Oanarina Archi Tool guide

Oanarina Archi Tool is a free (GPL-3.0) native Mac application for architectural drawing and building design. It combines AutoCAD-style 2D drafting and a command line, Revit-style building elements (walls, doors, rooms, levels, schedules), a 3D model view with rendering, sheets and printing, many exchange formats, and scripting that people and AI agents can use.

This guide describes what the app does today. The full backlog, with the status of every feature, is in FEATURE-REGISTER.md.

Contents

1. Getting started
2. The interface
3. The command line
4. Selecting objects
5. Drawing
6. Modifying
7. Parametric constraints
8. Annotation
9. Layers and properties
10. Blocks, attributes and groups
11. BIM: building elements and levels
12. Documentation: views, tags and schedules
13. Site and terrain
14. 3D modelling
15. 3D view and rendering
16. Sheets, plotting and PDF
17. Analysis
18. Import and export
19. Scripting and AI agents
20. Settings and customisation
21. Keyboard and mouse
22. Tutorial videos
23. Command reference

Getting started

Requirements: macOS 14 or later, on Apple silicon or Intel, or Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit). The Windows version has the same tools and commands; where this guide says ⌘ (Command), use Ctrl on Windows, and ⌥ (Option) is Alt.

When the app starts it shows the start screen:

• New Drawing (Metric): an empty drawing in millimetres.
• New Drawing (Imperial): an empty drawing in inches.
• New Building: a project with levels, a structural grid and sheets that are ready to use.
• Open…: opens .archi projects and DXF drawings.
• Sample House: a small house built with commands, useful for exploring the app.
• Recent: recently opened documents. You can remove entries from the list and set its length in Settings.
• Recovered documents: if the app quit unexpectedly with unsaved changes, the autosaved copies appear here and you can restore or discard them. Autosave runs every few minutes; set the interval with SAVETIME (0 turns it off).

You don't need to click into a command field. Start typing a command such as LINE, WALL, DOOR or ROOM and it goes to the command line. Space or Enter repeats the last command.

A quick first model:

WALL 0,0 6000,0 6000,4000 0,4000 C
DOOR          (pick a wall, then the position)
ROOM          (click inside the walls)
SHOW3D

Documents are saved as .archi files, a readable JSON format. Files from older versions of the app open and are upgraded automatically.

The interface

• Ribbon at the top, with the tabs Home, Insert, Annotate, Architecture, Modeling, Analyze, View, Output, Manage and Script. Every button runs the same command you could type. The menu bar has matching Model and Analyze menus. The quick access toolbar can be customised in Settings; each of its buttons runs a typed command.
• Workspace modes: 2D plan, 3D model, Split (plan and 3D side by side) and Sheet (paper layouts), switched with ⌥⌘1 to ⌥⌘4 or the SHOW2D, SHOW3D, SPLIT and LAYOUT commands.
• Side panels, shown and hidden with ⌥⌘P: Properties, Layers, Levels, Browser (project browser: levels, views, sheets), Materials (material editor), Tools (tool palettes) and History (undo and command history). In the History panel, clicking an undo step undoes or redoes to that step. Drag the panel edge to resize it, and use FLOATPANEL (or the panel's float button) to move a panel into its own window; floating panels are restored the next time the app opens.
• Command line at the bottom, with autocomplete, history and suggestions.
• Status bar toggles for object snap, grid, ortho, polar tracking, object snap tracking and dynamic input (also F3, F7, F8, F10, F11, F12). It shows the cursor coordinates in the current UCS, the current level and units, and a WCS/UCS switch menu. The UCS icon on the canvas follows the UCS origin and rotation.
• Workspaces: five built-in arrangements (Drafting & Annotation, Building Design, 3D Modeling, Sheets & Plotting, Scripting) and any you save yourself. They are switched with WSCURRENT and saved with WSSAVE. Clean screen (⌃0, CLEANSCREENON/CLEANSCREENOFF) hides the ribbon and panels.
• Command search (⌘K, COMMANDSEARCH): type part of a name, such as "wal", to find and run any command. Matches are fuzzy, recent commands come first, and each result shows where the command sits in the ribbon.
• About (ABOUT, or the app menu): version, licence and credits.

Each document opens in its own window, and native macOS tabs are supported.

The command line

The command line works like AutoCAD's. Type a command name or alias and press Enter or Space. The command then asks for input step by step. Options appear in square brackets. Type the capital letters of an option, for example C for Close, or click it.

A whole command can go on one line: LINE 0,0 1000,0 1000,1000 C. A quoted token is taken as one value. Text prompts take the rest of the line up to the next Enter.

If you type something that isn't a command, the app suggests similar names. ALIAS defines your own aliases and macros (; in a macro means Enter). UCS and UCSMAN set and name user coordinate systems for typed input. CAL evaluates expressions such as CAL dist(0,0;3,4), and SETVAR lists and changes system variables, which are saved in the drawing.

History: ↑ and ↓ recall earlier lines. HISTORY lists the last commands and recent input values, runs a previous line again (!n), and saves or loads a history file, so the same history is available in the app, scripts and archi-cli.

Action macros: ACTRECORD starts recording typed commands and picks, ACTSTOP saves the recording in the drawing under a name, ACTPLAY plays it back and ACTMANAGER lists, renames, deletes, exports (.scr) or imports macros. SCRIPTRECORD still records straight to a .scr file.

Undo: every command is one undo step (⌘Z / ⇧⌘Z, or U, UNDO, REDO). UNDO also accepts a count and the options Mark/Back and BEgin/End to group several commands into one step. OOPS brings back the last erased objects.

