Elevations and sections

Elevations show the outside of your home from the north, east, south and west. Sections slice through the building along a line you draw and show what you'd see looking one way: cut walls and floors in solid black, everything beyond in lighter lines.

Before you start

• A design with walls. Doors, windows, floors, stairs and roofs all appear automatically.
• Optional: set the north direction in Settings so "North elevation" really faces north.

Open the views

1. Choose Elevations & sections in the top bar (or Export → Elevations & sections). On a phone, open More actions.
2. Pick North, East, South or West. The North elevation shows the north-facing side of the house, as seen by someone standing north of it.
3. Drag to pan, scroll or pinch to zoom, and use the buttons in the corner to zoom or fit. With the drawing focused, +, −, arrow keys and 0 work too.
4. Press Esc or the close button to go back to the plan. The views keep up with your edits while open.

Draw a section

1. Choose + Section. A plan of the current floor appears on the left.
2. Press and drag across the building where you want to cut (or click two points). Points snap to the grid and the line to 15° steps; hold Alt to place freely.
3. The section appears on the right. It looks to the left of the direction you drew (draw left to right and it looks up the plan).
4. Adjust it:
   • Drag the round handles to move the ends, or drag the line to move it.
   • Flip direction looks the other way.
   • Show beyond the cut limits how far behind the cut you see (0 = everything).
   • Name changes the mark (A, B, C… are given automatically).
5. Sections appear on the plan as cut markers with arrows, on every floor, and are listed as tabs (A–A, B–B…).

What's in the drawings

• Phases: existing work in grey, new work in black, demolition dashed red, matching the plan.
• Elevations: wall faces with doors (panels, handles, swing hints), windows (frames, glazing bars, sills), roofs, the ground line, a datum marker for every floor with its level (for example +2.80 m), floor-to-floor and overall height dimensions and the overall width.
• Sections: cut walls with sills and heads around doors and windows, floor slabs, ceilings (flat or sloped; open ceilings are left open), cut stairs as a stepped profile, cut roofs, room names with ceiling heights, everything beyond the cut, level markers, floor-to-floor dimensions and wall centre-to-centre dimensions along the cut.

Export a view

1. With a view open, choose Export in the views bar.
2. Pick PDF sheet (to scale), SVG drawing or CAD drawing (DXF). DXF uses millimetres with heights going up, on layers V-CUT, V-WALL, V-OPEN, V-ROOF, V-BEYOND, V-STAIR, V-FURN, V-GROUND, V-LEVEL, V-DIM, V-TEXT and V-DEMO.
3. For several drawings on numbered sheets, choose Drawing set. See Drawing sets.

Where sections are saved

Section lines are saved with the design, like walls and furniture. Teammates see new and changed sections straight away, they're there on your other devices, and they're included in shared links, version history and the project file (.floorplan.json).

• Adding, moving, renaming, flipping or deleting a section can be undone, and each change shows in Version history.
• People who can only view or comment on a design can look at its sections and export them, but can't add or change them.
• Sections you drew before they were saved with the design (they used to stay in one browser) are added to the design automatically the next time you open it with edit access, as long as the design has no sections yet. Undo removes them again.

Good to know

• Hidden lines are removed by drawing the farthest surfaces first; surfaces completely hidden behind others are left out of the file.
• Slab thicknesses in sections are nominal (150 mm on the ground, 200 mm between floors unless your floor heights leave a different gap).
• Terrain isn't shown in elevations: the ground line is at project zero. Basement walls below it are dashed.
• L-shaped, U-shaped and spiral stairs are drawn as straight runs in sections.
• Curved walls are drawn from short straight pieces (within 1 mm).

Common problems

• The section is empty. The cut line doesn't cross the building. Drag it across the walls.
• "North" shows the wrong side. Set the north direction in Settings; elevations follow it.
• A teammate's sections don't show up. Sections sync with the design. If your connection dropped, reload the page. Sections someone drew in an older version stay in their browser until they open the design again with edit access.