automatically place tiles on the slopes of a roof ?

 From:  Michael Gibson
6766.3 In reply to 6766.1 
Hi codi, there is no roof-tile specific method like you're asking about, but you can use a sequence of regular MoI commands to get the same type of result.

If you need something that is more fully automatic than using several commands in sequence, you would need to use a different program instead, like C4D with that plug-in, or also the LWCAD plugin for LightWave has some specialized things for that as well I think.

The sequence that you'd use in MoI is something like - start with making one tile on the ground, then use Transform > Orient to place it onto the roof surface:




Then use Transform > Array > Grid to replicate the tile - either draw the grid spacing rectangle onto the sloped surface so it uses its orientation or if you want to use numeric input without drawing onto the sloped surface you would need to set the cplane to that sloped surface by using View > CPlane:




Now to cut the tiles, use Construct > Boolean > Intersection with the planar outline curve as the first object set, note boolean intersection will also try to combine objects of the same intersection set together with a boolean union, that may be a quite complex operation for something with a lot of overlapping pieces like this so you may want to do one tile at a time in the boundary area. To do one tile at a time, leave the outline curve selected, run boolean intersection, select the tile, right-click to finish the command, then right-click to repeat boolean intersection, select the next time, right-click again to end, etc... that way you can process each individual tile with just a couple of right clicks after each tile selection. That will give you a result like this:



- Michael