Selecting objects

• Click an object to add it to the selection. Shift-click toggles it.
• Drag from left to right for a window selection (objects fully inside). Drag from right to left for a crossing selection (objects that touch).
• At a "Select objects" prompt you can also type All, Last, Previous, Window, Crossing, WPolygon, CPolygon, Fence, Add, Remove or Group, or object IDs.
• Commands: SELECTALL, SELECTINVERT, SELECTSIMILAR, SELECTLAYER, SELECTTYPE (by type or category), SELECTCHAIN (connected contour), SELECTINTERSECTING, QSELECT (for example QSELECT Circle radius > 50), the Quick Select dialog (QSELECTDIALOG, with a live match count), FILTER (expressions such as type=circle & radius>50 | layer=A-*, which can be saved) and SELSET (named selection sets stored in the drawing).
• Objects on locked or hidden layers are not selected.
• Groups are expanded when you pick a member or window-select inside a command, as well as when idle.
• Isolate and hide: ISOLATEOBJECTS hides everything except the selection (on the current level for building elements), HIDEOBJECTS hides the selection, and UNISOLATEOBJECTS shows everything again. Hidden objects are kept with the drawing until you end isolation, but they are left out of DXF and IFC exports while hidden.

Drawing

2D objects: LINE, PLINE, ARC, CIRCLE, ELLIPSE, SPLINE, RECTANG (also from the centre, by three points, filleted or chamfered), POLYGON, STAR, DONUT, POINT (display style with PTYPE), XLINE, RAY, DLINE (double lines), SOLID (filled triangles and quadrilaterals), WIPEOUT, REVCLOUD, HATCH (patterns and solid fills), BOUNDARY, REGION and BOUNDINGBOX.

Construction variants:

Centre lines and marks: CENTERLINE and CENTERMARK are associative, so they follow when their lines, circles or arcs move.

Precision: running object snaps (OSNAP: endpoint, midpoint, centre, node, quadrant, intersection, extension, insertion, perpendicular, tangent, nearest, parallel), grid snap (SNAP, F9), grid (GRIDDISPLAY, F7), ortho (F8), polar tracking (F10), object snap tracking (OTRACK, F11) and dynamic input (F12). Settings are in DSETTINGS. With object snap tracking on, hovering over a snap point acquires it (a small cross), and the cursor then locks to horizontal, vertical or polar alignment with it, shown as a dotted tracking line. With the parallel snap (PAR) on, hovering a straight segment acquires its direction.

Polylines: PEDIT closes, opens, joins, sets width, fits splines, removes curves and reverses. You can also add and remove vertices and turn arcs into line segments.

More drawing tools: MLINE draws multilines using styles from MLSTYLE (element offsets, colours, caps and fill). SKETCH draws freehand as polylines or lines. PARABOLA and HYPERBOLA draw exact conics as polylines. NORTHARROW, SCALEBAR and BREAKLINE place drafting symbols, and ARCTEXT writes text along an arc. ISODRAFT switches to isometric drafting (with ISOPLANE Left/Top/Right): ortho and the crosshair follow the current isoplane.

More drawing tools. SPLINE has a control-vertex method and SPLINEDIT edits fit and control points; BLEND draws a tangent curve between two open curves; PEDIT can edit single vertices, append segments and change a segment to a line or arc; TRACE draws wide lines; ELLIPSEQUAD inscribes an ellipse in a parallelogram. REVSTAMP places revision triangles and a revision table that fill the sheet's revision field.

More drawing tools. ELLIPSEQUAD fits the largest ellipse inside a convex quadrilateral (four corners, a 4-sided polyline or four lines). HELIX draws a 3D helix. Point modifiers: INTOF (intersection of two picked objects), M2P (midpoint between two points), RH/RV (keep only the horizontal or vertical part of the next point) and RELZERO (lock the relative-zero point used by @ input).

Snap overrides and grips. At any point prompt, type END, MID, CEN, GCEN, INT, EXT, PER, TAN, NEA, NON and the other snap names for a one-shot snap (scripts can write MID 480,5), or Shift+right-click on the canvas for the same list. OSNAP GCEN turns the geometric-centre snap on. Grips snap while you drag; press Space to cycle Stretch, Move, Rotate, Scale and Mirror, type C for Copy, or type a distance or point for an exact grip edit. Doors, windows and walls show flip arrows, slabs show edge grips and roofs show slope grips. Drag with Option held for a lasso selection.

Modifying

MOVE, COPY, ROTATE, SCALE, MIRROR, STRETCH, OFFSET, TRIM, EXTEND, FILLET, CHAMFER, BREAK, BREAKATPOINT, JOIN, LENGTHEN, EXPLODE, ALIGN, ARRAY (ARRAYRECT, ARRAYPOLAR, ARRAYPATH), DIVIDE, MEASURE, REVERSE, ERASE, OVERKILL (removes duplicates and merges overlapping lines), DRAWORDER, MATCHPROP, CHPROP and SETBYLAYER.

More modify tools: MOVEROTATE (move, then rotate), ROTATE2 (rotate about two centres in turn), ALIGNREF (rotate so a reference direction lines up with a target), EXTENDBY (extend or trim by an amount), BREAKALL (break at every intersection), LINEGAP (gaps where objects cross), CLIPPOLY (clip with a closed boundary), WELD (merge touching curves into polylines), CONVERTTOPLINE, PLINETOSPLINE and PASTETOPOINTS (paste the clipboard at several points in one undo step).

Regions and text: REGIONUNION, REGIONSUBTRACT and REGIONINTERSECT combine closed shapes in 2D, keeping holes. TEXTREADABLE flips text that reads upside down. NUDGE (and Editor.nudgeSelection) moves the selection by a small step; the arrow keys are not bound to it yet. HATCHEDIT changes a hatch's pattern, scale, angle, background colour and associativity.

