Chapter 13
Adding the Roof to Stop the Rain

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Positioning your skyscraper correctly
• Ensuring correct alignment of the skyscraper roof
• Adding a curved edge to your roof to allow rain to run off

In Chapter 12, you develop your skyscraper and add more floors to it. There is no such thing
as a one-story skyscraper.
In this chapter, you develop the roof of your skyscraper and add a curved edge to allow for
rain runoff.

Picking the Right Shape for Your Roof

If you watch movies, a lot (and I mean a lot) of tall buildings have a roof on them that doubles
as a helipad. The roof for your skyscraper will double as a helipad, but it will be even cooler:
It will have a curved edge that allows the rain to run off of it, too!
The following steps guide you through adding a helipad to your skyscraper. You find out how
to add a shape that represents the helipad and also see how to add a curved edge to a shape
in Tinkercad.
1. Open your skyscraper design in Tinkercad.
2. Using an isometric view, align the Work plane to the top face of the top floor of
the skyscraper.
Figure 13-1 shows the Work plane aligned to the top face of the top floor of the skyscraper.
3. Go to the Top view on the View Cube and place the shape that will form the
roof of your skyscraper.
Zoom in if you need to for clarity and to be able to see the grid for accurate shape placement.
4. In Orthographic view, align your skyscraper to the grid appropriately.
Figure 13-2 shows the Top view of the skyscraper aligned to the Work plane grid.
Your roof is going to be a polygon with ten sides, also known as a decagon. On the Tinkercad
Basic Shapes menu is a Polygon.
5. Using the grid on the Work plane, place the default polygon centrally on the
top face of the top floor of your skyscraper.
This placement should happen automatically because your Work plane is the top face.
6. In the Shape dialog box, change the number of sides to 10 and press Enter.
The polygon changes shape accordingly, as shown in Figure 13-3.
7. Use the small black squares on the decagon edges to click and drag the edges
of the decagon to the corresponding outer edges of the floor slab in plan.
Do not drag them to the floor shape.

FIGURE 13-1: The Work plane aligned to the top face of the top floor in an isometric view.

FIGURE 13-2: The Top view of the skyscraper, aligned to the Work plane grid, ready for placement of the shape
that will form the skyscraper roof.

FIGURE 13-3: The decagon in place on top of the skyscraper, with the number of sides highlighted in the Shape
dialog box.
The roof does not cover the floor shape exactly because of its nature as a polygon (decagon),
but you can develop this later, if you want, by adding more refined detail to your skyscraper.
Figure 13-4 shows the revised decagon in place.

FIGURE 13-4: The decagon (roof) with its new shape on top of the skyscraper.

Getting the Right Depth for Your Roof

In the earlier sections of this chapter, you have been working in plan (the Top view). In this
section, you adjust the height of the roof.
If you go to isometric view, you will notice that the height of the roof is quite high and needs
to be changed. However, there is no Height variable in the Shape dialog box when you select
the decagon (polygon).
As you can see in Figure 13-5, the new roof is quite high and needs to be adjusted.

FIGURE 13-5: The top of the skyscraper in an isometric view, giving an indication of the height of the new roof.
To change the height of your skyscraper roof, you need to go to the Front view on the
View Cube and zoom and pan with your mouse so that you can see the roof and the top of
your skyscraper.
After you’re in the Front view, you can change the height of your new skyscraper roof:
1. Select the roof and then hover over the top middle grip on the roof.
You see the temporary dimension showing the height of the roof. In metric millimeters, the
default height of the roof is 20 mm (8 in), which you can see in Figure 13-6.
2. Change the roof height to 10 mm (4 in).
To do so, just hover over the top middle grip on the roof and then click and drag downwards
until the temporary dimension reads 10 (or 4). The roof height changes accordingly. Refer to
Figure 13-7.

FIGURE 13-6: The roof on the skyscraper in the Front view, with the roof height temporary dimension arrowed.

FIGURE 13-7: The Front view of the roof with the grip highlighted in red with the temporary dimension
displayed.
You now have a roof height that is more sensible and ready for its curved edge for rain
runoff.

Adding the Curved Roof Edge

In Front view, you can set the curve on your decagon roof edge:
1. Select the roof.
2. In the Shape dialog box that appears, change the Bevel value to 2 and the
Segments value to 5.
These values will need to be different if you’re working in imperial measurements.
The curved edge appears on your roof. Figure 13-8 shows the new roof with its curved edge
and the Bevel and Segments values displayed.
3. In a suitable isometric view, zoom accordingly so that you can admire your
new skyscraper!
4. Set the Work plane back to its default position.
You can do so by selecting the Work plane command and clicking in the pale blue area at the
bottom of the skyscraper, in this case.
Figure 13-9 gives you an idea of how your new skyscraper should look with its shiny new
curved roof!

FIGURE 13-8: The new roof with its curved edge and the Bevel and Segments values displayed in the Shape
dialog box.

FIGURE 13-9: The new skyscraper in all its glory with its new curved roof.