Medeek

I haven't exposed all of the options in the House Builder that exist in the plugins, I am trying to keep this as light weight as possible, yet giving the user enough options to make this a viable design tool. To that end, I've enabled exterior trim for all openings:

The user will have the option to use the basic fill colors or the built-in textures. This feature can be toggled ON or OFF in the Settings.

Next is a test of the raised fascia offset: My question is what do we do in the field at this sort of corner?

And just for fun: I call this the "Mountain House". A sufficiently motivated framer (lots of money) could stick build this, I'm quite convinced.

Complex roofs is still a work in progress, no surprise there. The interface will mirror the Truss plugin since we already know how that works. When a roof is selected the "custom" roof planes (edges) will display in red rather than blue. A selected edge will switch to a solid color and the right hand menu will display the settings for that roof plane. The same settings that are available in the Truss plugin will appear for the selected "roof plane type".

First look at some complex roofs in the Roof Plan tab: I will need to stress test it further to see if we can break it. The solver algorithm is borrowed directly from the new weighted straight skeleton solver I implemented about a month ago in the Truss plugin, no point in reinventing the wheel.

Testing the reference underlays for the Upper Floor Plan (level 1 wall framing and level 2 floor framing):

I’ve only invested about a week’s worth of my time and energy into this new House Builder tool/app. I’m excited that I’ve been able to move it along quite quickly, thanks to the work I had already done with Garage Builder. I will need to circle back actually and add some of this increased functionality into the Garage Builder but for now my focus is on the House Builder since it is the more general tool. I am really hoping that this tool will be as useful and well adopted as I think it will be. To that end I am investing quite a bit of time into it and will probably spend at least a couple more weeks sorting out all the intricacies of wiring up complex roofs and multi foundation types. I think we almost have the floor framing portion completed. With the addition of more common drafting style tools (ie. dimensions, callouts, text, text /w leaders and lines) the tool has become much more interactive and the user experience or UI will be of paramount importance. I don’t want this tool to feel clunky so it may require a few iterations to fine tune these tools until they are a “joy to use”. I think I will probably release an update of the plugin even before I’ve waded into the foundations and roofs so that the power users can begin poking and prodding this thing and expose its weaknesses

We also now a have a rudimentary line tool to manually draw in extraneous geometry or create tables etc... The line weight, line type and line color can be set, very similar to AutoCAD.

I've also added a "visibility reference" icon/tool. This allows one to not only toggle off the grid but also to toggle on or off the 1st level walls below the 2nd level walls. This should aid in lining up walls on different levels.

We now have a few more options for arrowheads and as you can see the settings tab has grown signficantly.

I've added the ability to edit, delete and also move openings in walls from the various elevation views:

Duly noted. I will look into the arrow head style and the dimension to centerline of walls (interior). I agree that this is very important.

I still have some rough edges to work on in the UI but progress is being made: All dimensions are associative, there is no concept of an orphaned dimension, however I may eventually change my mind on that. The nice thing about associative dimensions is that when you change the location of a wall or opening all of the dimensions auto-update. Additionally the dimensions snap to the grid so it is easy to setup your dimensions and keep them all aligned as para-CAD has noted.

First look at some walls with dimensions added: I was going to setup an auto-dimension algorithm. However after building the manual dimension tool I found it so easy to use that I don't really see a reason to bother with auto dimensioning. What you see here I was able to do in about 2-3 minutes.

