3D Truss Models

[medeek]

Talking to my wife today about how much time I devote to all of the different projects I'm constantly involved with, in particular the plugins and my plans to launch the much needed wall plugin. I'm coming up on two years since I started the Truss Plugin and I am quite proud of how far it has progressed but I'm even more amazed at how much more there is yet to do.

As you all know I work a full time job and only get to this stuff in my free time which is pretty tough on the family since all my time and energy is devoted to my "work".

My wife feels like I need to cut back on something, which I can understand.

My work is simply work, it pays the bills and it is fairly stable and decent income.

My passion is my plugins and other structural and design programs (design.medeek.com) that I have created and continue to create.

The last couple of days I've taken a hard look at the numbers and realized that the volume of customers is pretty good (currently about 350 active truss plugin users) but definitely not in the thousands or what I would consider "high volume" or "mass market". If it was in that range then I could easily offer the plugin at much lower pricing and it still could pay for the considerable time and effort that I put into it.

As it currently stands, given the number of customers or potential customers I think I'm seeing, the plugin(s) is more of a niche item and not so much a "mass market" item.

I guess what I am trying to say is that both myself and my wife think that in order for me to devote as much time as I do to the plugins I need to figure out a way to make it compensate me better for that time. The only two solutions I am seeing is increase the volume or increase the price.

My major argument up until now for increasing the price is that the plugin(s) are not finished nor polished products. However this is sort of a chicken and egg problem, more money would theoretically allow me to devote more time to the development which would make the plugin(s) more valuable and worth the additional cost.

Any ideas are welcome. Bottom line is I think there is a lot more that I have to add to the SketchUp community, I just got to figure out how to do it.

[medeek]

Fixed a minor bug with the tail bearing truss module. The user should now be able to input a roof pitch up to 16:12. This was such a minor fix that I'm not rolling a major revision, just a sub-revision: 1.9.5b.

[medeek]

Over the weekend I was digging about through the board and looking at other attempts in creating BIM plugins. I noticed SketchupBIM and its development, which appears to have terminated abruptly. Whatever happened with this one?

[medeek]

Does anyone have any cut lists from Mitek, Simpson Strongtie or Alpine software? I've had some requests for the plugin to generate actual cut lists for the members and I am curious what these typically look like.

[medeek]

Tonight I was thinking it might be kind of cool to enable an option for hip and ridge (cap) on hip roofs.

After about an hour of coding I generated this:

I've got the hip cap figured out at the eaves but I'm a little unsure how to terminate everything where the hips meet the ridge:

View model here:

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/cf1c9a13-1b28-4a79-84cc-363b505ec34b/Hip-and-Ridge-Study

[medeek]

I also see a lot of this locally:

Either way the modeling at this junction is going to get complicated, I'm trying to find an easy way out, that still looks good.

[pbacot]

Nice work on that. Looks clean!

[facer]

View Medeek's Model in Sketchfab:

Note option to view in Virtual Reality (VR)
Refer to Sketchfab instructions

https://sketchfab.com/models/210dcf561a3044b7aa989e7a56b6552d

[medeek]

The hip and ridge is now fully implemented for hip roofs as shown.

It can also handle pyramid roofs where there is no ridge cap.

In the global settings I will setup and option to enable this feature and also an option to set the (ridge/hip) cap width and thickness.

Its too late tonight but I will see what I can do tomorrow about rolling out a new version.

View model here:

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/7aa80c75-5183-4aed-b0fb-ee54aa094fe0/Hip-and-Ridge-Medeek-Office

The trigonometry required to calculate the beveled cuts on those hip caps is something else, but it never fails to amaze me how it all works out once the math is right.

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%(#000000)[View Medeek's Model in Kubity:

Note option to view in Virtual Reality (VR)
Refer to Kubity instructions

Model LINK:
https://www.kubity.com/p/v8uRve]

[facer]

Medeek Const Library - Kickstarter Status at: 29 Jul
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/128644708/medeek-construction-plugin-library

[medeek]

Version 1.9.6 - 07.29.2017

• Added a hip & ridge option for all hip type roofs.

I will now need to setup hip & ridge for all other roof variants (gable, dutch gable etc...)

I'm quite pleased with the way this has come out. Within the global settings under the "Sheathing" tab you can adjust the width and thickness of the hip/ridge cap.

This option definitely adds a finished look to the roof.

[medeek]

Added a hip & ridge option for all gable truss roofs (sub. rev. 1.9.6b):

View model here:

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/1c99964a-c4d5-482f-a58b-75e828ec5dd6/Ridge-Cap

[facer]

Medeek Office - sliced open to show structure
using Zorro2 plugin

Sketchfab LINK:
https://sketchfab.com/models/7dd005d09e6040e181ac2319b6dc4cfa

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Medeek Office - Rendering in Thea for Sketchup

[medeek]

This afternoon I began to put together the HTML for the timber truss GUI (what I have so far):

I think I've reduced a metal plated (bolts) timber truss down to twenty (20) parameters.

Hopefully the preview panel will help simplify the entry of these parameters and give the user instant feedback on what each one does. With these sort of trusses the look and feel of the truss is every bit as important as the structural aspect so a preview is very important.

The preview panel will not only show the timbers but also the metal plates and exact position of each bolt.

Once the user submits "go", the timber truss module will draw one (1) timber truss with all of the timbers, metal plates, bolts, nuts and washers.

In the global options the user will be able to specify the bolt standard and the washer standard as well as set the material (color) for the plate and hardware.

As usual the design and programming is a little more involved than I originally anticipated but in the end it should be quite dramatic to be able to create a fully bolted and plated timber truss.

[pbacot]

I like seeing the 2d display! Looks great! What a productive afternoon!

[medeek]

Visually, not a lot of progress:

But what you can't see is the algorithm to efficiently position and display the bolts.

For larger trusses I'm a little worried that the display is too small to show the bolt details, but I'm not sure what else to do about it.

[juju]

Looking good! Maybe have the view automatically scale down to fit the larger trusses, equipping the window with a zoom tool / widget / whatever is probably asking too much...

[medeek]

There seems to be some confusion regarding the licensing for the plugins. Just to be clear when you purchase a license it is permanent, it will work forever. There is no need to renew your license for continuous functionality.

Renewing your license gives you access to the latest version of the plugin(s) within the Medeek Account Manager. The primary reason to renew your license is so that you can upgrade the plugin(s) to the latest version and take advantage of any new features and bug fixes.

I may update the plugin(s) pages to better explain what I have written above.

Hopefully this clarifies the Medeek licensing policy. Please feel free to contact me directly with any questions.