creating masses

[mmenendez]

I'm trying to create a roof structure that looks similar to the sketches attached. I can only get so far and then cannot figure out how to get the shape to look how I want it to look. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

[phyllisr]

Before I look at this, can you explain what you tried? Have you tried creating a blended form? Time is tight but it's an interesting question and I will try next week if you get no answers or have not tried blended masses yet.

Do not know what other software you have but in a pinch, massing in Rhino (we do not use this) or SketchUp (we do) then importing it into a mass family seems to work. We can use Roof By Face and come pretty close. This way, if I do not have time to figure something out myself, I can get one of our savvy SketchUp users to do it then come back later in Revit when time permits. This is not necessarily a good idea and I am also not necessarily recommending this to the world but sometimes, the result is more important than process elegance.

[randolph.fritz102047]

Can you pin down the geometry more precisely? Is this a tension roof? Multiple blends might be able to do something like that, but I have my doubts; it might be best to model it with some other tool, export it as ACIS geometry, and use roof-to-face.

[AP23]

Roof by face may not be the best option because the roof profile stays rectangular and doesn't cut off at the bottom or do what ever shape you want. Plus you can't edit the geometry of the roof mass once it is imported in Revit You could of course use multiple blends and voids to create something similar like the sketch but it is like digging a pool hole with a spoon.

It is very very frustrating to see that in 2006 Revit can't handle anything else than small to mid size orthogonal buildings and roofs. And the only option is to get yourself a nurbs program like rhino which is a real turnoff for any potential new users. Not to mention the the necessity to buy a rendering and drafting program to fill the holes that Revit can't do.

[Dimitri Harvalias]

Is this what you had in mind?

[Steve_Stafford]

Took a stab at it without using the pdf as an overlay, lazy I guess. But here's the result after a few minutes messing around with a In-Place Roof blend for each half. I used the blend so the ridge could rise but the sketch didn't indicate it was necessary, could have been just an extrusion.

[mmenendez]

Before I look at this, can you explain what you tried? Have you tried creating a blended form? Time is tight but it's an interesting question and I will try next week if you get no answers or have not tried blended masses yet.

Do not know what other software you have but in a pinch, massing in Rhino (we do not use this) or SketchUp (we do) then importing it into a mass family seems to work. We can use Roof By Face and come pretty close. This way, if I do not have time to figure something out myself, I can get one of our savvy SketchUp users to do it then come back later in Revit when time permits. This is not necessarily a good idea and I am also not necessarily recommending this to the world but sometimes, the result is more important than process elegance.

I have created masses and applied different voids to get close to the sketches I had attached. I tried doing a blended form however I kept getting errors “This Mass has no solid geometry for its Void Forms to cut. They must be deleted, or solid geometry added and cut. I do not have access to Rhino so I have to do it in Revit. I do agree with you about results are more important than process elegance!

[mmenendez]

Roof by face may not be the best option because the roof profile stays rectangular and doesn't cut off at the bottom or do what ever shape you want. Plus you can't edit the geometry of the roof mass once it is imported in Revit You could of course use multiple blends and voids to create something similar like the sketch but it is like digging a pool hole with a spoon.


I think i've dug myself a mid-size pool since i've posted this...ha. I have tried multiple extrusions/blends and voids to create this. I've created basically the sketch I provided similar to what the other two users posted.

I wish i had access to Rhino, but it sure would be nice if Revit could do these different modeling shapes. Thanks for the reply and suggestions

[mmenendez]

Is this what you had in mind?
yep! Thanks! I would ask how one would create a dip in the middle of the ridge, but SteveS got that to work. Thanks for the example!

[mmenendez]

Took a stab at it without using the pdf as an overlay, lazy I guess. But here's the result after a few minutes messing around with a In-Place Roof blend for each half. I used the blend so the ridge could rise but the sketch didn't indicate it was necessary, could have been just an extrusion.

Thanks! I was actually wondering how I would go about creating a dip in the Ridge similar to what you had done. When you mean you did a blend for each half, how did you seperate the halves? Longitudinal section or cross section? Thanks again!

[mmenendez]

Here is something I've been working on. I'm trying to get that whole mass to be a roof. However I cannot get the middle part to be full inclosed.

[Dimitri Harvalias]

Take a look at the posted example to see how this could work. (apologies for simply posting a solution without an explanation before)

From what you are saying I think the problem may be that you are creating the solid and the void as two separate masses, then the software won't let you use one to cut the other. Create a new mass for the extruded part of the roof, without finishing that mass, create the void objects you need and then use the cut geometry tool to cut the voids from the main extrusion. Hopefully that should do the trick.

[mmenendez]

Thanks HCSL! You were right, I need to create a void in the mass first before finishing.