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Blueprint

Draw floor plans to scale, with walls, doors, windows, rooms, dimensions and furniture. Everything you draw is measured in real units, so a wall you draw 3.2 m long is 3.2 m long on export.

Blueprint is available on the Studio and Pro plans.

Adding A Blueprint​

  1. Click on the project page where you want the Blueprint to be added, and type / to open the element menu
  2. Search for Blueprint
  3. Select it to add it to the page

Settings​

Click Show panels and select the Settings tab to set:

  • Look: Blueprint (light lines on blue), Technical drawing (black lines on white) or Textured (floors and furniture filled with their textures, black lines on top)
  • Unit: Select between millimetres, centimetres, metres, inches and feet
  • Scale: 1:20, 1:50, 1:100, 1:200 or 1:500
  • Grid: Show or hide it, snap to it, and set its size
  • Walls: Align walls and room outlines to 45° steps
  • Wall thickness
  • Wall height for the floor you're on

Drawing​

ToolWhat it does
Select (V)Click something to select it, drag it to move it, and drag its handles to resize or rotate it
Line (L)Draw a line
Rectangle (R)Draw a rectangle
Ellipse (O)Draw a circle or an ellipse
Text (T)Click to place a text label
Measure (M)Check the distance between two points. The measurement stays on the plan while you use other tools, and a line or wall you draw close to its length gets exactly that length. Escape clears it, and it's never saved or exported

To move around the plan, hold Space and drag, or hold ⌘ / Ctrl and drag. Press F to fit everything on screen.

Exact Lengths​

To draw a wall, line, dimension or measurement at an exact length, start drawing it and point it in the direction you want. Then type the length, like 3.2 m, 900 mm, 120 cm or 8', and press Enter. For walls, that places the next corner, so you can carry on with the next wall.

For a rectangle or an ellipse, type its width and height while you draw it, like 2 m x 3 m, and press Enter.

To change the size of something you've already drawn, select it and type the new size in the Shape tab.

Angles​

New walls and room outlines follow 45° angles, so the corners come out square. To draw one at any other angle, hold Shift while you draw it. To turn this off, open the Settings tab and click the compass icon beside Walls. Holding Shift then keeps a wall to 45° angles instead.

Hold Shift while you draw a rectangle to make it a square, or while you draw a line to keep it to 45° angles. Hold Shift while you rotate something to rotate it in 45° steps.

Snapping​

Turn on Snap to grid in Settings and everything you draw snaps to the grid, and to the ends of walls, lines and dimensions, the corners of rooms and the corners of furniture nearby.

Floors And Layers​

A blueprint starts with one floor, the Ground floor. To add another, click the floor's name in the toolbar and select Add floor. The new floor goes on top and opens, ready to draw on, with the floor below shown faintly so you can line up your walls. To go to another floor, click the floor's name and select it.

To rename a floor, double-click its name in the list, type the new name and press Enter. To delete a floor, click the bin icon beside it, then click Delete. You can undo it.

Each floor has its own layers, in the Layers tab. Add a layer to keep furniture apart from walls, drag a layer up or down to change its order, and hide, lock, rename, duplicate or merge layers.

Symbol Settings​

Select a symbol, or anything else you've drawn, and the Shape tab in the side panel shows its settings, like a sofa's size, a wall's length or a room's name. Type a new value and press Enter. The reset icon at the top right of the tab brings a symbol back to its original size and weight.

To mark a symbol with a short label, like a light's channel or a monitor's mix number, type it under Label. It shows just under the symbol, on the plan and on exported files.

If you select more than one symbol, the Shape tab changes their sizes together.

Interior And Exterior Planning​

ToolWhat it does
Wall (W)Click where each corner goes. Click your first corner again to close the room, or press Escape or Enter to stop at the last corner you've clicked
Door (D)Click on a wall to put a door in it. In the Shape tab, set its width, click a style under Style, and set which side it opens from and whether it swings in or out
Window (N)Click on a wall to put a window in it, and set its width in the Shape tab
RoomClick inside a space with walls all the way round it, and the room fills that space and shows its area. Give it a name in the Shape tab. To draw a room without walls, click where each corner goes, and press Escape after the last one
Dimension (I)Draw a measurement that stays on the plan and is included on export

Draw the walls first, then let the Room tool find the rooms. Their areas stay right as you move the walls.

Furnish the rooms from the Symbols tab, or with your own furniture from the Inventory tab. For gardens and outdoor spaces, the Outdoor, Gates & Fences and Playground groups have garden furniture, plants, trees, fences and gates.

Curtains go against the wall behind them and reach down to the floor. Drag their sides to change their width. In the Shape tab, select Open, Half open or Closed under Curtains, and Rod or Ceiling track under Hung from.

To change a painting, select it, open the Shape tab and click Change painting. Select Your inventory to use a picture of your own, or select a museum to pick one of its paintings.

Stage Planning​

Stage decks and risers, truss and hoists, lights, sound, video, backline, power and the audience are all in the Symbols tab. You can set how high the stage is, hang lights and speakers from truss, check the load on each hoist, plan the audience and draw escape routes. Export it as a PDF for the crew, with a legend of the symbols you've used, or as a DXF for CAD, with each group of symbols on a layer of its own.

The Stage​

Stage decks, risers, stairs, ramps, the stage skirt, crowd barriers, stage curtains, backdrops, truss towers, wind-up stands, the stage roof, the LED wall, projection screens and the FOH riser come in more than one height. Select one and type its height under Height in the Shape tab, or select more than one to give them the same height. For stage stairs, type the height of the deck they lead up to.

Add a Setting line along the front edge, a Centre line down the middle and the Stage directions from the Stage group, so everyone reading the plan knows which way is upstage.

Stage Lights And Speakers​

Truss, chain hoists, the hanging point and the pipe go up at a usual height for a stage, which you can change under Height above floor in the Shape tab.

Drop a stage light, a line array, a point source speaker or a projector onto a truss, a pipe or a lighting stand, on the plan or in the 3D view, and it hangs from it. When you move the truss or change its height, everything hanging from it moves too. Select a light to see what it hangs from under Hung from in the Shape tab. To take it down, drag it away from the truss. A projector put on a table stands on it without its stand.

To add more of the same light, select it and press ⌥ / Alt + D. The copies line up at the same spacing. To move every light on the floor at once, hold ⌥ / Alt, click one of them and drag.

Select a light to change its settings under Light in the Shape tab:

  • Colour: Click the swatch and select a colour
  • Beam (Zoom on a moving head): How wide the beam is, in degrees
  • Tilt: Which way it points, from 0° pointing down to 90° level. To point it another way, rotate the light on the plan

In the 3D view, every light shows its beam, by day and in the evening. Click the sun icon beside 3D view to see them in the evening light.

Line arrays, point source speakers and front fills can be aimed down at the audience. Select one and type its Tilt under Speaker in the Shape tab, from 0° level to 90° pointing down at the floor. A line array curves down a little more with each box, the way a real hang does.

Weights And Loads​

Every symbol has a Weight in the Shape tab. Truss, hoists, lights, speakers and video pieces start with a typical weight, which you can change to the weight of your own gear. Truss and pipes weigh more the longer they are, and an LED wall the bigger it is. To go back to the typical weight, click the reset icon at the top right of the tab.

Select a chain hoist or a hanging point to see its Load, which is how much of the truss, and of everything hanging from it, that hoist holds. Truss that meets counts as one rig, and the weight is shared between the hoists by where it hangs. If a hoist holds more than it's rated for (0.5 t or 1 t), the Shape tab shows it in red. The load is a guide for planning, not a rigging calculation, so have your rigger check it.

Audience​

Select a Seating block and type its Rows, Seats per row and Row spacing in the Shape tab, and the block grows or shrinks to fit. A Seat row is a single row. Stretch it and it fills with seats.

