Sell glass patio roofs without giving up the view

In the walkthrough the patio roof is the cubic type: a level frame with the fall hidden inside, a downpipe in a post and no triangles at the sides. A veranda has a pitched roof whose slope stays visible, a gutter along the front and triangles over its side walls. Both work from one size grid, but the cubic frame sits higher in the example price list.

Sides are set one at a time: a side remains open or receives sliding or fixed glass, a polycarbonate, aluminium or louvered panel and an exterior ZIP blind. The back appears only on a freestanding roof, since against the house the back is the house wall. The customer slides the glass, rolls the blinds and runs the awning out with the controls under the 3D view, though none of those positions is saved in the design.

The covering and its tint change directly in the 3D scene: glass in clear, frosted, grey or bronze, polycarbonate in opal, clear, bronze or heat-reflecting. The customer sees how the design looks ahead of the decision. The 3D view gives no figure for how much light passes through the roof.

In the walkthrough the price starts from the size grid and then counts walls by the metre of opening, ZIP blinds, lights, heaters, the awning and the post footings, with installation and delivery part of it. It updates whenever something changes. The figures come from an example price list; a client’s live setup runs on that maker’s approved prices.

The configurator places the posts itself so that no clear span grows past 5.5 m, and splices a beam over 7 m at a post; a freestanding roof gets them along the back as well. The end posts can be shifted inwards by up to 500 mm and additional posts placed where the customer wants them. The walkthrough applies its own rules here, which do not replace an engineer’s calculation.