Gable roofs are very simple to make.
Usually, you start with the two parallel walls
that will support the two roofs that form the gable.
Select the roof tool, go to the roof tool settings,
enter all parameters, including height of the pivot line
which should be set to the height of the walls,
the pitch, thickness, etc.
Go back to the plan and select the polygon construction method.
Start drawing the first roof by starting the eave edge
line at the inside edge of the wall and running parallel with it.
An eyeball cursor form will appear prompting you to
gesture towards the up-slope direction of your roof.
Once you have done this, go back to the start point
of the eave line and start drawing the eave line.
This time you are drawing the eave edge.
Draw the eave edge then the adjacent rake edge,
but don't go all the way to where you think the ridge
will be but go up about half way.
draw the adjacent ridge line and then the return rake line
completing the rectangle.
Get out of the roof tool and mirror a copy of this roof
onto the opposite wall.
Select one roof by selecting the ridge edge of one roof
and command click on the ridge edge of the other roof then
select the ridge edge of the other roof
and command click on the first roof.
This miters the two roofs at the ridge.
You can then stretch the edges of the roofs to form
eaves and rakes.
Some people make a hip roof and then delete the
two end hips and then edit the the hip ridges
so they form 90° rake corners. I suspect that
these people never learned how to make a simple
gable as described above.
Peter Devlin
