Medeek Truss

I have a lot of people recently asking me about features that are or are not included in the plugin. Granted my documentation is still in disarray, especially the manual, but I would strongly suggest doing a search in the Changelog if you are interested in a particular feature and would like to check if it has been implemented yet:

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I’ve been looking at adding in the ability to handle dual pitch hip roofs:

View model here:

The first thing that jumps out at me is the jack rafters do not line up when the pitches are different. Also if the overhang is the same and the fascia is the same height then the top plate will be a different height for the different pitches.

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Or change the heel height of the rafters.

jack rafters do not line up

IF there is the need to line them up:

  • change c.t.c. of jack rafters in a roof surface

  • give the jack rafters an inclination so the angle between jack rafter and hip rafter is the same for both roof surfaces (I think the span of the jack rafters will increase in most situations in case of a saddle roof, but it automatically introduces other problems)

I’m reminded of a roof I fiddled with a while back.

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With dual pitch hip roofs technically one could have a different pitch for all four sides (the most general case). I should probably try to code this most general case then all the rest simply fall out of it.

View model here:

I’m not sure why one would want to construct a roof in this manner but I guess I should probably allow for the possibility.

I would hope it was accidental.

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Wow, that’s some roof. A good example of “Don’t waste lumber if you can’t draw it on paper”, something I’ve heard many times. I did the hips and commons but lost interest when it came to the jacks. Good luck with adding this to the plugin.

Shep

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It is certainly an interesting puzzle. Calculating the commons, jacks and hip rafters is not a problem, I can figure that out. The one item that has me though is the fact that if each pitch is different and assuming the same overhang all the way around and the same birdsmouth cut then the top plate of each wall will need to be slightly different. Again I can make that adjustment for each side of the roof. The real question then is what to do with the birdsmouth cut of the hip rafters? Which wall height does one use?

If I were sentenced to a job like this I’d likely try a couple different methods.
Perhaps a block under one of the hips and raise the wall under two others.

general_hip shep.skp (546.1 KB)

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Using truss plugin for simple pole garage.

Just some observations on using the plugin for simple fink truss set and porch rafters. Nothing tricky or unusual here.

My single biggest tip is to get your truss set correct for your job before customizing and organizing the entities. I learned the hard way that if you ask to change some settings the plugin essentially recreates the entities from scratch and you will loose all those customizations like colors/textures you might have applied or if you grouped entities in a roof collection for easy hiding and customization. So make sure your truss set is exactly what you need then do these things.

In my case I created a fink truss set with a raised heel, cladding, battens that are really purlins, and a ceiling. Like I mentioned when that was correct I then textured and grouped the various pieces (the plugin does not do that). For the porch roof I created two rafter sets then exploded them deleted half the one set and then combined them together into the set you see. That worked fairly well.

The plugin doesn’t do “everything” for you but it does generate sets that you can then easily customize so just for that it’s worthwhile.

Below are the truss set and rafters applied to my pole garage model

The plugin does NOT organize nor customize (color/texture) all the entities it creates you’ll need do that manually as I did below. The caveat again is once you do this do not change the settings or you will loose all your customizations.

entities-roof

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In the global setting of the plugin you can enable layers and materials. These options are not enabled by default.

Version 2.1.9 - 05.27.2018

  • Replaced the 64 bit SketchUp check in the installation module to fix an incompatibility issue with SketchUp 2014.
  • Added additional wall cladding materials in the sheathing tab of the global settings.
  • Fixed a bug in the top level assembly method of the roof truss module.

I am using free truss builder to get familiar with. I am having trouble creating 18’ wide gambrel truss didn’t seem to work with 20’ wide building either can i not do this for some reason

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Turn on the metal plates in the global settings and then try the gambrel attic trusses.

This is a known bug that I need to fix.

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ahhhhhh ty been fighting for over an hr!

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Version 2.2.0 - 06.19.2018

  • Sub-groups within roof and floor truss assemblies can be made persistent by naming these groups or component instances to (custom1, custom2, custom3, etc…), also all other user defined geometry (ie. faces, text, lines and dimensions) are also retained when the assemblies are regenerated by the plugin.

I don’t have a half hip (rafter roof) setup yet however there is probably a workaround by combining a gable with a hip and then using the trim tool to manually trim some of the rafters, however I haven’t really tried this at least not for a real design.

I took about 10-15 minutes and tried creating a half hip with a gable and hip roof as primitives. Using the trim tool made it fairly easy to clean up the rafters, see results here:

Since the end result is not parametric you will want to be sure that you have all of your rafter depths, overhangs etc… set before you dive into the manual editing of such a roof.

This is obviously a painful and slow process. Conclusion, I need to add in a half hip rafter roof.

In regards to this post (Jun 19th), say I wanted create a customized TJI floor:

What is your recommended work flow?

-enable layers and materials
-create a rectangle that fits inside
-edit the groups/components to fit
-name the customize items (ie. TJI joists, rim joist, etc) to custom ones

Would that allow one to edit the floor after the fact? Ie. swap out different TJI heights?

Also, what is your recommended work flow for odd shapes like the following?

At first glance I can see 2 methods:
-smaller rectangle method above
-multiple rectangle with no rim joist overlayed on joist centre, rim joist added on its own (would “double count” joists in some estimating programs but look ok)

Love all 3 products.

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As it currently stands the floor joist/truss module in this plugin is very rudimentary and rather limited. I need to spend some more time on it and provide the ability to create floor layouts for any building (irregular) outline. Right now it is limited to a simple rectangle.

Also the ability to do cutouts (holes) for stairs and other openings is the next big item on the todo list.

For now I would just create two floor assemblies and the manually trim and adjust each one to fit the structure. The TRIM tool of the plugin will come in handy for this.

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