Polyline Ridge Cap

[billemery]

I've done ridge caps in the past using a second set of roof planes elevated by 1-1/2"; edited to form the caps. This works well for metal roofs, but does not work well for a shingled roof because of texture orientation.

These ridge caps are done with 3D polyline moldings adjusted to the ridge height. notice that there are two molding lines at each hip. This is necessary to control the miter at the end. This link further explains controling end miters on 3D molding polylines; http://chieftalk.com/showthread.php?...ter+3D+molding These molding are set to different layers to keep them from merging. I go to the roof DBX to get the Z values for the moldings.

I like this method because the texture orients correctly, and it's relatively easy.

I have used two moldings here, one for the common pitch at the ridge, and another for the pitch at the hips.

[sutcac]

Nice work Bill. How does it read in elevation? Do you draw the original CAD line along the hip with a perpendicular cross section there? I would be curious how this might work with terra cotta tiles too.

[George Godwin]

Bill, - That looks great. Any chance of sharing the moldings?

[billemery]

George,

there is nothing complicated about these moldings as you can see below. they are simply drawn using the cross section cameras shown the plan view in the original post. They are drawn for the specific common and hip pitches that are used so they will vary; but they are certainly not hard to draw. I have exaggerated their height for emphasis when rendering.

Bryce,

Here they are in elevation. This would be even easier with tile as you would not need two moldings at the hip, and you would not need to miter the ends at the eaves. I would suggest just drawing the molding along the ridge lines, and then using the transform replicate tool to shift them over half the width of the tile measured on the diagonal.

[George Godwin]

Thanks Bill.

[dhowardaia]

Bill- that looks really great in 3D & 2D both. Now wouldn't it be great if CA would do that automatically- just a check-box in the Build Roof dbx?

[sutcac]

Excellent work Bill, thanks for sharing. Will definitely keep this in mind. I have made fully modeled ridge tiles before but what a PITA compared to this.

Now wouldn't it be great if CA would do that automatically- just a check-box in the Build Roof dbx?

Ummm, yeah.

[billemery]

George, Dorothy and Bryce,

You're Welcome. Thank you for the feedback.

Here's a little more information about using this method.

Draw a hip or pair of hips, set the layers, moldings, and lines with no moldings as you want them to appear, then copy and paste to other hips using transform/replicate or point to point move. The hip can be stretched to fit using the perpendicular end line that controls the miter.

Then select all of the moldings and transform/replicate to bring them all up to eave height. Then all that has to be done in the DBX is to bring up a few points to ridge height.

It's likely that a minor adjustment in height for the whole assembly will be necessary to get it exactly down on the roof.

It would be nice to be able to do it automatically, but this is fairly quick and easy, and I had fun figuring it all out.

[peterbrown]

I tried to make a molding symbol for a ridge cap.

what I did was in a new plan (plan view) drew a solid 4"x8"x1/4" thick, then in section views canted the solid as a shingle would be on a ridge. converted to a symbol.

in another plan drew a cad line, converted to a molding polyline and used this new ridge cap symbol. seems to work ok, did I do it properly?

tried to copy/reflect it with trans rep tool, but it came out facing wrong direction.

Ideas?

[billemery]

Peter,
It's not necessary to create a symbol here. Just draw the profile that you need, select it, and add it to the library as a molding profile. Once this is done you can select the profile for your 3D molding polyline.

The advantage of 3D molding polyline is that the molding will follow the X, Y, and Z coordinates that you have asigned to it, which in this case is very easy as we can just snap to the roof profile and then add the Z coordinates.

Symbols are quite adaptable and can be stretched in all axis, but the distinct advantage of the molding polyline here is ease of use, and the ability to control the miters.