Grips: select an object and drag a grip to stretch it. On constrained geometry the constraints are solved live while you drag; the whole drag is one undo step and Esc cancels it. Moving the end of a wall also moves the walls joined to it.

Clipboard: ⌘C, ⌘X and ⌘V copy, cut and paste objects, pasting at the cursor. The same clipboard is used by COPYCLIP, CUTCLIP, COPYBASE (with a base point), PASTECLIP, PASTEORIG (at the original coordinates) and PASTEBLOCK (as a block). You can paste between open drawings, and the block definitions and layers the objects use are copied with them.

More modify tools. FLATTEN sets Z to 0 on 3D lines, arcs, polylines and splines; ROTATE90 turns the selection by a quarter turn; TXTEXP explodes text into outlined letters; LENGTHEN has a dynamic mode; ALIGN mirrors when a third point pair asks for it; RESETBLOCK returns dynamic blocks to their defaults; CHSPACE moves objects between model and paper space. The arrow keys nudge the selection (Shift ×10, or the grid step when snap is on), and clicking the same spot again cycles through overlapping objects.

Arrays. ARRAYRECT, ARRAYPOLAR and ARRAYPATH create one associative array object (variable ARRAYASSOCIATIVITY, on by default). ARRAYEDIT changes its count, spacing or source; a path array follows its path when the path is edited; EXPLODE turns it back into separate objects. ARRAYCLASSIC makes separate copies. Press Space while moving, copying or placing a block or component to turn it 90° (Shift+Space turns it back). TEXTTOFRONT has Text, Dimensions, Leaders and All options. TXTEXP turns text into lines with a built-in single-stroke font (Letters keeps one text per letter).

Curves and transparency. FILLET, CHAMFER and EXTEND work on ellipses and splines too. CHPROP with the TR option, CETRANSPARENCY, TRANSPARENCYDISPLAY and PLOTTRANSPARENCY control object and layer transparency (ByLayer, ByBlock or 0–90 %). XLINE and RAY round-trip through DXF.

Round 7 drafting input. Dynamic input (DYNMODE) shows pointer and dimension fields next to the cursor; type x,y,z for 3D points. Selecting an element shows temporary dimensions you can click and edit, smart alignment guides appear while drawing, arrow keys lock the drawing axis (AXISLOCK), and DBLCLKEDIT controls what double-clicking an object opens. Command options are clickable in the command line. ARRAY also arrays building elements.

Parametric constraints

Constraints keep 2D geometry in relation while you edit it, as in AutoCAD's parametric drawing.

• Geometric: GEOMCONSTRAINT (or the single commands GCHORIZONTAL, GCVERTICAL, GCPARALLEL, GCPERPENDICULAR, GCCOINCIDENT, GCCOLLINEAR, GCCONCENTRIC, GCTANGENT, GCEQUAL, GCSYMMETRIC, GCFIX, GCMIDPOINT, GCPOINTONCURVE) on lines, polylines, circles, arcs and points.
• Dimensional: DIMCONSTRAINT (or DCLINEAR, DCHORIZONTAL, DCVERTICAL, DCALIGNED, DCANGULAR, DCRADIUS, DCDIAMETER, DCRATIO for a length ratio, DCDIFFERENCE for a length difference) drives a distance, angle or radius. A value can be an expression of named parameters such as d1*0.5, and a constraint can be a reference (driven) value that only reports. DCCONVERT turns existing dimensions into constraints.
• Parameters: PARAMETERS creates, edits and deletes named parameters; the geometry updates when they change.
• Inference: AUTOCONSTRAIN adds constraints to the selection within distance and angle tolerances. Set CONSTRAINTINFER 1 to add them automatically while you draw.
• Managing: CONSTRAINTLIST lists constraints and the remaining degrees of freedom, and DELCONSTRAINT removes them.

The solver is a weighted Newton–Raphson iteration that keeps the object you just edited in place and moves the others. A constraint that would over-constrain the sketch is reported and not added. Constraints are solved live while you drag a grip and again after every edit, and they are saved with the drawing. CONSTRAINTBAR (Show/Hide/Toggle, or the ribbon button) draws constraint glyphs next to constrained objects.

Annotation

• Text: TEXT, MTEXT, TEXTEDIT, TEXTSTYLE, SCALETEXT, JUSTIFYTEXT, TXT2MTXT and FIND (find and replace). Special symbols: %%d (°), %%c (⌀), %%p (±).
• Fields: FIELD inserts text that updates automatically, such as an object's area or length, a property, a variable, a count or a date. UPDATEFIELD refreshes fields.
• Dimensions: DIM (smart), DIMLINEAR, DIMALIGNED, DIMANGULAR, DIMARC, DIMRADIUS, DIMDIAMETER, DIMORDINATE, DIMBASELINE, DIMCONTINUE, QDIM, DIMSPACE, DIMEDIT, DIMTEDIT and DIMSTYLE. Dimensions placed on object snaps are associative: they follow the geometry when it moves. DIMREASSOCIATE and DIMDISASSOCIATE change that, and DIMREGEN updates them all. DIMBREAK breaks extension and dimension lines where other objects cross (Auto, chosen objects, Manual or Remove), DIMOVERRIDE overrides style values on single dimensions, and in a text override <> stands for the measured value. DIM* system variables change the current dimension style.
• Hatches: hatches created by picking inside a boundary are associative and follow it. HATCH can create separate hatches for several areas, and HATCHGENERATEBOUNDARY recreates a boundary polyline. A hatch loses associativity (but keeps its shape) if its boundary is erased.
• Spelling: SPELL checks text, leaders, tables and attributes with the macOS spell checker. SPELLDIALOG opens the spelling dialog with suggestions (Change, Ignore, Add).
• Leaders: LEADER, MLEADER, MLEADERSTYLE (text height, annotative, layer), MLEADERALIGN and MLEADERCOLLECT (gathers several leaders' texts onto one leader, stacked or in a row).
• GD&T: TOLERANCE places feature control frames.
• Tables: TABLE, then TABLEEDIT to edit cells, add formulas (=SUM(...), AVERAGE…), insert or delete rows and columns and set column widths. TABLEEXPORT writes a table to CSV. TABLELINK creates a table linked to a CSV file and DATALINKUPDATE reloads it or writes changes back (XLSX links are not supported).
• Annotative scaling: ANNOTATIVE makes text, leaders and tables follow the annotation scale (CANNOSCALE). For example, switching from 1:50 to 1:100 doubles their model height. Edit the list of scales with SCALELISTEDIT.

