Geodesic roof

[Anonymous]

Can anyone tell me how i can make a geodesic roof, like the roof norman foster used in the british museum. On plan the space i am covering is triangular and i want to model a curved roof using geodesic framework but i can not find out how to do it.I have found an image (attached) that someone has done using archicad and have contacted them asking them how they did it and am waiting on a reply, but if anyone could tell me how to do it i would much appreciate as i am on a deadline to get this modelled asap!

[Laszlo Nagy]

You can create a Mesh surface and then use the Mesh to Roof Goodie to create the Roofs from the Mesh Surface. It will probably triangulate the surface so you will have triangular Roof pieces making up the whole of the surface.

[Erika Epstein]

YOu might also check the archives here. David Nicholson Cole, the GDL guru at Nottingham has some objects that might work.

[Anonymous]

thanks for the tip, I just tried that but im not sure how you can get the framework to show, I was able to turn it into a geodesic glazed roof but there was no framework so didnt quite work. Do you know how to add in the framework like that in the photo i originally attached?

I have obtained cinema 4d and the plug in and tried to make a roof in cinema 4d by drawing a triangular plane subdividing it, then deforming it with soft selection, duplicating it, keeping one as glass and then adding the atom array feature to the other one to create the framework, it worked pretty good but when i tried to bring it back into archicad it took forever, i think there was just far too many polygons for archicad to cope with!

[Laszlo Nagy]

Yes, you would either have to create that framework piece by piece in ArchiCAD or you would probably use MaxonForm or something to model it.
Unfortunately I have never used MaxonForm so I cannot speak on it with certainty.

[Anonymous]

cheers for that Erika, had a wee look there and not really sure where im meant to be lookin, any chance you could send me a link? cheers

[Erika Epstein]

Try a search for David Nicholson-Cole.

also check out his website
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/sbe/cookbook/

there is an email link directly to him.

[Anonymous]

There is an object on Objects on Line called "Dome Worrier"
written by David Nicholson-Cole.
Peter Devlin

[Ralph Wessel]

Tobin wrote:
thanks for the tip, I just tried that but im not sure how you can get the framework to show, I was able to turn it into a geodesic glazed roof but there was no framework so didnt quite work. Do you know how to add in the framework like that in the photo i originally attached?

You could do this with OBJECTiVE, which provides tools to rotate, split, and bend objects in 3D. It also enables you to place, rotate, bend, and cut objects directly in the section window, all of which are quite relevant this task. I quickly modelled an example by doing the following (referring to the attached image):

• 1) Place profiles to the bounding edges and bending in section to the required curve with the 'Bend' tool.
  2) Cut a section at regular intervals, place a profile in section to meet the upper/lower edges, and bending to an appropriate curve.
  3) Cut a section on the diagonal to place the remaining framing elements in section.

You can see the result in the attached image:

• 4) in plan.
  5) and in 3D.

You can find out more about OBJECTiVE at http://www.encina.co.uk/objective.html