Residential: Fascia Trim Modeling

[RTT_ADG]

New to Archicad.

We are trying to figure out the easiest way to do soffit and fascia trims.  Our typical soffit and fascia at gable ends has the rake continue sloped, and the soffit is boxed flat at the eave.

(See attached photo.)

My first attempt at trying to recreate is very fussy.  It requires multiple elements and a lot of SEO's.  I have to think there's a better more user friendly way to achieve this.

If anyone has some tip, techniques, or examples that would be greatly appreciated.

Also if there's any other type of fascia connections that people use or once struggled through I'd appreciate seeing the different approaches to this.

Thanks.

Using AC27

 

 

 

[SenecaDesignLLC]

I use railing. I used to have custom profiles to map everything but then I wrote custom components so I don't need the profiles. Works pretty well and stays attached to the roof but there is still a bit of SEO. Not sure you will get away with that with our some sort of roof covering.

[jl_lt]

Hi, I recommend watching shoegnomes.com material, which cover many of the details you look for.

best of lucks!

[Steve Jepson]

As with everything you model with ArchiCAD - how you model it depends on what you need it to do.  If you are modeling for the sake of generating *useful* Interactive Schedules, you might choose to model things a little differently than if your model is not going to be used for extracting data to be used for something like that. 

Also, there are times when you may want to model with very simple place-holder parts that will be re-place with things modeled with a much higher level of detail later on.  Or you may use parts with a different level of detail in only a few places you need it.   Soffits are a good example of that.   You probably only need a very high level of detail to be modeled where it shows up in a Section or Detail.   All kinds of reasons to model something one way or another. 

[RTT_ADG]

Interesting.  I'll have to investigate into using railings. I've seen videos of using them for non-conventional situations, but fascia never occurred to me.

Do you happen to have a sample of how you use them you could share?

[RTT_ADG]

Thanks, I've been through a lot of his videos but nothing really touches on what I'm trying to achieve.  I have adopted a lot of his techniques for other things and parts of his template. Good guy for sure.

[RTT_ADG]

Thanks for the reply.  Yes, that is definitely true.  We have been finding creative uses for all the different tools and trying to find the best uses for our workflow.  We don't do much in the way of scheduling, but really need a good looking model on the front-end to show clients and get accurate bids from builders.  So, unfortunately, we won't be able to rely much on simple placeholders as we need a fairly complete model up-front.

Part of why we are looking for a user friendly approach.

Also why some real world uses and examples of how other achieve their fascias would be really helpful.

[mthd · Accepted solution]

Hi @RTT_ADG, did you try drawing your boxed eave shape in your complex profile manager with a fill ? Then apply it to your external boxed eave walls. Hope that helps you as that is probably one of the easiest ways to accomplish that in AC. If you need more information on how to do that please ask and someone can show you the steps one by one in detail and maybe with a diagram as well.

[Steve Jepson]

I consider all ArchiCAD library parts as place-holder objects since *not one of them is geometrically correct enough for detials.*   Try to make yourself a Complex Profile Gutter with smooth curves like a traditional K-Style gutter or something.   It will not be anywhere near close to smooth without a lot of fuss, and if you do make one with a fill that is very-very segmented, it will probably slow you way down if you have a lot of it in your model.   Since you may need smooth curves anyway for Rendering and/or Presentation Views, Details... you will probably only want to use the very high polycount objects temporarily and only where and when they are necessary.  For most situations you don't need the objects that will give you the best graphics possible.  

  This is especially true when your have and intersect between (for example) the fascia and drip edge with the roof of a soffit return.  I reality, you will what to use a 1/2" thick SEO roof to trim fascia and drip edge to so they will not actually come in contact with the roofing.  There should be an air gap there. 

The other reason to use roofs for some of these objects is that you might very well be changing the roof pitch and when you do, the Ctrl-Click function will make that easier for modifying soffit returns and some things like that.   I use the same pre-molded assembly of drip edge, fascia, soffit...from one project to another - I just tweak it for the new condition.   No need to model things over and over for no good reason. 

This is just one way of doing it -  I might use several different ways on the same project, for different reasons.  Nothing wrong with using beams, slabs, walls either.   

But I think you will find that modeling with pre-modeled assemblies that you just tweak for each project will be much faster than modeling everything from scratch - every time.  

Also keep in mind that you only need to model one side of a pitched roof - mirror a copy about the ridge. move copies of one gable end to another... that sort of thing.   

[Jeff Griffin · Accepted solution]

It's always Interesting reading how others are accomplishing modeling the fascia.  I'd love to see the use of the railing tool demonstrated for this purpose. It seems like that could be a huge timesaver.

Most of the time, the projects I work on have square cut eaves and those seem to be considerably easier to model than plumb cut eaves in my experience anyways. With square cut eaves, I use a complex profile beam, either rotated or sloped (depending on the condition, rake -vs- eave), with slope or rotation value set to match the roof or roof edge.  It may be overkill, but I set the rotation value to 4 decimal places to precisely match the roof slope and this seems to limit any oddities that would otherwise show up. It's one element that I adjust at each roof edge, regardless of slope.

Here's a screenshot of the complex profile that I've developed for this method.

However, on the rare occasion that I need to model plumb cut eaves, I've found that there is much more work/time involved. The fascias along the eaves don't clean up nicely with the fascias that run along the rake edges of the roof, unless you model these elements separately. I've found that for the condition below, I would need to have four separate elements. The vertical elements that I've pointed to are done with the wall tool. The sloped elements are complex profile beams, with each gable overhang requiring the development of custom complex profiles with unique lengths for the inner and outer pieces. 

Awhile back, I purchased a clever GDL object from Chip Hudson (Hudson Home Designs) that would probably make my life a lot easier if I just took the time to learn how to use it. Here's a link.

I hope this helps. Good luck!