Copper boots on beam ends

[Steve Jepson]

What is a good way to model this? I am going to need several different sizes of copper flashings to protect the ends of some glulams. Some sloped, some not. I managed to make one but it was not very easy. I wish there were some sort of beam end tool like the wall end tool. What I did was copy a second beam in the same place but just a little bigger, used SEO to hollow the bigger one out, converted it to a morph and split off a piece. Too much work for this I think.
What are some better ways to make these ?

[Erwin Edel]

Personally I find the quickest 3D sloped plane to be drafted a single plane roof. It takes 3 clicks in 3D to define the plane and then you can either use the box/defined direction/freeform method to get your little sloped box. Make sure you set the edges as perpindicular in the settings before you draw it. If your beam building material has higher priority you can just merge them together for the hole to be cut.

Single plane roofs are also great for their floorplan display options for these kind of elements that are typically required to have something like a dotted line or such to be understandable.

You can also make a composite for them to define the thickness, meaning if your dimensions need to change, you can quickly change the thickness of all of them.

[Steve Jepson]

Thanks Erwin. That works great.

[Steve Jepson]

This is interesting. I noticed that if I stretch a morph in 3D while I am using White Model with Shadow 3D Style, it shows the true material while it is being stretched. ? I don't mind that. I wouldn't mind if all elements worked that way when stretched in that 3D Style. I think I will request that for 22.