Setting Up the Roof Structure in Revit Structure

Hello and welcome back to Revit Structure. Let's get started. In our previous video, we had finished laying out our floor systems.

Let's move on to the roof. Let's go to our project browser, roof, let's pick it, and here we have the roof layout with the architectural background showing. In this case, with the roof, we want to work a little bit backwards.

We want to apply our sheathing first, then our beams and joists, and then our floor joists. So, let's get started. As you see, in Revit Structure, we do not have a roof.

So, let's go to architecture, pick the tab. Let's go to the build panel. Let's go to roof.

We want roof by footprint. Let's pick that. And here we have the basic half-inch plywood sheathing.

Learn Revit

• Nationally accredited
• Create your own portfolio
• Free student software
• Learn at your convenience
• Authorized Autodesk training center

Learn More

Well, our designer has instructed us to use a five-eighths plywood sheathing on this roof. So, let's create a new type. Let's go to edit type, duplicate.

Let's rename it five-eighths. Let's delete the two on the ends. Since we're not recreating another half-inch plywood, hit OK.

Here we have the structure. We want to edit it. We have our basic structure, which is plywood sheathing, but at a half-inch.

Let's change that. It's now going to be five-eighths. Hit OK.

OK again. And let's get started laying it out. Here we have our basic five-eighths inch plywood sheathing.

Let's check our parameters. We're at the roof. Our basic offset from the roof is zero, which is where we want it, because the underside of the plywood sheathing will be our starting elevation.

1. Let's go to pick line. And we want to pick the inside parapet line.

Again, we have balloon framing, and the studs will be coming up past our deck edge. So, let's zoom in here and pick the inside parapet lines. See, we have some overlap.

We're going to have to clean up. Again, some overlap to clean up. We'll get back to that.

1. Let's start cleaning up. Let's go to our modify panel.

Let's go to our trim. Start cleaning these edges up. OK.

Let's go to our finish edit mode. Now, what we're going to do is, we're going to cut a section that we're going to use for reference. Cutting sections is very helpful, especially in developing a model, because it gives us immediate reference points that we can see.

1. Here we have our reference model and our section. So, what we want to do is, we want to make it a readable scale.

And we want to make it fine, the visibility, so that we can see our columns and beams. Now, what we want to do is, we want to go into our architectural model and make it a true background. So, at VB, we have it linked.

We see our visibility is checked on. Halftone it. And by host, we want to make it a custom to show specifically the architectural discipline.

And we see our detail level is fine already. So, we'll apply that. Hit OK.

Hit OK again. Now, we've backgrounded our architectural model. Now, what we want to do is, we want to create a slope in the sheathing to match the architectural model.

So, let's start here. And let's take a measurement from our finished floor or finished roof line to the intersection of that floor line. We see it's at two feet.

1. Let's escape out of that. And let's go back to our roof level.

What we want to do is, at this point, we want to go to our structure tab. And we want to pick our roof sheathing. What that does, it takes us to a modify panel.

And we want to modify sub-elements. So, we'll pick that. What we want to do is, we want to add points that we are going to create slopes from.

So, we want one at this intersection. And we want one at this intersection. Because this is where our slope line is.

1. So, we'll pick it. And you see we get an elevation.

Let's elevate that to two feet. It gives us our slope lines. Because now we've sloped it from zero to two feet to this corner.

Let's go to this point. Give it an elevation of two feet. OK.

Now we have matching slope lines to our architectural plan. Let's escape out of that. And let's hide the background of the architect.

Let's go to VB, Revit Link. And let's turn the visibility off. Let's uncheck it.

Let's hit OK. Now we see we have our basic roof. Let's go back again to our reference section.

Let's pick it. And you see now we have our roof line matching our architectural roof line. Which is where we wanted it.

Now, here's where Revit Magic comes in. What we want to do is, we want to have each of these columns to match the underside of the roof sheathing. So, let's go back to our roof plan.

What we'll do here now is we will highlight all of the columns. Hold the CTRL key down. Go through and highlight all of the columns.

1. Where we're going to go is we're going to go to the modify column panel. Attach top base.

So, we'll pick that. And now we have to pick the material that we want it to attach to, which is our roof sheathing. OK.

So, let's pick it. And Revit will now instruct the columns to align themselves to the underside of the roof sheathing. This may take a moment, since we have a lot of columns.

1. Now that the program has completed the process, let's take a look at our reference section. Let's turn off our architectural background.

Again, go to VV. Revit Link. Uncheck the visibility box.

Hit apply. OK. And now we'll take a look at our columns.

All of our columns have now attached themselves to the roof structure. What this will do for us is give us reference points when we go to 3D snapping to set our beam and choice. Let's get out of this section.

Let's zoom out. That's it for this video. See you in the next one.