Rooflight in curved roof problem

[m.thomas]

I'm trying to model a rooflight that is curved and follows the curve of the roof.

I can't work out how to amend a rooflight family to curve with the host roof. I have tried tinkering with some families but have not yet found a solution.

See attached image showing the problem. The temporary fix I have settled on is to have a series of smaller rooflights in a row which are facetted to the curve. However this looks very messy in £d, but particularly on elevations and sections.

Is there a way of creating a curved rooflight family ? or would a in-place family with a void to cut out the roof be the way to go?

Any help gratefully received.

[Andre Carvalho]

If you have a mass face to pick, what if you try using a curtain system (or sloped glazing roof) and model the rooflight as curtain panels and mullions?

Just an idea...

Andre Carvalho

[m.thomas]

Andre,

Great suggestion thanks.

Tried that but as I am now using a barrel vaulted rooflight the facetting mullions werent really working well as shown in 1st image.

Have since decided to great a generic model with 2 sweeps. 1st solid sweep is glass with a surface pattern to approximate mullions (looks fine in elevations) 2nd sweep is a void set to cut out the roof. This works ok as shown in 2nd image.

However, when I try and copy this family across the same roof for the other rooflights it will only copy the solid sweep not the void sweep. Is this intended behaviour or am I missing something.

The only thing I can think to do at the moment is to draw each instance of the rooflight individually which doesn't seem to be the Revit way.

[Andre Carvalho]

Because each copied in-place family is actually a new family, all elements inside the family are also new elements. The void with in the copied family doesn't know that it has to cut the roof and since a void can't stay with in a family if it is not cutting anything, Revit delete it. If before copying you edit the family and don't cut the roof with the void and change the void to be a solid, then copying your family will work. However, you will have to edit family by family to make the void cut the roof...

So, why don't you create all rooflights with in one in-place family and do the copy inside? If you have to change, just edit that family. You can create a group from the first rooflight (while editing the family) before copying it (so if you need to change all of them, just edit one group). Just don't include the void in the group to avoid problems. The voids have to be outside the group because of what I have mentioned above, about voids.

OR

If you can reproduce the sweep in a roof based family (even if the roof there is flat), you can build it there and just bring and insert it on top of your roof. Just make sure that the void there is cutting the flat roof. This last option won't be easy, though.

Andre Carvalho

[dbaldacchino]

I haven't tried mocking up what you're after, but I still would build a mass and then use the curtain system by face to build that form instead of in-place GM.