ProfileBuilder3, creating triangular profiles

bikerchris · August 13, 2021, 9:17pm

Very sorry to bother you all about this, I’m getting the hang of Profile Builder 3, it certainly has potential and I’m using it with Quantifier.

One thing I’m having difficulty with, is making the triangular area that occurs on lean-to style extensions, this would also be a problem on the gable ends of buildings as well.

I’ve tried many workarounds, including creating a solid and using the Trim to solid tool (appears to extend the wall a few mm?), as well as creating a face and using the Trim to Face tool (does very strange things).

Here’s an image that I hope will explain, it’s the white bit that I’m trying to create.

For the Quantifier tool, I could always use materials, but I’m quite keen on using Profile Builder to it’s strengths.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Kenny · August 14, 2021, 4:17pm

Coincidentally I’ve been trying to achieve the same thing. Profile Builder is great but I find it a bit complex sometimes.

I couldn’t find an easy solution in Profile Builder but I’ve just tried using Fredo’s VisuHole (SketchUp Plugins | PluginStore | SketchUcation) which achieves the result you’re after. Essentially it cuts out the piece of the wall not required to leave the roof shape behind that is required. You need a custom stencil which is created by tracing the area on the wall you want to cut out. The images below show the process. Note that on the third image I made the left and top edges slightly larger than the profile edge otherwise VisuHole leaves behind a 2d face on the edge. Making it larger ensures it cuts everything away.

Profile Builder also has a hole cutting tool which could probably achieve the same thing, although I found VisuHole to be simpler.

MikeWayzovski · August 14, 2021, 5:43pm

Profile members can be trimmed to solid in the direction of the profile. If you take the perimeter and offset it, you can use this as the profile and trim to the roof:

trimtosolid

Of course, this screws some things up, I guess @Whaat is more of a steel profile guy then masonry

Kenny · August 14, 2021, 6:07pm

Thanks, that’s useful to know. I’ve only recently purchased Profile Builder so lots to learn!

bikerchris · August 19, 2021, 8:02pm

Thank you Kenny, really do appreciate it wasn’t just me.

I’ve downloaded the Fredo plugin - as soon as I saw that name I knew it was trusted from experience.

Like you say, the cutting tool could work, but it’s principly based on shapes isn’t it.

Thanks again.

Thank you for that Mike, I’ll certainly investigate this and see how it works with real build design.

bikerchris · August 19, 2021, 8:19pm

I’ve been looking at this option, and it’s great, but it doesn’t work well with the Quantifier tool, too well. It would mean that I would need ‘horizontal’ profiles for some of the wall make up (foundations, etc.), and then switch to a vertical profile for the wall. I will certainly remember this though, just in case it becomes practical, so thank you again.

bikerchris · August 19, 2021, 9:41pm

@Kenny @MikeWayzovski

I think I found the solution, but I welcome someone else duplicating - the good thing is you stay within the Profile builder tool set.

Here’s a very bad / rough cut video to illustrate:

otherwise below is a description.

make the wall profile much higher than needed - so make it well in excess of the ridge height by perhaps a few feet or 1 metre.
draw the building as usual
add your roof - perhaps as a profile as well, or even an assembly (it may work better with the latter)

You’ll have a wall that projects through the roof if all is well. Then:

make a profile of the area to be deducted (perhaps call, “deducted”)
Select the hole tool and click custom.
Select the profile ‘deducted’
Click the “+” button.
Select the wall profile that requires the deduction.

Make sure the insertion point of this is correct.