More annotation. DIMJOGGED and DIMJOGLINE add jogged radius dimensions and jog lines; DIMREBASE moves the datum of ordinate dimensions; QDIM also makes ordinate, staggered, radius and diameter dimensions; SPOTCOORD labels a point's coordinates and follows it. GRADIENT fills areas with two-colour gradients, HATCHSETORIGIN moves a hatch's pattern origin and PATLOAD loads patterns from .pat files (the patterns are saved in the drawing). TEXTMASK and TEXTFRAME put a background mask or a frame behind text (masks and wipeouts print white). OBJECTSCALE adds and removes annotation scales, and PTYPE point styles are drawn on screen and on paper. Fields accept Expr formulas and sheet number, name, count, revision, author and plot date.

More text and dimension options. TEXTLIST adds bullets or numbering, MTEXTCOLUMNS flows multiline text into columns and AUTOSTACK controls stacked fractions (drawn with a bar). DIMTOLERANCE, DIMALTUNITS and DIMINSPECT add tolerances, alternate units and inspection frames to dimensions. Text background masks are written to DXF as MTEXT background fill, and WIPEOUTs placed behind text are read back as masks. HATCH includes the standard acad/acadiso pattern names and ISO 02–15 line patterns.

Round 7 annotation. REVCLOUD draws revision clouds and REVCLOUDLIST links them to the revision schedule. TABLESTYLE manages table styles. FILLEDREGION, MASKINGREGION, HATCHTYPE (model or drafting patterns), DETAILCOMPONENT, REPEATDETAIL and INSULATION cover detailing. DETAILMARK, ELEVATIONMARK, SECTIONSYMBOL and MATERIALTAG place symbols and tags. Annotative text takes its height from the annotation scale.

Round 8 annotation. Dimension styles support decimal, architectural, engineering, fractional and scientific units, rounding, zero suppression, tolerances, alternate units, fit options and a text style. Tables can link to an .xlsx sheet (book.xlsx!Sheet), update from it and write back to it. Single-stroke fonts (txt, simplex, *.shx, "Archi Stroke") are drawn as vectors with width factor and oblique, and look the same on screen, in PDF and SVG. EQDIM keeps three or more objects equally spaced.

Round 9 annotation. TAGLABEL sets a tag's label template (for example {Name}\n{Finish}) or a single field and can make tags annotative; labels follow changes to the element's data and the annotation scale. MATPATTERN gives each material a cut and a surface fill pattern, and MATHATCH ties a hatch to a material so it follows pattern changes (also in DXF).

Round 10 annotation. Double-click text (or run TEXTEDITINPLACE) to edit it on the canvas with bold, italic, underline, font, height and colour; the formatting prints to PDF and survives DXF. TEXTSTYLEDIALOG manages text styles; width factor and oblique angle now show on screen and in PDF. FLOORPATTERN shows a slab's material surface pattern in plan, cut around holes and walls, following slab, wall and material changes; MATPATTERNDIALOG edits the cut and surface patterns of every material. IMAGEADJUSTDIALOG adjusts raster images, applied exactly on screen and in plots.

Layers and properties

• The Layers panel and the LAYER command create layers and set them current, on/off, frozen/thawed, locked/unlocked, and set colour, linetype and lineweight. The shortcuts LAYISO, LAYUNISO, LAYOFF, LAYON, LAYFRZ, LAYTHW, LAYLCK, LAYULK, LAYMCUR and LAYDEL do the same from a selected object.
• Layer filters (LAYERFILTER): wildcards such as A-*, plus filters for on, used or unlocked layers. Named filters are saved in the drawing.
• Layer states (LAYERSTATE, or the manager dialog): save, restore, rename, import and export the visibility and properties of all layers. States can be imported from a .las.json file, a drawing or a DXF file.
• LAYFILTER defines property filters (name=A-* on=yes color=1) and group filters, which can be inverted.
• LAYWALK shows the objects on chosen layers one at a time, LAYMRG merges layers into one, LAYCUR moves objects to the current layer and LAYTRANS maps layers to a standard (with wildcards or a mapping file).
• VPLAYER freezes layers in individual sheet viewports; sheets and plots show the change.
• COLOR, LINETYPE, LTSCALE and LWEIGHT set the defaults for new objects. PURGE removes unused definitions and RENAME renames them.
• The Properties panel shows and edits the selected objects. PROPERTIES/LIST print their properties and SETPROP sets any property from the command line, for example SETPROP #12 height 2800. Building elements also expose phase created and demolished, keynote and mark; walls their top attachment and joins; slabs their slope, slope direction and gradient (8.33% or 1:12) and kind (floor, ramp, foundation, ceiling, landing); openings their type, mark and niche depth; rooms their tag position and area scheme.

LAYDESC sets a layer description; COLORBOOK picks colours from open colour books.