From the get go the Garage Builder was a proof of concept, and it does seem to work reasonably well. However, I'm now contemplating creating a slightly more complicated version of this tool called the House Builder. I will probably initially not include the roof or foundations for the first iteration and primarily focus on the wall layout engine (that is what is most important). Thoughts? Is there any interest for such a tool? In some way it may resemble what Chief Architect does, you create your layout in 2D, fully dimensioned and then like the Garage Builder it can with the push of a button translate that into a full 3D model on demand. The current algorithms that produce the DXF or printed drawing (PDF) will need to be further developed and augmented so that we can auto-dimension a much more complex floor plan, this should become very interesting. The goal is to be able to create, at a minimum, something like this in the House Builder tool: I've also been giving the auto-dimensioning some serious thought and even as attractive as this may seem, there will always be cases where the user will need to manually intervene and add or subtract dimensions. So I will need to build some sort of user driven dimensioning system that will allow manual override but somehow coexist with a fully automated dimensioning system. In addition to dimensions we will also need to enable some sort of annotation system with text blocks and text with leaders (this is giving me AutoCad vibes). This in and of itself is a full on project, we may have to take this in stages.

Version 4.7.2 - 08.31.2026 - Updated the opening move tool with additional construction dimensions. - Updated the column move tool with additional construction dimensions. - Fixed a minor bug in the stair module (riser materials).

Version 3.8.5b - 08.30.2026 - Fixed a bug in the gutter module for complex roofs with discontinuous fascia lines. - Fixed a bug in the primitive generation step for complex roofs. - Improved the rafter framing algorithm for complex roofs using the advanced primitive solver (weighted straight skeleton). When you have framing enabled it should now take about half as long to edit or regen a roof. This should be a significant performance increase when using the new advanced solver (which invokes) the new framing logic. Additionally the common rafters at a RHH junction were being over trimmed previously. That should now be resolved. At this point I highly recommend using the new advanced primitive solver. I've kept the legacy solver for now, just in case, but at this point it probably makes more sense to use the new solver and take advantage of the performance improvements and framing corrections. I'm also super excited that I have somehow been able to enable hip & ridge for complex roofs. I hit a real roadblock previously on this feature but it turns out it was actually not as difficult as I had thought it was. It just took a slight different approach.

Version 3.8.5 - 08.28.2026 - Enabled discontinuous fascia/gutter lines for complex roofs.

I’m now turning my attention to the hip & ridge caps. This has actually never been fully developed for complex roofs. I had gotten about half way into it and then Covid hit in Mar. 2020 and disrupted some of my development tracks. I went back into my code and found where I had left it disabled but mostly functional. My previous way of mathematically calculating the cap terminations worked well for simple deterministic roofs. However my new algorithms are more general and work off of the topology itself and therefore should be more robust and actually easier to generate. Sometimes you just need to look at a problem with a fresh set of eyes.

First look at some interesting roofs with the algorithm actually putting the sub-fascia where it belongs.

Version 3.8.4 - 08.20.2026 - Added an advanced (weighted skeleton) solver for complex roofs. Note that I have retained the "Legacy" solver for now. When you draw or edit a complex roof you will now have an additional parameter which will allow you to choose the solver or primitive engine. I've tested the new solver with well over 50+ roof configurations however I'm sure a few cases will sneak through. Both solvers should yield the same result but if they do not please report that information to me via email (nathan@medeek.com). The new solver is what is called a "weighted straight skeleton". It uses wavefront propagation. It is the "proper" way to solve a complex roof. The legacy method used a system of boolean subtractions to carve out the complex roof organically from an initial prismatic solid. Overall the legacy method is pretty good however there are certain oddities or roof geometries that will foul it up, hence the need to develop the more advanced method.

I’ve released the first BETA version of the Rhino extension (Version 0.9.5 - 08.18.2026). Please note that only common truss types (ie. King Post, Queen Post, Fink, Howe) can currently be drawn with the extension. The web page is posted here for more information: https://design.medeek.com/resources/medeektrussplugin_rhino.html You can also download the 30 day trial at this link (Windows only): https://design.medeek.com/rhino/medeek_truss_rhino.zip Tomorrow I will begin work on the MacOS version of the extension. I will also proceed to port over more truss types in the next few days and eventually we will get to rafter roofs, hip sets and complex roofs.

First look at some roof returns in Rhino: