9 replies to this topic

[Chris Robinson]

Is there a way to draw a glue lam vertical as a column or that is set an angle?

[Jon Davis]

I think there's a way to adjust the the rise of a beam...

 

But why wouldn't you just create a vertical solid object?

[Mark Petri]

Or, just use/create a post and name it as a glulam.

[Chris Robinson]

Thanks for the tips. I have used SP for many years but just not the 3d. I am slowly working my way through it. Both of your suggestions are good, thanks.

I have done many designs in resent years that use glue columns that slope out at about 15%. Through experimenting, I have drawn a beam with a slope but it seems quite awkward, and difficult (if even possible)to to fit to the underside of the horizontal ( or pitched ) roof beam. It would be nice if instead of a cube I could draw a parallelogram or Polygram to represent it. Has anyone else ran into this?     

[Chris Robinson]

How do you post an image on this forum? It would explain things better.

[Jon Davis]

There's a process for creating your own 3D objects and inserting them into the model... it's not as easy as CAD or Revit but, it is doable... I've created a few brackets (4x4 corbels) for shed roofs etc.... It can be time consuming at first when learning but, they do look good once done. There's a youtube video on how to do it.

[Mark Petri]

Yeah, for concepts I will use a sloped beam for those situations. But, ultimately I will model out the timber how I want it in SketchUp and bring it in as a symbol so it all fits exactly as it should. You can use a solid polygon (think of your post lying flat on it's side) and then use that to create a symbol. It should be the only thing you have on that drawing so when in SoftView it is the only 3D object you see. Then you can save it to the 3D symbols folder in SP and link to it when creating your symbol. There are a lot of tutorials out on the forum (probably buried deep somewhere) or on YouTube that should give you more information if you want to explore the SoftPlan options.

[Jon Davis]

forgive my ignorance, but is sketchup free? I tried it years ago but it seemed, not user friendly...

[Henry Buckner]

There's a free version, but I don't think you can export out of it.

[Mark Petri]

It's now subscription like almost all other programs. For a long time it was just plain inexpensive for the pro version. But, they've gone the way every other software company seems to be going. Still worth the money for me. I can control a lot of details with it. Lots of good plugins as well to speed things up. I've still seen lots of benefit from using it for it's strengths though. SoftPlan and SketchUp each are different in how they handle modeling and can compliment each other well.