Development and Updates for the Medeek Truss Plugin

[Medeek]

Testing out the hip roof feature with some more complex roof lines:







The thing that jumps out at me right away is the ease with which I can generate the basic roof lines and most of the rafters.  This particular roof required (4) rectangular roofs to generate all of the lines.  The only thing that is missing is the valley rafters.  To make this feature more functional for complex roofs I only need to have a tool that can generate valley rafters and trim back members to create the cripple rafters.

The roof planes line up perfectly, which was expected but pleasing none the less.

[Medeek]

This is unrelated to the functionality of the plugin but I managed after two days of pulling my hair out to somehow get the PayPal Express Checkout to work on the site.  A number of clients had been requesting the PayPal option rather than use their credit cards over the internet.

[Medeek]

Looking at cantilevered trusses tonight.  The use of a wedge, slider or strut depends on the amount of the overhang and in some cases if the overhang (cantilever) is within the scarf cut of the top chord no additional member is required, see image below:



Notice how the web strut is centered over the point of bearing with the long cantilever.  Also notice that the panel point placement of this fink truss was not altered with the addition of the cantilever.

Basically this will be a new truss family and I'll start with the fink truss and take it from there.  If anyone has shop drawing from truss plants they are willing to share that show different configurations of a cantilever truss, that would be very helpful.

[Medeek]

Version 1.2.4 - 01.08.2016
- Plugin integrated with the Medeek Truss Designer.
- Engineering of common fink truss enabled.



When a new truss is created (common truss types only for now) the parameters are specified within the dynamic component attribute library.  Opening the component options allows one to change some of these values.

The new engineering icon allows one to automatically transfer all of the truss design parameters directly from SketchUp to the Truss Designer for engineering checks. 

[Medeek]

The current Medeek Truss Plugin menu now has 5 icons:



The available items are the following:

1.) Draw Roof Truss:
  - Common
  - Attic
  - Monopitch
  - Scissor
 
2.) Draw Floor Truss:
  - Floor Truss
  - TJI Joist

3.) Draw Truss Set:
  - Valley Set

4.) Draw Roof Rafters:
  - Gable Roof
  - Gable Roof w/ GLB
  - TJI Roof w/ GLB
  - Hip Roof

5.) Engineering Calculations:
  - Truss (common truss types only)

Note that the menus show additional items that are either being worked on or are planned for future releases.

[Medeek]

The truss component in SketchUp is not fully dynamic yet, however if you right click on the actual truss component and open the Dynamic Component -> Component Options dialog box you will see that you can change some options associated with the truss.  The items grayed out you cannot currently change but I would like to try and make some of them dynamic as well.


if you make a change here and then proceed with the engineering you will notice the new values are then sent to the calculator.  The dynamic attributes revealed in this dialog are what is being sent to the calculator for engineering.

[Medeek]

I've done some maintenance on the beam calculator in preparation for integration with the Truss Plugin:

Version 1.0.1 - 01.10.2016
- Updated javascript front end so that selected options are properly retained.
- Updated total load (reactions) to include applied load and selfweight over total span. Results now more closely agree with WoodWorks Sizer Software.
- Inputs now include option for Total Span and Clear Span.
- Removed beam configurations that are not yet complete.
- Beam graphic now shows span geometry with supports.

http://design.medeek.com/resources/beam/beam_calculator.pl

At some point I need to come up with a slicker interface that allows for multiple point loads and supports but that is a job for another day.

[Medeek]

Version 1.2.5 - 01.10.2016
- Plugin integrated with the Medeek Beam Calculator.
- Engineering of North American glulam beam sizes enabled (Western, Southern Pine).

[Medeek]

Screenshot of the Beam Calculator that will pop up when called from the plugin:



So far I only have glulam beams as an option in the plugin but I will probably add LVL, LSL, PSL and Solid Sawn and those can also be analyzed with this same interface.

[Medeek]

First tutorial video:

[Medeek]

Engineering Video:



The SketchUp model used in the video can be found here:

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=u6c602b47-40bb-4349-9e0e-0917746ab90a

[Medeek]

Valley Truss Set:

[Medeek]

Hip Roof Framing:



SketchUp model used in the video can be found here:

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=u53e50317-d46f-40dd-a95f-c50b1d51302d

[Medeek]

Testing the limits of the Medeek Truss Plugin with complex hip roofs. Note that the roof primitives have not been trimmed back. This is primarily a study to determine what additional programming would be required to generate this type of roof automatically:





This for me would be the holy grail of hip roof framing...

[Medeek]

As you can see there is still a tremendous amount of work that can be done here.  To that end I've started a KickStarter project which if successful would allow me to devote at least 4-5 months of my undivided attention on the programming of this plugin:


https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/128644708/medeek-truss-plugin