Line styles, lineweight tables, pen sets and filters. LINESTYLES defines named line styles for objects or layers, LWTABLE maps lineweights by view scale, PENSETS sets pen tables for plotting and GFILTERS applies graphic overrides to objects that match a filter. GRAPHICSTYLES opens a dialog for all four. They apply to drafting objects, not yet to BIM plan graphics.

Object styles. OBJECTSTYLES (or the OBJECTSTYLESDIALOG window) sets cut and projection line weight, line colour, cut fill and cut pattern per BIM category; every plan and section follows, and view overrides still win.

Blocks, attributes and groups

• BLOCK defines a block and INSERT places it. Blocks can be nested. WBLOCK writes a block to a file, BASE sets the drawing's insertion point and BLOCKBASE moves a block's base point.
• BLOCKREPLACE swaps one block for another, BCOUNT counts references and BFLIP flips a reference. INSERT can also redefine a block from a file.
• Attributes: ATTDEF, ATTEDIT, BATTMAN (edits definitions from the command line), ATTSYNC, ATTEXT and DATAEXTRACTION (into a table or a CSV file).
• Groups: GROUP (Create/Add/Remove/Explode/Rename/List) and UNGROUP. Clicking a member selects the whole group. Set PICKSTYLE to 0 to pick members on their own.
• Visibility states: BVSTATE gives a block named visibility states (New, Set, Hide/Show objects, List, Delete, Rename). Each reference keeps its state when saved. Internally each state is a generated Block$State definition, so those extra blocks appear in the block list.
• External references: XATTACH attaches .archi and .dxf drawings, as an attachment or an overlay (overlays are not carried into drawings that reference this one; circular references are refused). XREF lists, reloads, unloads, detaches and binds references, and XREF Notify reports references whose files changed. XBIND binds single definitions. Xref layers appear as file|layer and can be switched on, off and frozen.
• BLOCKLIBRARY scans and searches folders of block drawings and inserts from them (the library panel is still to come).
• IMAGEATTACH and IMAGEIMPORT place raster images; IMAGESCALE calibrates an image from a known distance.

Blocks and attributes. ATTDEF supports Invisible, Constant, Verify, Preset and Lock modes (invisible attributes are hidden unless ATTMODE is 2); BATTMAN reorders attributes and changes their modes; BPARAMETER adds stretch and array parameters to dynamic blocks and DYNPROP changes them. The Block library panel browses folders of drawings with thumbnails, search, favourites and recents; drag a block onto the plan or the 3D view to insert it.

XCLIP clips the display of a block reference (the clip moves with the block) and BTABLE stores named parameter sets for dynamic blocks.

Round 7 blocks. BEDIT opens the block editor (BSAVE, BCLOSE), and REFEDIT, REFSET and REFCLOSE edit blocks and references in place. Blocks that would contain themselves are refused. Groups can contain building elements. LIBRARYINSTALL installs the bundled block and annotation symbol library. LAYERNOTIFY and LAYRECONCILE warn about new layers and mark them as reviewed.

Parametric blocks. Constraints drawn in the block editor are saved with the block, and named length constraints become per-reference parameters that you set with DYNPROP.

Round 9 images and links. IMAGECLIP clips an image to a rectangle or polygon (On/Off, Delete, Invert); the boundary moves with the image, is saved in the drawing and shows on screen, in PDF and SVG. IMAGEFRAME (0/1/2) controls frames and IMAGEADJUST sets brightness, contrast and fade. RVTLINK links another .archi or IFC model (origin to origin, shared coordinates or a picked point, with unit scaling); its levels show in the matching host plans, in 3D, sections and renders, on locked layers, with Reload, Unload, Detach, Position and Notify. COPYMONITOR copies or monitors the linked model's levels and grids and reports what moved, was renamed or was deleted on reload.

BIM: building elements and levels

Building elements are real objects with parameters. They appear in plan with cut lines and hatching, in 3D, in sections and elevations, and in schedules.