A Standing area shows how many people fit in it, on the plan and on export. Select it and set People per m², from 1 to 4, for how busy it'll be.

Escape Routes​

Click the Escape route tool, click where the route starts and at each turn on the way out, then press Enter or Escape at the exit. It's drawn as a green dashed line with arrows pointing to the exit. Select it to see its length in the Shape tab, which is how far someone has to walk to get out. Exit signs, fire extinguishers and first aid are in the Fire & Safety group.

Symbols​

Click Show panels and select the Symbols tab for furniture, fittings and equipment drawn to their real size. Drag a symbol onto the plan, or click it to add it. Search to find a symbol, or click a group's name to show or hide it.

  • Living: Sofas, armchairs, coffee and side tables, TV furniture, cushions and throws
  • Modular Sofas: Sofa modules, and modular sofas already put together
  • Rugs: Rectangular, square, round and oval rugs, and runners
  • Bedroom: Beds, nightstands, wardrobes and other bedroom furniture
  • Children: Cots, children's beds and children's furniture
  • Kitchen & Dining: Dining tables and chairs, bar stools, kitchen units and appliances
  • Food & Drinks: Bread and pastries to set on a table or counter
  • Bathroom: Toilets, baths, showers and sinks
  • Office & Workspace: Desks, office chairs, a conference table and storage
  • Lighting: Lamps, and pendant, ceiling and wall lights
  • Art: Framed paintings and sculptures
  • Decor: Small pieces to set on a table or desk
  • Architectural & Decor: Plants, doors, a window, curtains, stairs, a column and a person for scale
  • Outdoor: Garden furniture, trees, plants, benches and a pool
  • Gates & Fences: Fences and gates
  • Stage: Stage decks, risers, stairs, curtains, backdrops and stage markings
  • Rigging: Truss, chain hoists, a hanging point, a pipe, stands and a stage roof
  • Stage Lighting: Spots, washes, moving heads, effects, a hazer and a lighting desk
  • Sound: Speakers, monitors, desks and microphones
  • Video: An LED wall, projection screens, a projector, a monitor and a camera
  • Backline: Drums, keyboards, pianos, amps and DJ decks
  • Power & Production: Power, cable ramps and production furniture
  • Audience: Seating, a standing area and tables
  • Fire & Safety: Exit signs and safety equipment
  • Gym & Sport: Gym equipment and sports gear
  • Playground: A playset and a climbing frame

Textures​

Click Show panels and select the Textures tab to give floors, walls and furniture realistic textures, like oak boards, marble, brick, linen or leather. You'll see them in the 3D view, and on the plan too when you select the Textured look in Settings. Every texture repeats at its real size, so a floorboard is as wide on your plan as in real life.

  1. On the plan, hold ⌥ / Alt and click the part you want to change, like a room's floor, one side of a wall or one cushion of a sofa. In the 3D view, just click it
  2. Click a texture

Hold Shift as well to select more parts. You can also drag a texture onto a part of a piece of furniture, onto one side of a wall, or into a room for its floor. With nothing selected, a floor texture goes on every floor, and a wall texture on every side of every wall.

The textures are in groups, like Wood floors, Tiles and Fabric. The tab also has paint colours, finishes like glass, brass and chrome, moulding for the walls, and your own pictures from your inventory, at the size you type under Repeat size (mm). To take a texture off, select the part and click Remove texture.

Textures are from Poly Haven and ambientCG.

Your Own Files​

Hover + in the toolbar, then select Import file to upload a file from your computer, or Pick from inventory to add a file you've already uploaded. You can add:

  • Pictures: JPG, PNG, GIF, WebP, BMP, AVIF, SVG and HEIC, up to 25 MB on Studio and 50 MB on Pro
  • 3D models: glTF, GLB, OBJ, FBX and STL, placed at their real size, up to 100 MB on Studio and 2 GB on Pro
  • DXF drawings: up to 500 MB on Studio and 2 GB on Pro

Underlays​

To draw over an existing floor plan, select its picture, open the Shape tab and turn on Use as underlay. It moves behind your drawing, fades and is locked in place. To get it to scale, click Calibrate, click two points you know the distance between and type that distance.

