Your first drawing, step by step

1. Choose the room walls

Open Structure on the left, then choose Room for a rectangle or Polygon for a corner-by-corner outline. Under Room walls, select Brick, Stud, Cavity or another construction and check Thickness before drawing. Wall uses the same construction controls.

New room walls use your choice. Existing shared walls retain their construction. To change a room afterwards, select it, open Wall build-up in Selected and choose All walls or an individual boundary. Changing the drawing preset affects future walls only.

2. Draw or use a floorplan

Drag to draw a rectangular room. For Polygon, place the corners and finish the outline. With Wall, click each point in a chain. Closing a room finishes that chain and keeps Wall ready for a new start, including rooms completed through T-junctions. A simple T-join selects the new wall. Double-click or press Enter to finish manually. Directions gently snap every 15°; hold Shift for 45° steps or Ctrl/⌘ to release angle assistance. Select a wall and use Wall shape for a quarter-circle or semicircle; Reverse curve changes the side while keeping endpoints fixed. For an angled bay, draw its returns with Wall or Polygon, then place windows on the straight faces. Escape cancels the current preview.

On a paid plan, open Floorplan to upload a PNG, JPG or WebP image. Floorplan size and scale lets you enter the whole-image width and height or resize by a percentage. These dimensions include image margins. For a known distance inside the image, use two-point calibration. Detection uses the current image size; manual sizing does not resize existing walls or equipment. Detect walls, openings & stairs uses the current image size to suggest wall runs, supported angled bay returns, common windows, doors and straight stair flights. Recognised, compatible openings are included automatically; uncheck any you do not want. Check opening types, swings and widths; choose hinged or overhead garage operation. Enter measured heights and window sills. For each stair flight, confirm its footprint, visible goings, rise, base elevation and upward direction. Landings, winders, angled glazing and unusual symbols need manual completion. Segment measurements are optional. Detection does not add rooms, floors, roofs, ceilings or sheeting; add these separately when needed. Source image quality and the chosen scale limit accuracy, so verify critical dimensions on site.

3. Add equipment and edit it

In Assets, search for equipment and check its configuration. Click or tap a card to place it at the view centre, or drag it onto the 2D or 3D canvas. Select an item to edit its dimensions, rotation and available options in Selected.

Conservatory presets include Lean-to, Gable, Faceted Bay, Hipped, L-shaped and T-shaped, with matching 2D and 3D representations. For a custom footprint, choose Structure > Conservatory, draw the rear attachment edge first and click each remaining corner. Click the first corner or press Enter to finish; Escape cancels. Grid and angle snapping work like polygon rooms. In Selected, Conservatory shape & roof lets you change the preset or choose a flat or mono-pitch roof. Overall height sets the highest roof point; Conservatory eaves height sets the lower edge on a pitched roof. Irregular roofs follow every recess; they do not fill the footprint bounding box. Set their width, depth and overall height to measured site dimensions. In Selected, choose a straight wall under Align rear to wall, then Align rear against wall. This opens the rear and places it against the nearest side of that wall, keeping the measured footprint. Check the existing doorway and roof clearances. Align again if the building changes. These generic planning models do not create editable room boundaries or attachment hosts.

On compact screens, the bottom-left wrench opens the drawing tools. Choose the room or wall construction and thickness, then tap Start drawing to return to the canvas. The bottom-right sliders open Assets, Selected and the other panels. You can replay the highlighted walkthrough from Help → Replay editor guide.

4. Check the model and measurements

Switch between 2D and 3D, or use Split to compare them. Select a room and open Roof & ceiling to inspect its roof settings; follow any warnings about unsupported footprints or missing hosts.

For a lower extension, give its room a separate roof zone and set Eaves height under Eaves & trims. This height control applies to flat and pitched roofs. Follow wall height restores automatic height. Enable Soffit and set an overhang, then use Soffit material to designate All soffits AIB or ordinary. Choose a run for an individual exception; From and To mark a measured length from the displayed start coordinates. Red designated AIB appears in the plan, model and export key. Ordinary is a drawing designation, not a certification that the material is asbestos-free.

Select sheeting and open Sheeting edges & appearance. Choose Top seal for a fascia, soffit, roof underside or frame edge; choose Bottom seal for a floor or frame edge. Select the highlighted target in 3D or the named Target surface list. Amber previews the sheet; check the run, heights and any warnings, then Confirm attachment. The other edge stays attached, and incompatible targets cannot be confirmed. Cancel leaves the drawing unchanged; Undo reverses a confirmed connection. Adjust the run offset and length afterwards. Turn off Show in 2D plan to keep the sheet visible only in 3D and omit it from 2D exports and their key. This records the intended model connection, not proof of an airtight site seal.

For timber frames, select the frame, choose a face under Sheet this frame and click Add sheeting to face. The sheet follows that face as the frame moves or resizes and is initially visible only in 3D. Repeating the action selects the existing sheet. A work zone can use Outline only in 3D when separate sheeting represents its physical enclosure, so the zone marker does not hide access openings.

Room measurements use the inside faces of the modelled walls. Standalone wall lengths follow the centreline. Irregular room spans are overall spans, not a promise that every wall has that length. Add only the dimensions and labels needed to make the drawing clear.

5. Save and export

Check the save status in the top bar before leaving. Set the drawing title, number and revision in Project → Drawing identification. In Export, choose the title block, key, visibility and scale, then select Preview export. Review the generated file, zoom in to check details, and select Download. Back to settings lets you revise the output before downloading. When exporting both views, review and download each file separately.

Free Preview provides watermarked PNG/JPG exports. Paid plans also support PDF/SVG. For a scale drawing, use a numeric scale in a 2D PDF and print at actual size. Fit-to-page output and 3D views are not to scale.