Oval roof?

[Tommy Blair]

Lane,

To me that looks real good. However, I would think that you probably did that using at least 4 walls. He wants to use ONE WALL that can be altered like a closed polyline.

[styleito]

One wall, I didn't notice that. I used CAD to Walls and, upon further review, it seems to have made a wall segment everywhere I placed a line break. That would make it difficult to place a door or window in there.

BTW, I agree that CA need a better way to create XY axis curved roof planes.

[jsimanyi]

I know your frustration, but you also need to remember that Chief was designed for residential design, and as such ellipses are just not a priority. I had a similar problem with the last version, and CAD-to-walls from another program was really the only "pretty" option.

If you are really intent upon modelling this, you should probably pick up any OtherCAD to draw decent ellipses. As a workaround, you could make a pline solid out of two 180 degree arcs, give them some thickness, do a full vector overview, export as DXF, import the DXF back in, and then resize as you need. Chief seems to make okay ellipses for the purpose of perspective.

FYI, an oval in many circles (tee hee) is considered to made of four arcs with two diameters, just as Chief's ovals are drawn. You really seem to be asking for an ellipse...

John

[lbuttery]

you should probably pick up any OtherCAD to draw decent ellipses

Turbocad Deluxe for $89 should be able to do this ?

Lew

[Allen42acj]

I think he has other cad to get the oval next to CAs..
Ebay has Turbocad cheaper...
Has any one used this=DesignCAD 3D MAX 14?


Hope it's half way good,just won it on Ebay=$9.99=free shipping...

[mcqueenhomes]

BTW, I agree that CA need a better way to create XY axis curved roof planes.

Do you have a picture of such a roof plane on a real building? Does the building look like the architect was smoking funny stuff at the time it was designed?

[styleito]

Maybe I have my axis wrong. I was referring to a roof over a curved room. Probably like the situation you had [COLOR="Blue"]HERE[/COLOR]. Not really that uncommon in residential construction. The automatic roof tools seem to be limited to no less than 6 degrees which makes a roof following large radius clunky (like the "flater" sides of the oval). Although, I guess it would be rare to find a radius that big in residential construction. I still think it would be nice to do these roofs without all the little pies so you can get a nice smooth fascia line. Maybe a CAD to Roof tool.

[mcqueenhomes]

CAD to Roof tool.

No, I'd want it to be consistent with the roof tool we already have. It would work the same except that instead of a baseline you would draw a, uh, basearc. Click in the up-slope direction and Chief figures out the ridge as a single point and slopes up everything from the baseline to the point at the pitch you'd see in the roof dialog.

[jsimanyi]

I think you're going at it backwards. Firstly, nobody builds a roof in the real world with entirely curved framing components But that's not a concern right now...

How 'bout this - turn off everything else in 3D, export the DXF, open it in SketchUp, crank the smoothing angle, and then import back into CA as a model, replacing the original roof planes.

I know this sounds like it "should" be done automatically, but if you watched some of the people I know working Architectural Desktop into 3DStudioMax and futzing with it, we really get a lot of automated processes already.

However, this is my final thought: SMOOTHING...that's what I would request in the next version (if I want to stay within ONLY Chief)!

John S.

P.S. But I second the request for real ellipses, too.

[styleito]

Jason,

Basearc, that does sound like a better idea.

John,

A good point as well. The existing tools would be much better with a little more smoothing.


OK. Glad we got that all sorted out then. :LOL

[taharvey]

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

Would you accept a non-round circle? Of course not, why do you except non-elliptical ellipses?

When CAD limitations are dictating design choices, that’s a problem. If the White House was designed with Chief, we'd have the rectangular office instead of the oval office. CAD shouldn't be an impediment, it should be an enabler. I really really want to see universality in Chiefs toolset. If you have a spline tool in 2D, don't keep it from 3D. If you have a oval tool in 2D, provide it in 3D. If you have line->arc or fillet tool for some object types, make it available for all objects (ie. walls).

I often get feedback from this forum and Chief support, saying the problems I experience are due to my designs being 'atypical' or too 'complex' for chief. Why should my CAD system dictate my design? What the heck is a 'typical' house? I've worked with a designer here who's signature piece is a double recurved ellipsoid wall and the center of the house. Her designs have mainstream appeal and houses are in the $300k range. Pretty typical.

While I'm disappointed, your feedback is helpful. Looks like CAD->walls is the workaround. Now I just need binder the hold all the work-arounds I've collected.

[jsimanyi]

"I've worked with a designer here who's signature piece is a double recurved ellipsoid wall and the center of the house. Her designs have mainstream appeal and houses are in the $300k range. Pretty typical."

Yeah, and we sell some empty eighth acre dirt lots for three times that in dear old Southern California, but we still don't build such a wall very often. In fact, as a percentage, I would bet that your "typical" wall is found in less than one tenth of one percent of a "typical" housing district in the region you mentioned.

Nevertheless, how much have you looked around at alternatives?

I can build a complete house in 3d with AutoCAD, and there ain't no workarounds. Why? Because by Chief standards, nearly EVERYTHING in AutoCAD would qualify as a workaround* - at least till you start buying boatloads of components that are already very nicely included in Chief.

Seriously, though there are other choices. If Chief doesn't suit your needs as frequently as your whining seems to indicate, then for your own peace of mind you ought to at least look around. In all honesty, I suspect you are just very frustrated by a need to build an ellipsoidal room at the moment. However, I would also bet that you designer's signature piece is already a block/component/symbol that she imports because she already decided to use it as a schtick. Therefore, she spent the time initially to develop a way to draw it/insert it readily.

Despite my whining at your whining, I'd love to see a screen capture of the building as you develop it. I know you'll get it, despite the need for workarounds.

John S.

*Except ellipses...nice ellipses

[mcqueenhomes]

already decided to use it as a schtick.

Yup, I'd think so too. My architectural claim to fame is the so-called "Melissa" archway, and there are already several of them pre-made in my doorways library.

I can see the point of having more geometrically corrrect CAD tools (and even KeyCAD /VGA had a bezier curve), and also having a consistent 2D+3D toolset. My experience with the Chief Architect company indicates that they just haven't got there yet. They started small, and they're still growing into the market. If their company is anything like mine, they probably started fairly cheap and improved their products as they sold more to climb the ladder in the market to more sophisticated offerings.

[jsimanyi]

I still want to see the house when he's done - it sounds like an exciting design element! I hope he's willing to share...

John S.

[Tim O'Donnell]

some clarification of what you want exactly may be needed as an ellipse IS an oval, but an oval may or may not be an ellipse...

also do you want the roof pitched up in the center or simply a single oval/elliptical section at one pitch?

take a look at this thread...

http://www.chieftalk.com/showthread.php?t=14342