Moving around the model

Orbit, pan and zoom

To	Do
Orbit (3D)	Drag, or Shift and middle-drag. It turns about the point under the pointer.
Pan	Middle-drag, or hold Space and drag. In plan, a right-drag pans too.
Zoom	Scroll or pinch. It zooms about the point under the pointer.
Zoom to fit	Double-click the middle button, or ⇧F (Zoom to Fit).
Zoom to the selection	F (Zoom to Selection).

Switch views and storeys

• Floor Plan (F2) shows one storey from above, cut as the plan sheets are, with the storeys above hidden. 3D View (F3) shows the model.
• In plan, the Floor pop-up picks the storey; ⌘↑ and ⌘↓ go to the storey above or below.
• The Levels panel beside the storey switcher lists the storeys and reference levels with their elevations, and Add Level adds one. See Walls, openings and elements.

Select

• Click selects; Shift-click adds or removes. ⌘A selects all; Esc clears.
• In plan, drag from empty space for a marquee: left to right (solid blue) takes what lies wholly inside, right to left (dashed green) takes what it touches. In 3D, hold Alt (⌥) to draw one.
• Select Similar (⌥⌘A, also on the view's right-click menu) adds what has the same kind and storey and the same type or key sizes.
• Quick Select… (⌥⌘F) picks by a field: choose a Kind, a Field, an Operator and a Value, where to look (Everything, This storey or the Selection), and whether the result replaces, adds to or removes from the selection. Click Select matching.
• Selection Sets… (⌥⌘B): type a name in Save the selection as and click Save; later, Recall selects the same elements. Sets are kept with the project.
• Selection Filter… (⌥⌘R) sets which kinds a click or a marquee picks (Walls, Doors, Windows, Rooms, Slabs, Columns).

The selection survives edits, switching conversations and changing views. The inspector shows what is selected.

Find an element in the Outliner

Outliner, at the top of the inspector, lists the model as a tree: storeys, what stands on them, and what a wall hosts under the wall. Click a row to select it. Its eye hides it from the view; its lock keeps it out of the selection, so no edit reaches it.

Hide, lock and colour layers

Press L for Layers. The popover has:

• one checkbox per storey, then Spaces, Roofs, Stairs, Ceilings, Setbacks, Terrain and the other element groups, and one per underlay or point cloud;
• the model's own layers, one row each with its eye, lock, colour, name and element count. Find layer takes a name or a pattern such as A-*, and All, On, Off, Locked, Used and Unused filter the rows.

To manage layers:

1. New layer, Rename and Delete layer (which asks where its elements go) change the model's layers. Move selection to layer moves the selected elements.
2. Isolate turns off every layer but the selection's, Turn off turns off the selection's, and Restore undoes either.
3. Save state keeps the on and off of every layer under a name, to restore later from Layer state.

A locked layer draws faded, a click passes through it, nothing snaps to it, and the model refuses an edit to it. Colour by layer (⌥7) tints each element with its layer's colour.

Limit. Sheets do not hide layers that are off yet.

Clip

Snap

Points snap as you measure and draw: endpoints, wall ends and faces, room corners, intersections, midpoints, centres, door and window jambs, underlay points and more. A cue at the pointer names the snap.

• Snaps (beside Layers) opens the snap panel: object snaps on or off, a checkbox per kind, All snaps, No snaps, and the Reach in pixels. The same panel is in Settings.
• F9 turns object snaps on and off. Hold Shift for no snap on one pick.
• Polar tracking (F10) locks the pointer to angles from the last point, every 45° unless you change the Polar increment. Ortho (Polar 90°) On / Off (F8) is polar tracking at 90°.
• Object snap tracking (F11): rest the pointer on a snap point for half a second to acquire it (a + marks it); guides then run from it at 0°, 90°, 180° and 270°, and where two cross is a snap.

Measure and place guides

1. Press T for Measure. Click two points: the length shows in feet and inches.
2. Tab moves the tool through its modes: distance, element (click two elements for the true gap and angle between them), area (click a face for its area and perimeter) and angle (the vertex, then a point on each arm).
3. While measuring, an arrow key locks the next point to that axis; the same key again unlocks it.

For a guide, Option-click (⌥) an edge, a wall or a guide, then click where the guide goes or type a Distance and press Return: a dashed line runs parallel to it. Option-click a point instead for a guide point. Guides are kept per storey in the model, so they undo and branch like any edit. Guides (⌘') hides them, and Delete Guides (⌥⌫) clears the storey's.

Lengths read and show as feet and inches by default (to the nearest ⅛″). Fields accept 12'6", 12' 6 1/2", 4'-6", 150", decimal feet, and metres or centimetres with m or cm.