• Levels: LEVEL creates, lists, renames and deletes levels and sets the current one, with elevations and heights. The Levels panel does the same. Each element belongs to a level.
• Walls: WALL draws chains of joined walls, straight or curved, with a thickness, height, justification and type. Its Top option (or WALLTOP afterwards) makes the wall rise to a named level with an offset, or to the next level; such walls also appear on the upper floor plans. WALLATTACH attaches wall tops to a roof or slab soffit (including sloped slabs, for straight walls), attaches bases to a slab top, or detaches them. WALLBYLINES turns lines into walls and WALLJOIN cleans up corners. Walls join at L, T and X junctions, including T-joins into curved walls. WALLSWEEP adds cornices and skirting boards, and NICHE cuts recesses. Walls under gable, shed or hip roofs fill up to the roof underside automatically.
• Openings: DOOR, WINDOW and OPENING place hosted openings that move with their wall. Openings stacked at different heights (a window above a door) each cut their own hole. OPENINGTYPE manages a door/window type catalogue: changing a type's parameters updates every instance, and types can be imported from CSV. MARKS renumbers doors and windows (D01, W01…).
• Curtain walls: CURTAINWALL, with CWGRID to add or remove grid lines, choose mullion types (rectangular, circular, L, T, trapezoid) and set panels to glass, solid, empty, door, double door, spandrel or louvre.
• Door and window parts: OPENINGTYPE types can use formulas (such as width = height / 2) and sub-parts; OPENINGPARTS adds mullions, transoms, glazing bars, fanlights and thresholds.
• Floors, roofs and ceilings: SLAB (from points, a closed object or the walls around a point), SLABSLOPE (slope by arrow or angle), ROOF (flat, shed, gable or hip, including hip roofs on L-, T- and U-shaped footprints) and CEILING (from points or, with the Room option, a room outline; hidden in views with the CEILINGS variable).
• Circulation: STAIR (straight, L, U or spiral, with winders instead of landings, left or right turn, and a central column for spirals; Top runs it to a level, Landing adds an intermediate landing) warns about rule problems, and shows with a "DN" arrow on the level it arrives at. STAIRCHECK checks risers, goings, 2R+G, width, flight length and landings. RAMP runs straight or along a path with turns, with landings at corners and between flights, and warns when steeper than 1:12. RAILING adds railings.
• Structure: COLUMN, BEAM, GRID (auto-labelled grid lines, shown on every level's plan) and FOUNDATION (strip footings under walls, isolated footings under columns, or pads). STEELPROFILE gives beams and columns a steel section (IPE, HEA/HEB, UPN, RHS, SHS, CHS, angles, tees or custom I, H and C shapes), BEAMSYSTEM fills a bay with evenly spaced beams, BRACE places sloped braces and TRUSS builds Pratt, Howe, Warren or Fink trusses.
• MEP: MEPPIPE, DUCT, CABLETRAY and CONDUIT draw runs along a path, coloured by system (cold and hot water, waste, air, power, data…). MEPCONNECTORS lists fixture connection points. Lighting fixtures are in the component library.
• Room finishes and colours: ROOMFINISH sets floor, wall, ceiling and base finishes and places a finish schedule. COLORFILL colours rooms or areas by a parameter with a legend.
• Worksets and design options: WORKSET and DESIGNOPTION group elements; hidden worksets and non-primary options are hidden in plan, 3D and the room finish schedule (not yet in other schedules and exports).
• Rooms: ROOM (click inside walls or give points) reports area and volume. ROOMSEPARATOR draws virtual boundaries, and ROOMUPDATE recomputes rooms after walls change. ROOMBOUNDING sets whether walls, curtain walls and columns bound rooms; walls rising from lower levels bound rooms on the upper levels too. Room tags sit at the most open point of the room and size themselves to fit.
• Area plans: AREAPLAN draws gross, rentable or custom area boundaries and reports totals per scheme.
• Components: COMPONENT places parametric families (including people, bicycles and other entourage) from a library of 26: beds, sofas, tables, chairs, kitchen units and appliances, WC, basin, shower, bath, a car, trees, shrubs and parking spaces. Each has a 3D mesh and a plan symbol that resize with the component, and components are listed in the element schedules.
• Multi-storey: COPYTOLEVEL copies elements to other levels aligned in plan (doors and windows follow their copied walls). DATUMS3D shows levels and grids in the 3D view.
• Other: BUILDING creates quick massing (walls, floors and a roof from a rectangle).
• Phases: PHASE creates phases, sets the current phase, sets when objects are created or demolished, and sets the view filter. Existing work is shown half-tone and demolished work dashed.

More building elements. Layered floor types with finishes; wall join overrides; openings in roofs and slabs (skylights), shafts through several floors, face openings and dormers; fascias, gutters and soffits; roof layers; railing types; elevators; opening trim (frames, casings, sills and lintels); model groups; lighting fixtures with photometry; MEP systems with connected networks; area schemes that follow wall changes. Families: the FAMILY command builds parametric families with formulas, value ranges, conditional geometry, arrays, voids and nested families, door/window and profile families, and a flex test. Worksets and design options filter views, schedules (SCHEDULEFILTER) and exports (EXPORTFILTER). Associative content (area boundaries, automatic dimensions, sweeps, family instances) regenerates after every edit.

More BIM tools. GRIDSYSTEM and RADIALGRID create rectangular and radial grids; SPLITWALL, WALLFLIP and OPENINGFLIP edit walls and openings; ROOFSHAPE makes mansard, gambrel, dome and barrel roofs; ESCALATOR places an escalator with EN 115 checks and a floor opening; ZONE groups rooms; CLASSIFY assigns Uniformat II, NL-SfB, Uniclass or OmniClass codes; PSET manages property sets and templates; GLOBALPARAM defines project-wide parameters; GEOLOCATION sets the project's latitude, longitude and true north. The Family Editor panel (FAMILYPANEL) edits a family's parameters, forms (including blend and swept blend), types table and reference planes with a live 3D preview; FAMILY Purge removes unused families and types.

Round 6 BIM. WALL has a Type option and a wall type editor (layers and core), WALLTOP attaches walls to roofs or levels, and walls can be slanted or tapered and have edited elevation profiles. Grids can be radial or have several segments, and radial grid arcs take snaps. COLUMN, BEAM, RAILING (stair railings), CURTAINWALL (embedded in a host wall), DOOR/WINDOW styles, LEVEL heads, BUILDING, TOPO and COMPONENT (hosted components) gained options. GLOBALPARAM handles shared and project parameters, and FAMILY loads, reloads and saves .archifam families with templates, symbolic lines, detail-level visibility and material parameters.

Round 7 BIM. WALLRECT and WALLPOLYGON draw closed runs of walls, STACKEDWALL stacks wall types, and STOREFRONT builds storefront and partition walls. STORY sets story settings, including the room computation height. STRUCTCOLUMN and STRUCTURAL handle structural columns and structural flags on walls and slabs. SLABEDGE, ROOFEXTRUSION, ROOFSHAPEPOINTS (shape editing of flat roofs) and STAIRSKETCH add more hosts. ASSEMBLY and PARTS group elements and divide them into their layers. STAIRTYPE and RAILTYPEDEF are type builders. EXPRESSION, REPORTPARAM, FAMILYLOCK, PARAMCELL (parameters driven by a spreadsheet) and TRANSFERSTANDARDS extend parameters. TYPEIMAGE sets images shown in schedules. Workplanes and reference planes (RP), PROJECTBASEPOINT, SURVEYPOINT, TRUENORTH and PLANORIENT set up coordinates; PLAN shows the plan of the current UCS and UCSICON controls the UCS icon. Files are now format version 6 (older files upgrade on open).

