof are easy.
Nothing is easy with complex roofs, the math is hard, the code is hard and the topology/trigonometry can be very challenging. Fortunately I do like these sorts of hard problems but even I have to take a small break once in a while to let my head rest and regroup.
Last night I was trying to figure out how to handle the asymmetric offset (lateral and vertical) for hip and valley rafters when the adjacent roof planes are different pitches. The problem was that I did not have a good way to determine which of the two pitches was to the left or right of the rafter. I was only able to solve the problem after calling it a night and then the solution (cross product of the flattened normal vectors of the roof planes) came to me while watching another episode of “How’s it Made” on the Discovery channel. Sometimes I think my best programming actually happens when I’m not actually programming 
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I occasionally dream a solution, but it’s more often like “sleep on it” and you see a solution with a fresh set of eyes after walking away for a while.
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Just when I think I’ve seen it all with complex roofs, I draw this small test roof:
Notice how the valley rafter continues on to become a flying hip higher up on the roof (I’ve colored the rafters of interest). Crazy stuff. My hat is off to the guys who actually frame these roofs up in real life, what a nightmare.
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Version 3.3.1b - 09.04.2023
- Refined the framing algorithm for hip, valley and flying hip rafters.
All of the major framing members are now being drawn however the trimming of certain rafters is still not quite correct, further refinement and correction will be necessary.
I’ve also noticed that with certain large roof planes an occasional stray edge is generated (or left behind when the roof primitive is created), I will need to look into this further and rectify the issue. It does not appear to be a critical error but it does effectively split the roof plane into two separate faces which then makes the plugin treat the roof plane as two separate faces/planes.
With the flying hips terminating adjacent to valley rafters I’m not entirely sure how that is typically framed.
Please download and test this latest release and then email me comments or suggestions directly.
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Been playing with the update this morning and am finding it extremely useful and complete. I hated created roof plans by drawing in the hip and valley rafters by hand. Thanks for completing this and looking forward to seeing teh truss component completed to this level
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This is super cool, but does it also show the lengths along every rafter and aggregate the results into a report?
I have built an extension specifically for rafters a while ago, but it is restricted to the 2D plane and only takes into account the inter-axis distance between rafters. Although not super exact, it works very well in practice. In Romania we use the metric system and the 6000 [+30] text means that a 6000 mm rafter will be sufficient (with 30 mm – or a bit more – of excess material).
Rafter optimization (such as combining 1400 mm and 1600 mm rafters into a 3000 mm one) is performed manually at the minute.
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I have not extended the reporting/estimating to complex roofs yet. For regular (rectangular) hip and rafter roofs there is an option in the estimating module (Medeek Project) to draw labels on each rafter with their length:
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Another bug related to the generation of a Complex Roof for an odd-looking building. I’ve also put the exact dimensions of the floor plan in case you can’t reproduce the bug for similar looking buildings. I wonder where that stray roof plane is coming from.
On a different note, this tool would be easier to use if you let the user select the face as opposed to going around the outline. The floor plan is typically drawn first using the standard Line Tool and it will be represented as a face, so you can directly access the vertices on the outer loop.
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Send me the model so I can analyze it, the measurements are no good to me because they don’t include the angles. If I have the face it is easy to duplicate it on my end.
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Version 3.3.1c - 09.05.2023
- Minor bug fix within the rafter framing module for complex roofs.
Try this latest version and let me know what you get.
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Thanks for the quick fix. I will test more on some other floor plans and will report back if needed. All but 2 angles were non-right in that configuration, so the face was uniquely identified (up to rotations and translations, of course).
I still think that it will be more convenient to the user to just click on the face instead of going slowly along the contour of an already-drawn polygon. The process of generating geometry should use the least amount of input from the user in my opinion.