Openings: Dormer
In this article we are going to take a look at the how to use the “Openings: Dormer” tool to form an opening in a roof, ready to receive a dormer.
The “Openings: Dormer” tool can be found on the “Home” menu, in the “Openings” ribbon tab….
So without further ado, let’s just dive in and use the tool! First of all I’ll whip up a quick little building with a dormer on it. Here’s my walls….
And I’ll now put a pitched roof on it……
And finally I’ll add the dormer- comprised of walls on 3 sides and a little pitched roof on top. Just like this…….
Now the things to note in the above image are: The dormer roof has been “joined” to the main roof. The side and front walls to the dormer just come crashing up through the main roof. What we are going to use the “Openings: Dormer” tool for, is to create an opening in the main roof, which will allow our dormer construction to protrude correctly.
So first of all I elect the “Openings: Dormer” tool. Revit now asks me to select the roof that is “going to be cut by the dormer opening”- this is our main roof….
Revit enters a version of “sketch mode”, where it now requires us to pick elements and e
dges that will define the boundary of the roof opening…..
So I’m going to go around the model and pick:-
-The dormer roof
-Each of the 2 “outer” faces of the side walls to the dormer
-The outer face of the front wall of the dormer.
As I pick each one, Revit displays a sketch line- this line is part of the boundary to the opening- all these lines will lie on a plane coincident with the slope of the main roof.
Here is my boundary lines….
I’m now just going to go round with the “Trim”/Extend to corner” tool, to complete the boundary loop….
In the above image you can clearly see the boundary of the opening we wish to create, sketched out on the plane of the roof slope. All I do now is hit the big Green Tick on the menu bar to tell Revit to go ahead and form the opening….
And there we are! A dormer construction sitting on top of a main roof with an appropriately sized dormer opening in it. And just to demonstrate that the opening has been formed correctly, this final image is the same model with the dormer roof and walls removed- clearly showing the opening we have just formed……
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