DXF Files​

A DXF file comes in at its real size as an underlay, to draw over. To change the drawing itself, select it, open the Shape tab and click Turn into lines. Every line becomes a shape you can move, change and delete, on a layer of its own. A blueprint takes up to 25,000 shapes, so a drawing with more lines than that stays an underlay.

The Inventory Tab​

Click Show panels and select the Inventory tab to place furniture, fittings and 3D models from your inventories at their real size. Select an inventory at the top, or keep All inventories, and type the start of a name to find an item. Drag an item onto the plan, or click it to add it.

  • Each item shows the sizes it has in the inventory: l (length), d (depth), w (width) and h (height)
  • On the plan, an item is its length side to side and its depth front to back. Furniture measured W × D × H uses its width side to side, and a flat item measured L × W uses its width front to back
  • An item without a size shows muted. Click it and type its sizes to place it

If you resize an item on the plan, its size changes in the inventory too, so it's the same size everywhere.

Following An Inventory List​

If the furniture for a project is in an Inventory List, the Blueprint can follow it and place every item from the list at its real size.

  1. Open the Inventory tab
  2. Select the Inventory List at the top, under Inventory lists
  3. To follow only part of it, click one or more of its tags or categories
  4. Turn on Place on the plan and keep in sync

Items added to the list later are placed too, and an item without a size is placed once it has one. If you delete an item from the plan, it isn't placed again. Turn the switch off to stop following the list, and what's already on your plan stays where it is.

3D View​

Click 3D view in the toolbar to see the floor you're on in 3D, with its walls, doors, windows, furniture and textures. Click the sun icon beside it to switch between daylight and evening light. To see another floor, or the whole building from outside, click the floor's name in the toolbar and select it.

Drag to look around, and pinch or scroll to zoom in or out. To move a piece of furniture, click it, drag it across the floor, then click it again to let it go. You can drag symbols from the Symbols tab onto the 3D view too. Everything you change here shows on the plan, and you can undo it. Click 3D view again to go back to the plan.

Full View​

Click the expand icon in the toolbar for more space to work on. Press Escape to exit full view.

Using A Blueprint As A Data Source​

A Moodboard, a Storyboard or a Whiteboard can show a picture of a floor of your blueprint, and a Table can show a floor, or a room with its name and area. When the blueprint has more than one floor, select the floor you want when you connect it. They update when the blueprint changes.

Export Your Blueprints​

Click the download icon in the toolbar. Before you export, set the scale (or Fit to page), the look and the details for the title block in the export window. If the plan doesn't fit the page at the scale you set, the export window tells you. When the plan has symbols, the export has a legend of each symbol you've used and how many there are. To leave it out, turn off Symbol legend.

If your blueprint has more than one floor, select the floor to export. The floor you're on is selected to start with. A PDF, a DXF or a GLB can also take All floors.

The formats are:

  • PDF
  • PNG
  • JPEG
  • SVG
  • DXF
  • JSON
  • GLB

Keyboard Shortcuts​

These shortcuts work when the Blueprint is selected:

ActionShortcut
Select toolV
Line toolL
Rectangle toolR
Ellipse toolO
Text toolT
Measure toolM
Wall toolW
Door toolD
Window toolN
Dimension toolI
Fit to contentF
Use a typed length, or finish the walls or escape routeEnter
Finish the walls, room outline or escape route, stop drawing, or clear the measurementEscape
Hold to move the planSpace
Bring the selection forward⌥ / Alt + ↑
Send the selection backward⌥ / Alt + ↓
Bring the selection to the front⌥ / Alt + Shift + ↑
Send the selection to the back⌥ / Alt + Shift + ↓
Export⌘ / Ctrl + E

Credits​

Some of the symbols are made by others or based on their work. We've changed them to fit the Blueprint, like their size, textures and detail.