We value your input!
Please participate in Archicad 28 Home Screen and Tooltips/Quick Tutorials survey

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

how to show can lights in a sloped ceiling

Anonymous
Not applicable
I am trying to generate a 3D interior view showing can lights in a sloped ceiling.
Can anyone tell me how to show this. As far as I can see the only tool that sticks to a roof is the skylight tool but I haven't figured out how to tweek that so I can make a respectable 3D can light.

can light=concealed ceiling fixture

Thank you,
John
13 REPLIES 13
Barry Kelly
Moderator
I'm getting closer but it looks like the hole is always a rectangle.
I guess a rectangular prism with a round hole the same thickness and material as the roof could be scripted in to fill the gap.

I'm not sure if the hole can be turned off completely and then you add your own hole manually.

Barry.
sky-light_2.jpg
One of the forum moderators.
Versions 6.5 to 27
i7-10700 @ 2.9Ghz, 32GB ram, GeForce RTX 2060 (6GB), Windows 10
Lenovo Thinkpad - i7-1270P 2.20 GHz, 32GB RAM, Nvidia T550, Windows 11
Anonymous
Not applicable
Barry,
Cool trick. Thanks for showing me how to alter a library part.
Unfortunately, my new library part cuts a rectangular and offset hole in the roof just like you show above.
Please let me know if you figure out a way to fix the hole that this library part cuts in the roof.
For the time being I'm cutting round holes in the roof and putting a light behind each hole.
Mahalo,
John
Barry Kelly
Moderator
The only way I can see to turn off the hole is to trick it by setting the length(A) and width (B) parameters to zero.
But this will affect the size of the light also.
So new parameters would need to be added for the size (length and width) of the light fitting and all the scripts amended to suit.

Add the 3 lines of code to the 3D script that I showed in the last creen shot and that will reposition the light to fit the hole (but it will still be square).

You could just leave the subtype as a "Light".
Add two lines of code to the 3D script.

ROTx roofang
ADDz roofthk


Then create 2 new parameters - roofang (as an angle parameter) and roofthk (as a length).

Now you can use gravity to snap the light to the roof and you can manually set the roof slope and thickness in your light object parameters.
And manually cut the holes in the roof.

Barry.
sky-light_4.jpg
One of the forum moderators.
Versions 6.5 to 27
i7-10700 @ 2.9Ghz, 32GB ram, GeForce RTX 2060 (6GB), Windows 10
Lenovo Thinkpad - i7-1270P 2.20 GHz, 32GB RAM, Nvidia T550, Windows 11
Anonymous
Not applicable
Big mahalo to you Barry,
Thanks for helping me to learn how to customize GDL scripts. I would have learned a lot less if you had just sent me the part.

Now I'm hoping that someone figures out how to make the hole in the roof match the shape of the can.
Aloha,
John