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Modeling
About Archicad's design tools, element connections, modeling concepts, etc.

Geodesic roof

Anonymous
Not applicable
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!

geodesic roof.jpg
8 REPLIES 8
Laszlo Nagy
Community Admin
Community Admin
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.
Loving Archicad since 1995 - Find Archicad Tips at x.com/laszlonagy
AMD Ryzen9 5900X CPU, 64 GB RAM 3600 MHz, Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB, 500 GB NVMe SSD
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Erika Epstein
Booster
YOu might also check the archives here. David Nicholson Cole, the GDL guru at Nottingham has some objects that might work.
Erika
Architect, Consultant
MacBook Pro Retina, 15-inch Yosemite 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Mac OSX 10.11.1
AC5-18
Onuma System

"Implementing Successful Building Information Modeling"
Anonymous
Not applicable
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
Community Admin
Community Admin
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.
Loving Archicad since 1995 - Find Archicad Tips at x.com/laszlonagy
AMD Ryzen9 5900X CPU, 64 GB RAM 3600 MHz, Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB, 500 GB NVMe SSD
2x28" (2560x1440), Windows 10 PRO ENG, Ac20-Ac27
Anonymous
Not applicable
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
Booster
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.
Erika
Architect, Consultant
MacBook Pro Retina, 15-inch Yosemite 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Mac OSX 10.11.1
AC5-18
Onuma System

"Implementing Successful Building Information Modeling"
Anonymous
Not applicable
There is an object on Objects on Line called "Dome Worrier"
written by David Nicholson-Cole.
Peter Devlin
Ralph Wessel
Mentor
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
Ralph Wessel BArch
Software Engineer Speckle Systems