Connected Roofs

Connected Roofs is a faster and easier way to model a remote design in Scanifly. Instead of drawing every roof segment one at a time, you trace the outline of the structure once and Scanifly fills in the individual segments for you. From there, you clean up and fine-tune. Since all of the ridges are connected, it makes getting the design "just right" much easier.

Starting a Connected Roof

When you begin sketching a roof, Scanifly now prompts you to choose between Connected Roof and Roof Segment. Two hotkeys are also available:

• C — start sketching a Connected Roof outline.
• N — create a single New roof segment (regular segment). 

Choose Connected Roof, trace the perimeter of the roof, and upon completion, Scanifly will generate a segment for every edge you draw. 

Cleaning up extra segments

Because Scanifly creates a segment for every edge, you'll often get more segments than the roof actually has (most commonly at gable ends). This is expected, and removing the extras is quick. Any of the following actions will "unpitch" a segment you don't need:

• Click the segment and turn its pitch off.
• Select it in the Outlines pane and press Delete.
• Open the layers tree and unpitch it from the little house icon.

If you remove a segment by mistake, you can bring it back. Click the segment in the Outlines list and toggle its pitch back on, use the restore-pitch button next to it, or simply Undo. You'll also see a line across the spot where a segment was unpitched. Click that line and toggle the pitch back on from the side pane.

Adjusting pitch to match the roof

With Connected Roofs, the pitch (tilt) is what you adjust to make everything line up. Newly drawn segments default to a 25° tilt, so plan to correct pitches after outlining. If your outline already matches the roof shape, changing an edge won't improve the fit, but adjusting the tilt will.

To adjust efficiently:

• Ctrl-click in the design (when no other segments are selected) to select multiple segments. You can also click into the "Outlines" pane in one of the segments, and click and drag from there to select multiple segments.
• Segments facing the same direction usually need about the same correction.
• Turn on LiDAR and raise or lower the tilt until the segment lines up with the actual roof surface.
• When entering a pitch value, scroll your mouse wheel inside the input box to increment the number smoothly instead of retyping it.

You can also move, copy/paste, and rotate a Connected Roof, and you can adjust its outline edges afterward. The interior segments regenerate automatically, so you don't have to start over if the outline wasn't perfect.

When to use more than one connected roof

If needed, you can draw multiple Connected Roofs (especially for multiple story buildings) and mix in standard roof segments. The standard segment tool works exactly as before, so it's the right choice for dormers and for any section that doesn't fit the Connected Roof outline.