Topic outline

  • ROOF STYLES

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    • Roofs can be styled, and styled objects save you time, as you can pre-set most options. This means you can have your common roof assemblies with all the associated graphics and data pre-set and ready to use.
      This course will delve into the powerful settings of the Roof Style dialog for a basic roof style, empowering you to create and edit roof styles with ease and control. 

      EDIT STYLE
      Selecting a style loads the preferences with pre-made saved settings. Editing a style affects all roofs drawn with that style, whether already in the file or yet to be created. This is the recommended way of using defined roofs.

      Unlike other architectural objects, roofs are created from existing objects via a command rather than a tool. Typically, walls or closed polylines are used to make roofs. The commands can be found below.

      DESIGN SUITE/ARCHITECT
      •  AEC > Create Roof
      •  AEC > Create Roof Face
      LANDMARK
      •  Landmark > Architectural > Create Roof
      •  Landmark > Architectural > Create Roof Face
      SPOTLIGHT
      •  Spotlight > Architectural > Create Roof
      •  Spotlight > Architectural > Create Roof Face

      A Roof Style can be created via the New Resource button in the Resource Manager.

      Additional and more advanced settings are covered elsewhere or in the relevant certification courses. For more information on all the fields and features, please visit Vectorworks Help.

  • DEFINITION

    • The Definition tab of the Roof Style dialogue

    • KEY FEATURES

      At the top, you will see a section diagram of your Roof Style, showing any components you may have added.

      Overall Thickness: This field is determined by component thicknesses. It is automatically calculated and greyed. You must have at least one component for Roof Styles. 

      Edit Roof Attributes

      Roof Attributes: These fields allow you to override the Fill and Pen settings of the roof object overall. In general, click the Make all Attributes by Class button to control the graphics of the roof object by its class.

      Datum: Set whether the datum is the top or bottom of the selected component. The selected component is the one with the icon shown in the Datum column in the table below. You can toggle between the top-of-component and bottom-of-component settings by clicking the icon in the table.

      Components: You can add, edit, duplicate, delete, and sort your components from here. You can edit a row directly by clicking within a cell or by selecting a row and clicking the Edit button below. (Remember: Roofs require at least one component to function.)

    • ADDING COMPONENTS

      Click New to add components to your roof.

      Roof Component Settings

      Definition: Set the component's defining features. At a minimum, it needs a Name and Thickness. If you add a Material, it can pull its graphics and Lambda from there.

      Section Fill, Section Pen, and Texture: The graphic appearance of the component can be
      • set by Style (set Material to None, click Remove by Class Settings, and edit the fields manually),
      • set by Class (select a Class from the Definition dropdown and click Make all Attributes By Class), or
      • set by Material (select a Material in the Definition field).
      Note: When a Material is assigned to a component, the Material's attributes override the Section Fill and Texture. However, you can still change to a different Texture while keeping the Material active.

      Edge Condition: Here, you can set a Bound for the Edge Condition of the roof component when the roof has wall associations. You can also apply a Manual Bound and Bound Offset. There is also the Section Fill Change Point dropdown, which allows you to set a location within the associated wall assembly to an alternate section fill. The Alternate Section Fill field becomes active when a change point has been selected. Note: The Alternate Section Fill only affects the component's graphics when viewed in Section.

    • A diagram of the different offset options for roof components relative to a wall object

  • INSERTION OPTIONS

    • the Insertion Options tab of the Roof Style dialogue

    • KEY FEATURES

      Class: Here, you can set the default Class for the roof overall.

      Energos: This is only needed if you plan to run an Energos evaluation on your design, which requires Vectorworks Architect or Design Suite.

  • TEXTURES

    • The Roof style dialogues Texture tab

    • As a rule of thumb, click Use component textures when you have component textures; click Use object textures when you don't. 

      The Part dropdown and Texture swatch immediately below work together. When Use object textures is selected, you can assign textures to individual parts of the roof, or to the roof object overall (see the Part dropdown).

      Textures can be applied from the object's Class settings when clicking the Texture swatch and then clicking By Class at the top of the popover. But you may still wish to apply an override here, especially as each part of the roof can have a different texture. (Some existing styles may already have an override applied.) 

  • DATA

    • The Roof Style dialogues Data tab

    • Mark: Values entered in this field can be searched and reported in Data Tags, Reports (Worksheets), and Graphic Legends. A unique and abbreviated identifier is typically entered here, especially as an alternative to the Roof Style Name, which can become quite long.

      Whether you enter values for the other fields depends on your workflow. Add data if it is useful to you. Otherwise, leave it be and save yourself some time—you can always add it later!
    • ⓘ For BIM and more advanced workflows, additional data can be added to roofs and other objects via the Data Manager, though all your building shell tools already have IFC mappings.