Custom roof tiles

[SB]

Hi everyone
I am working on a very old project and the roof tiles are very unusual and there is no tile like this in the Archicad accessories addon.
I tried to model it with a morph and finally turn it into an object, but eventho It is an object, it becomes very heavy and I can no longer work on the project, does anyone have any suggestion? Except for GDL coding...

[Barry Kelly]

Even creating a GDL object via scripting will probably not be much better.

I guess it depends on the tile.

Can you post an image?

If you need an actual modelled tile, can you simplify its shape and maybe use a profiled shell?

You want to get it to a few polygons as possible.

Personally I would try to avoid modelling individual tiles.

Use a flat roof with a hatch pattern for elevations.

In section and large scale details you can use a 2D fill of the profile where it is cut.

In 3D renderings you may want to see individual modelled tiles - depending how close you get to seeing them.

But if viewed from a bit of a distance, you can set up a surface with bump maps or distortion to give the impression of tiles.

That is a bit easier said than done unless you know what you are doing with surface materials for renderings.

Barry.

[gpowless]

You might want to look at CADImage "Coverings". I believe you can create custom tiles and then the tool covers the roof with the custom tile shapes.

[SB]

Hey Barry, thanks for the answer, I have attached a photo.
They need these tiles to be visible in 3D so I cant use 2D stuff or textures, but havent heard about profiled shell, you mean modeling 1 tile with shell then copying that?

[SB]

Its rotated, sry

[SB]

Thanks alot, I will check that

[david_skogvold]

This should be doable, depending on the level of detail you need.

I would suggest modeling one tile as a morph, using as few polygons as possible. Could you use a single, flat shape with no thickness? This alone will reduce the amount of polygons needed by more than 50%. Keep detailed curves to a minimum, use straight line facets instead.

Look at the attached quick sample I made – this roof has 1120 tiles, each modeled as a single layer (no thickness) morph, 7 polygons each. To make this I drew the profile in plan, traced it with the morph tool using straight lines, and then a little manual work in 3D to extrude it, before multiplying it and unifying them into one large morph. I believe this last step is important – it reduces the number of individual objects Archicad has to keep track of. 

The total roof (one side, 14 x 4 meters) amounts to 7840 polygons – that should be workable on most computers, at least it is on my 2013 iMac.

Of course you could end up with many times more on a large building, but I think this is about as efficient as you get without coding. I have not tried to convert it to an object, this could increase performance even more, but I have generally not felt the need to do so. 

Regards, 

David

[SB]

Thanks David, very cool suggestion; but how about sections, where you need them to have a thikness?
I have almost 7500 tiles, so with the thinkness and extra lines, I have atleast 75000 lines at the end, big difference indeed

[david_skogvold]

I would consider if I really needed to show the modeled thickness in section. It is a drawing after all, which will always be a simplification of reality, to varying degrees.

Adding 2D fills could be enough, and manageable, in most situations.

[Rajesh Patil]

Hi, up-to what extent you are willing to show then in your 2D and 3D representation? Are you willing to extract number of tiles quantities too?