Ever wonder how to model or render a clay tile roof in Revit?  Well, I did at one time till I read a post on Revit City a while ago.  You can do this but *warning* your file may become quite cumbersome depending on how much roof you’re doing.  I recommend doing just a small portion or whatever portion is visible in a rendering… The rest can just be model fill pattern.

Begin by modeling a normal roof. Copy and paste this roof into original position and then move vertically a few inches so it’s “hovering” over your existing roof.  Change its type to “System Family: Sloped Glazing.”  This allows you to treat your roof as you would any curtain system with grids and mullions.  In the properties specify a grid vertically every 6 or 7 inches.  Also in properties change “Curtain Panel” to be “Empty System Panel : Empty.” Finish property settings.  Then create some mullion types.  Create one for the concave downwards and one for concave upwards.  Then specify every other curtain grid to its respective mullion type.  It’s really as simple as that in theory though the process can be time consuming because you have to manually specify every other curtain grid.  You may also have to play with the new “roof’s” height.  If any of you would like, I can provide you with the profiles that I used for both mullion types.

You can apply this concept to your standard floor or roof joist framing as well (See Image). If this doesn’t suit your fancy still and would like another option, you can use balusters as a railing and force the balusters to appear as your soffit framing.  But that’s another blog post entirely.

Did you know you can change the plane of a profile sketch? Yup! Just drag it! That’s all there is to it.  If you are either in “profile sketch” or “profile pick” mode and you haven’t drawn a shape for your profile yet, then all you do is grab the green crosshairs and drag the plane to another line.  This can save a little time especially if you have an existing section in which you’d like to draw your profile sketch.  Some views are better than others to draw these profile shapes (the more “straight on” shot the better). This gives you added flexibility in doing so.  (See before and after images)

Click on images to enlarge