Round 8 BIM. CURTAINSYSTEM places curtain systems on mass faces. INPLACE creates in-place (generic) models. Supply and return air terminals, radiators and data outlets connect to systems and are coloured by system in plan. CIRCUIT and PANELSCHEDULE build electrical circuits and panel schedules, and GRADEDREGION reports cut and fill volumes. GRAPHICDISPLAY sets sketchy lines, silhouettes and plan shadows per view, and ROOMDATASHEET exports room data sheets as CSV, HTML or text; importing an edited CSV writes the changes back to the rooms.

Round 9 BIM. WALLWRAP Ends wraps wall layers at free ends and at inserts, in plan and 3D. Curtain walls meet at corners with one shared corner post. CORNERWINDOW places a window that turns a wall corner, ROOFJOIN joins and trims roofs, REBAR places reinforcement in beams, columns and slabs (shape codes 00/11/51, weights) and STEELCONNECTION adds base, cap and end plates with bolts; both follow their host. ADAPTIVE places adaptive components driven by points, and SCRIPTCOMPONENT places OpenSCAD-scripted components with range-checked parameters that the Customizer edits. BSDD loads a bSDD dictionary (or searches bSDD online when you ask it to) and assigns classes and properties that view filters and schedules can use.

Documentation: views, tags and schedules

• Sections and elevations: SECTION places a section line in plan. Sheet viewports can show plans, ceiling plans, elevations, sections and 3D views, which are always generated from the current model. VIEWDRAW places an elevation, section or detail as 2D linework in model space, with level heads and grid bubbles. VIEWUPDATE regenerates these views.
• Interior elevations: INTERIORELEV places a 4-way marker in a room and draws views A–D of its walls.
• Callouts: CALLOUT draws the callout boundary, leader and numbered bubble in plan and places the enlarged detail view it refers to.
• Reflected ceiling plans: RCP switches the plan to a reflected ceiling plan with ceiling grids (set per ceiling) and ceiling fixtures. Ceiling viewports on sheets use it too.
• Automatic dimensions: AUTODIMWALLS dimensions the openings and overall lengths of selected walls in one step. The dimensions are ordinary dimensions and do not update when the walls change.
• Spot elevations and slopes: SPOTELEV shows a live height (of a slab, terrain or level) and SPOTSLOPE the slope of a slab or roof.
• Tags: TAG labels a door, window, room or element with live values (mark, type, name, area, keynote), and TAGALL tags everything not yet tagged on a level.
• Keynotes: KEYNOTE defines keys, assigns them to elements and places a keynote legend.
• Schedules: SCHEDULE creates tables of walls, doors and windows (with mark and type), rooms (with volume), slabs, areas and keynotes. Schedules can be exported to CSV, or with XLSXOUT to an Excel workbook (one sheet per schedule).

Views. Sections and elevations draw hidden lines, line weights, depth cueing and a far clip; view templates update every view they are assigned to; legends list wall, floor and roof build-ups; drafting views hold 2D detail.

VIEWRANGE sets a plan view's cut plane and view depth; TEMPHIDE, TEMPISOLATE and REVEALHIDDEN hide or show elements temporarily; UNDERLAY shows another level halftone under the current one.

Schedules and graphics. SCHEDULE has Define, Edit and Export options: schedules for any category, key and note-block schedules, sheet and view lists, material takeoffs, calculated fields and conditional highlight rules. Edits in a schedule write back to the model, and placed schedules update when the model changes. VIEWGRAPHICS (alias VG) sets per-view visibility and graphics overrides, filters, detail level and cut patterns by material; VIEWRANGE also defines plan regions. Rooms update automatically when walls change.

Round 7 views. PROJECTVIEW saves plan, ceiling and 3D views, duplicates them (with or without detailing) and splits them into dependent views with MATCHLINEs. VIEWCROP sets crop regions, SCOPEBOX controls crops and grid extents, LINEWORK overrides individual lines, AXONVIEW and CAMERAVIEW create axonometric and perspective views, and VIEWSECTIONBOX adds a section box to 3D views. SCHEDULECELLS highlights schedule cells by condition. The project browser opens views, cameras and sheets.

Site and terrain

• TOPO builds a toposurface from points with elevations, contour polylines, an XYZ/CSV file or typed x,y,z values.
• CONTOURS sets the contour interval and major lines.
• SUBREGION marks paths, lawns and paved areas on the terrain, SITEPATH draws a path of a given width, PARKINGLOT lays out rows of parking spaces, RETAININGWALL draws a retaining wall along a path, and PROPERTYLINE draws property lines from points or bearings and distances, with their area.
• BUILDINGPAD levels the terrain inside a boundary to a pad elevation.
• POINTSIMPORT reads survey point files (CSV/TSV/TXT, including P,N,E,Z,D).
• DEMIMPORT builds a toposurface from an ESRI ASCII elevation grid. Contour polylines exported to and imported from DXF keep their elevation, so TOPO can use them directly.
• SHPIMPORT (shapefiles with attributes and CRS), OSMIMPORT (OpenStreetMap buildings, roads and water) and CITYJSONIMPORT place GIS context around the project location, so set the location close to the data first.

