I’m now turning my attention to the hip & ridge caps. This has actually never been fully developed for complex roofs. I had gotten about half way into it and then Covid hit in Mar. 2020 and disrupted some of my development tracks. I went back into my code and found where I had left it disabled but mostly functional.
My previous way of mathematically calculating the cap terminations worked well for simple deterministic roofs. However my new algorithms are more general and work off of the topology itself and therefore should be more robust and actually easier to generate. Sometimes you just need to look at a problem with a fresh set of eyes.
There are still a few cases I have not yet covered for hip and ridge, but the current module should now cleanly handle about 97% of all complex roof configurations. I will now move on to the rafter framing. The introduction of raised fascia offset has caused some complications for the actual rafter framing. I now need to spend a few days unraveling that.
I don’t know that it needs to be double per say but it is essentially a girder rafter since it is picking up the valley and the sub-fascia. I will be a deeper member, perhaps deeper than the commons. I’m just wondering if anyone has an example of the framing at one of these inside (discontinuous) corners.
Tutorial 33: Multi-Level Fascia Lines (15:08 min.)
There will be a few fires to put out, there always is. I think I tested well over 50+ roof configurations with this new feature but there are always a few edges cases that manage to slip through. If you notice anything please feel free to email me (nathan@medeek.com).
Sadly it took me almost seven years to circle back to this issue and figure it out, but in my defense I was quite convinced that I could not come up with a solution. By 2023 I had identified the correct solution to the problem however the complete rewrite of the complex roof solver was so daunting that I again shelved the idea. It was only my recent work on the new weighted straight skeleton solver that convinced me that I might have a chance at making this work.
I’ve also found one other regression error when creating a new complex roof. Give me a few more hours to figure this one out and then download the next minor update (Version 3.8.5b).
When you have framing enabled it should now take about half as long to edit or regen a roof. This should be a significant performance increase when using the new advanced solver (which invokes) the new framing logic.
Additionally the common rafters at a RHH junction were being over trimmed previously. That should now be resolved.
At this point I highly recommend using the new advanced primitive solver. I’ve kept the legacy solver for now, just in case, but at this point it probably makes more sense to use the new solver and take advantage of the performance improvements and framing corrections.
I’m also super excited that I have somehow been able to enable hip & ridge for complex roofs. I hit a real roadblock previously on this feature but it turns out it was actually not as difficult as I had imagined it was. It just took a slightly different approach (rather than a mathematical solver I used a pure topology approach).
Just joined the community, I am an architect, worked in revit for the last 15 years and I am in pursuit of a workflow that goes from predesign through CDs in the sketchup ecosystem. I started with PlusSpec but I am after clean, crisp, beautiful, customizable drawings with as much automation as possible and after discovering enough limitations with PS, I am now trying out Medeek.
How would you model this roof with Medeek tools? Probably two or more shed roofs? The section above the garage is tapered, is that possible with Medeek? Also, its made of solid 2x6 car decking running perpendicular to the slope spanning to large glulam beams that run with the slope , not standard framing on spacing. Is it best to just model it natively in sketchup?
New username but long time Medeek user that’s recently started their own practice.
I would start with a gable roof with offset bearing heights. That’ll do most of your modeling in one roof but ultimately something this custom will not be parametric when you’re done. The Medeek rafter tool and available parameters are robust enough to handle the car decking and glulam framing spacing but the taper over the garage is going to be you editing the straight Medeek output.
FWIW, I also spent some time in PlusSpec too and I respect what their aiming for but there isn’t enough customization in doors, casings, etc. Models were too flat for me. Medeek gets me 80% of the way and then it’s tweaking and cleanup.
I’m not sure about that really custom tapered roof. You might consider doing a “subtraction” but then again manually adjusting it might be easier. Just remember not to regen or edit the roof once you’ve gone down the manual editing route.
Take a look at Tutorial #20 for subtractive geometry:
I would highly encourage anyone using the extensions to watch as many of the tutorials videos as you can. My videos are less about any sort of marketing and mostly about new features I’ve added and how to achieve specific design or construction tasks.
The plugins are very “deep” at this point (especially the Wall plugin), unless you watch a lot of tutorials you will be missing out on a lot of functionality that you otherwise could have had. Take advantage of the features that I have painstakingly worked at putting in place so your workflow can be easier and your load can be lighter.
Thanks @matt.vertexdesign . Congrats on the new practice. How would you deal with cardecking in medeek? I only saw spacing that went down to 12" O.C.
What patterns have emerged for the 20% of things that require cleaning and tweaking? I just modeled the basement, which has some furring walls that turn corners and because of the fact that you have to model walls counterclockwise and the best way I could think of to create a furring wall was to do an INT-EXT wall with no sheathing or cladding, I then have to manually move and adjust the drywall layer. But if I edit the wall, it regens and I need to fix the GWB again. And I wanted the GWB on the drywall tag, not the cladding tag…but maybe an easier fix would be to have it generate the wall with drywall as the cladding or sheathing and then move then it to the drywall tag after?
You’re just in the phase of learning a new tool’s idiosyncrasies.
The basement furring walls would be INT-EXT without sheathing or cladding; depending on your assembly you might to drop some guide lines in to get your input offset from the foundation. Nathan already linked to a couple tutorials. For your roof, I’d input the car decking as my sheathing thickness and the glulams are the rafters. Where I expect this gets more complicated is you probably have exterior insulation and more sheathing. That’s currently more roof component layers than Medeek supports. For a similar project I changed the sheathing thickness to the total thickness of all my layers between the rafters and the cladding; for example, 1.5" car decking, 4" polyiso SIP, 3/4" ventilation furring, and then 1/2" sheathing = 6-3/4" sheathing. Your section poche will be correct but you’ll need to delineate the layers in a detail.
That gets to the last 20% of modeling for me. The less common your assembly the more manual editing you’re going to need. But that’s true of Revit and everything else. I work in the Northeast US and regional techniques and preferences are routinely touch-ups, e.g. we often use a secondary facia board, shadow board, or crown at the eaves. That’s manual. The footprints of my projects are often too complex for the floor module and I need to model multiple floor systems and then clean the overlapping geometry; I draw the bulk of my own structural drawings which adds to the specificity. I merge some roof trims at the soffit where the module leaves lines I don’t want to see. (Pro Tip: Get Eneroth Solid Tools to replace the native ones; the key is Eneroth’s tools keep the solid’s assigned tag).
Make use of the tutorials. There are often hidden gems of information. The plug ins are very robust and a lot of conveniences aren’t obvious at first glance.
Shout out to Nathan. I love his Medeek extensions. It really helps to draw certain areas part by part to make sure things are tying in or you may discover issues or better ways to bring it all together. Great job Nathan.
