Swayback Gable Roof?

[billemery]

Here I've auto built roofs with curved walls to get the effect you're looking for. The segment angle can be adjusted for a smoother curve.
The caution here is this roof generates a large file size.

[Rich Winsor]

Here I've auto built roofs with curved walls to get the effect you're looking for. The segment angle can be adjusted for a smoother curve.
The caution here is this roof generates a large file size.

Bill, I believe you are on to something here. Forget all these nattering nabobs of negativity who say CA can't do the job. I'm with you up to here (see thumbnails). How did you create the additional segments and how do you adjust the segment angle? File size be danged, I'll just build a bigger rig.

[billemery]

Segment angle is controlled in the roof DBX.

[Rich Winsor]

Segment angle is controlled in the roof DBX.

Duh! Or as Homer would say, Doh! You know, I tried tinkering with the Segment Angle setting but in all the excitement of seeing a workable solution to my problem I had a severe brain cramp and neglected to remove my visible straight exterior walls from the plan view so that the auto build roof feature could use the invisible curved exterior walls to generate the roof profile. Once I came to my senses I was able to generate a quite acceptable swayback gable roof. Now, thankfully, I can send that weird taco shaped roof plane that I generated in SketchUp to the recycle bin. I don’t know how you came up with your “curved wall” approach Bill (talk about thinking outside of the box)? I doubt I would have ever stumbled across it as my tunnel vision was focused solely on working within the “Build Roof” and “Roof Plane Specification” dialog boxes. Anyhow, I am much obliged to you and everybody that chimed in on the topic.

[billemery]

Thanks for the compliment; I've explored this area before.

Here's the next step to make it more realistic; you'll want to curve the eaves outward at the center of the building. You can do this with the polyline subtraction tool. See this thread: http://www.chieftalk.com/showthread....used+roof+edge

You can use any curve that you can develop in chief including an ellipse, or partial ellipse.

[billemery]

I might also mention that this process is very useful for oriental roof lines with a flared prow. This can be done very effectively with an elliptical wall.
See this thread: http://www.chieftalk.com/showthread....liptical+walls

[Rich Winsor]

Here's the next step to make it more realistic; you'll want to curve the eaves outward at the center of the building. You can do this with the polyline subtraction tool. See this thread: http://www.chieftalk.com/showthread....used+roof+edge

You can use any curve that you can develop in chief including an ellipse, or partial ellipse.

Dang it Bill, you couldn't leave well enough alone. Here I was happy to get what I had and you had to go and up the ante. Well, I can put holes in my roof no problem with the polyline subtraction tool but when I use it to reshape the eaves I am getting unwanted results. I can get a nice bowed out eave line but for some reason the roof planes are generating from the ridge off into space instead of from the eaves to the ridge. You got any idea what's going on here?

[billemery]

This can get a little unstable as we are pushing Chief beyond what it was designed to do.

I haven't done this in a while, but my recollection is that it becomes much more controllable by using relatively small segments when converting from curve to polyline.

I hope to refresh my memory on this this evening, but I've got to keep working right now.

[Rich Winsor]

This can get a little unstable as we are pushing Chief beyond what it was designed to do.

I haven't done this in a while, but my recollection is that it becomes much more controllable by using relatively small segments when converting from curve to polyline.

I hope to refresh my memory on this this evening, but I've got to keep working right now.

Right again, Mr. Bill. This time when I converted my arc to a polyline I gave it 36 sides instead of the default 6 sides I had previously used and Bingo! Of course this was only after I spent a couple of hours trying different roof pitches, segment angles and positions of my subtraction polygon to no avail. Now my only complaint is the starter course of shingles doesn't follow the eave line as it had been doing up until this revision but at some point I guess you have to take what you can get and be happy. Again, let me thank you for taking a CA neophyte under your wing on this one.

[DavidH]

This curved roof questions brings up a similar question I've had for awhile- is it possible to create a parabolic roof shape in CA? I'm trying to design a gabled-roof house where the ridge line skewed to the walls, and is not level. Putting in straight rafters on either side of this skewed ridge creates a parabolic "dish" on each side. I wonder if there is any trick whereby I could create an object to simulate the skewed ridge, and CA would fill in the space from the top of the walls to the ridge? I doubt that it is possible, but it would be nice. It may be possible to do in sketchup, but is there a way to import a sketchup object that functions as a roof (that the walls would fill in below)?

David Hornstein
www.light-house-design.com

[Rich Winsor]

This curved roof questions brings up a similar question I've had for awhile- is it possible to create a parabolic roof shape in CA? I'm trying to design a gabled-roof house where the ridge line skewed to the walls, and is not level. Putting in straight rafters on either side of this skewed ridge creates a parabolic "dish" on each side. I wonder if there is any trick whereby I could create an object to simulate the skewed ridge, and CA would fill in the space from the top of the walls to the ridge? I doubt that it is possible, but it would be nice. It may be possible to do in sketchup, but is there a way to import a sketchup object that functions as a roof (that the walls would fill in below)?

David Hornstein
www.light-house-design.com

David, I'm definitely not the guy to come up with the answers (a case of the blind leading the blind ). But for my own edification and amazement I went ahead and generated the framing of my structure to see what CA would come up with. I had to tweak some of the rafters a little bit (one side of the roof framed a little differently than the other), but the result was to me at least, surprisingly buildable. I only bring this up because the way CA framed from the curved ridge beam to the curved eave fascia with straight rafters seems to be what you are looking for.

[billemery]

Hi Rich,
Good job on the framing; I like your curiosity, I think that you will become very adept with Chief if you persist.

David,
I've not attempted to answer your question as I really don't have enough information. Post a plan, or show me some screen shots of what you want to do.

[Rich Winsor]

Aw shucks, thanks for the kind words Bill. It's always nice to get some positive reinforcement.