Draw rooms and walls

Draw the shape of your home quickly and accurately, then refine it with exact numbers. New plan? Start with the outside walls — see Outside walls first.

Before you start

• A project open in the editor (2D view).
• Know whether you'll measure in feet & inches or metric — you can switch later without changing any geometry.

Draw a room

1. Press R or choose Rooms in the tool rail.
2. Pick a shape: Rectangle, L-shape, U-shape or Polygon.
3. Drag on the canvas (for polygons, click each corner and click the first corner again to close).
4. Release. The room is created with walls, a name and its floor area.
5. Type exact sizes in the inspector. Rooms that share a wall use one wall, so moving it updates both rooms and anything hosted on it.

Draw individual walls

1. Press W or choose Walls.
2. Click to start, click again for each corner. Walls are drawn as a connected chain.
3. Press Esc to finish the chain. When a chain encloses an area, a room is detected automatically.
4. With a wall selected, set its length, thickness, height and material in the inspector. Walls can run at any angle, and any wall can be curved: drag its round curve handle or choose Curved under Shape (see Curved walls).

Snapping

While drawing, the pointer snaps to wall endpoints, wall centres, the grid, and parallel or perpendicular directions. Guides show what it's snapping to. Press S to turn snapping off temporarily and G to hide the grid.

Inside, outside and centreline measurements

Walls have thickness, so a room has more than one "size":

• Centreline — measured through the middle of the walls. Used for gross area.
• Inside (clear) — between the inner faces of walls. Used for net floor area and for checking furniture fits.
• Outside — across the outer faces. The inspector labels which basis each number uses.

Common problems

• "That length is too short for a wall." Walls must be at least 5 cm (about 2 in) long.
• A room disappeared after I moved a wall. If walls no longer enclose an area, the room can't be detected. Press Mod+Z to undo — the room comes back with its name and materials.
• Corners look overlapped. Make sure the walls actually meet at one corner point; drag one endpoint onto the other until it snaps.
• Invalid shape. If an edit would create impossible geometry, the editor explains why and keeps the last valid state.