Oval roof?

**taharvey** · 02-25-2006, 02:41 PM

Trying to do an oval or round roof. No circle tool for roofs, the fillet button is present in the roof plane edit toolbar, but doesn't work; and there is no option for 2D cad line -> roofs.

Help! Any ideas?

**Tommy Blair** · 02-25-2006, 03:02 PM

I assume you tried to make a room using the curved wall tool and then build roof?

**mcqueenhomes** · 02-25-2006, 03:18 PM

Or you can build a room in a blank plan that will get you the roof shape you need, then copy the roof planes over to the plan you need them in.

**taharvey** · 02-25-2006, 06:52 PM

Originally Posted by Tommy Blair

I assume you tried to make a room using the curved wall tool and then build roof?

Hmm... didn't notice that before, that brings up another question how do you do oval walls? Looks like cheif's "curved walls" only means circular walls. No curves no ovals, no splines, just circles! yikes! how do i do an oval wall?

**Gary Doski** · 02-25-2006, 07:09 PM

Well, maybe you need to define what you mean by "oval" then someone can tell you how to do it.

**taharvey** · 02-25-2006, 08:31 PM

Originally Posted by Gary Doski

Well, maybe you need to define what you mean by "oval" then someone can tell you how to do it.

Oval: as defined by two focii. But I'd be satified with drawing arbitrary curved walls - anything but a circular cross section.

**Tommy Blair** · 02-25-2006, 08:39 PM

You'll have to play with the curved wall tool. Make two curved walls opposite each other. Once a wall is drawn, you'll see a handle in the center of the wall. Dragging that handle will change the wall radius. Once the walls are joined, build roof. If you only want the roof part, just shift select the roof planes and block. Then you can move the planes over together or copy/paste to another file if needed as mentioned by Jason. Play with it and see what you can come up with.

**Tommy Blair** · 02-25-2006, 09:00 PM

Here is a quickie oval roof.

**taharvey** · 02-25-2006, 09:40 PM

Originally Posted by Tommy Blair

Here is a quickie oval roof.

I mean an real oval. That is two half circles connected with straight walls. It looks to me like the "curved" wall tool only does circular sections. How do I do true ovals or arbitrary curves (splines, beziers, etc)?

**gpickren** · 02-25-2006, 09:45 PM

You do the same way, only instead of the straight walls connecting you use a curve with a different radius. Small radius curves at the ends joined by longer radius curves. You can probably draw it a lot easier than someone can build it.

**jsimanyi** · 02-25-2006, 11:17 PM

Do you have any other cad program? I would say just draw the oval walls as CAD items in CA, then use CAD-to-Walls, but I just tried their ovals. They do not look natural - at least not at higher levels of eccentricity. If your minor and major axes are fairly similar, CA will probably do it well enough.

On the other hand, all the rest seem to understand an ellipse...

Good luck,

John S.

**taharvey** · 02-25-2006, 11:21 PM

Thanks for all the suggestions, but you cannot make ovals or arbitary curves from circular sections, remeber 9th grade geometry? (you may be able to do a half-baked simulation that looks somewhat like an oval if you squint).
1) I'm looking for an oval, not a oval-like thing.
2) if you can't spec a real oval, how is someone going to lay it out on the ground? Ovals are easy, two focii's and a floating string.

I'm just floored that there is no way to do curved walls other than circles in a CAD product in 2006 (heck, I'd be floored if it wasn't in CAD product in 1986). Are there any other suggestions here?

Just looked at the oval tool in 2D mode. Chief is faking ovals in 2D! I can't beleive it!!! It doesn't create ovals! Its making a "oval-like" curve out of 4 circles! See below:

**Gary Doski** · 02-26-2006, 05:32 AM

Well, I guess I could get all flustered because I can't do a "true oval"

Or I could just edit my walls to match a oval. And because this "true oval" has to be so precise, I would add the necessary text notes to describe the exact details of what I want. (And don't tell anyone that the drawing does not show a "true oval).
And never show up on the job site so I do not give the framer a chance to take out his revenge on me!

As you said "2006 and I can't do an true oval". This is not in Chief because it is just not a high priority.
You should add this request to the suggestion forum. Maybe for ver. 32