3D modelling

• Solids: BOX, CYLINDER, CONE, SPHERE, EXTRUDE, REVOLVE, PRESSPULL (extrudes the area around a picked point, with holes), LOFT, SWEEP and PIPE.
• Booleans: UNION, SUBTRACT and INTERSECT produce closed meshes. SLICE cuts solids with a vertical or horizontal plane, and INTERFERE finds overlapping volumes and can create them as solids.
• Solid editing: FILLETEDGE and CHAMFEREDGE round or bevel all, vertical, top or bottom edges of boxes and extrusions. SHELL hollows them to a wall thickness, optionally open at the top. MIRROR3D, ROTATE3D (about an axis parallel to X, Y or Z) and 3DARRAY (rectangular or polar) transform solids and drawing objects, and MESHSMOOTH smooths meshes by Loop subdivision. Mirrored, rotated and filleted solids become plain meshes and lose their box or extrusion parameters.
• Node editor (NODEEDITOR, Modeling tab): a visual graph of number, range, series, point, curve, extrude, transform and array nodes with a live plan or 3D preview. Graph numbers can be exposed as sliders, and the result is baked into the drawing.
• Surfaces and meshes: REVSURF (revolved), TABSURF (tabulated), RULESURF (ruled between two curves) and EDGESURF (Coons patch from four edges) create mesh surfaces. MESHREPAIR welds vertices, removes degenerate and duplicate faces and fixes orientation, and MESHDECIMATE reduces the face count. SWEEP can twist the profile and scale its end.
• Loft, sweep, pipe and press/pull results are independent solids. They don't update when the source profile changes.

Solid history. With SOLIDHIST on, booleans are recorded; SOLIDHISTORY lists, suppresses, moves and deletes features and the solid regenerates. Sweeps stay associative with their path, PRESSPULL works on faces of any solid and SECTIONSOLIDS makes 2D section blocks.

More solids. WEDGE, TORUS, PYRAMID, PRISM (also tubes), POLYHEDRON, POLYSOLID, PLANESURF and MESH create primitives. THICKEN, HULL, SEPARATE, SOLIDCHECK, CONVTOMESH/CONVTOSOLID and LINEAREXTRUDE (with twist and scale) edit and check them. SECTIONOBJECT places live section planes that cap clipped solids. LOFT and PIPE rebuild when their source curves change.

Round 7 modelling. 3DALIGN, MESHEXTRUDE, MESHSECTION, UNFOLD, WIREFRAME (lattice/solidify), MINKOWSKI, SPRING (helical springs and threads), TEXT3D and SURFCV (NURBS surfaces from control vertices). SCAD runs an OpenSCAD-like CSG script (including 2D offset and projection) and SCADFILE imports .scad files.

Round 8 modelling (parametric features). CYLINDER now takes centre, 3P, 2P or Elliptical bases and an axis endpoint; EXTRUDE supports Taper, Direction, Path and Both sides; REVOLVE is associative and regenerates when the profile changes. PartDesign-style features follow their sketches: PAD, POCKET, HOLE (simple, counterbore, countersink), GROOVE, REVOLUTION, FOLLOWME, SWEEP3D/HELIXSWEEP, PATTERNFEATURE, MIRRORFEATURE and SHAPEBINDER. SPLITSOLID, GFUSE, SOLIDEDIT (face extrude, move, offset, taper, copy; body offset, separate), OFFSETSOLID, CSGTREE (BRL-CAD style u #1 - #2 + #3) and PROJECTGEOMETRY complete the set. Surfaces: SURFNETWORK, SURFPATCH, SURFOFFSET, SURFEXTEND, SURFTRIM and SURFSCULPT. SketchUp-style tools: INTERSECTFACES, SOFTEN, TAPEMEASURE (measure, guides, protractor), PAINT and SCALE3D (non-uniform). SCADOBJECT keeps an OpenSCAD script with Customizer parameters, edited in CUSTOMIZERPANEL. 3DOSNAP sets 3D object snaps, APPINT snaps to apparent intersections, and DUCS places points on the face under the cursor.

Round 9 modelling. DATUM places datum planes, axes and points; IMPRINT imprints edges on faces; SUBOBJECT edits a face, edge or vertex (Ctrl-click in the 3D view starts it on the part under the cursor); SURFBLEND blends surfaces with G0/G1/G2 continuity and SURFANALYSIS shows zebra, curvature, draft and continuity. SKETCHPLANE and SKETCHPAD sketch on any 3D work plane. MECHANISM steps a named driving dimension through a range and traces the motion (MECHANISMPLAY animates it). SANDBOX builds terrain from contours or a grid (smoove, stamp, drape, convert to BIM). MAKECOMPONENT, MAKEGROUP, MAKEUNIQUE and COMPONENTTOBIM work like SketchUp components and groups; OUTLINER and the OUTLINERPANEL window show their tree. OFFSETFACE offsets solid faces. Dynamic UCS: the first point picked on a solid face becomes the working plane for that command, and typed coordinates use the face's axes.

Round 10 modelling. Slanted and tapered walls join cleanly with the walls around them in plan, 3D and sections. A sketch drawn on a solid's face follows the face when the solid moves or is pushed/pulled. SCALE3D Handles scales a solid by dragging a bounding-box handle (corner, edge midpoint, Top/Bottom) with Center and Uniform options; the result converts to BIM with BUILDING Mass.

3D view and rendering

• Navigation: orbit, pan and zoom with the trackpad or mouse. Use the view cube (NAVVCUBE) to click a face, edge or corner. Standard views are TOPVIEW, FRONTVIEW, ISOVIEW and so on, and ORBITSELECTION zooms and orbits around the selection. WALK starts a first-person walkthrough.
• Visual styles (VSCURRENT): wireframe, hidden, shaded, shaded with edges, realistic, conceptual, X-ray, sketchy.
• Saved cameras: SAVECAMERA and CAMERA.
• Section box (SECTIONBOX): cuts the model live. It can be fitted to the selection or a level, is adjusted with sliders, and is saved with the drawing.
• Section plane (SECTIONPLANE): a live horizontal or vertical cut through the 3D model with filled cap faces (Flip, Off).
• Sun study (SUNSTUDY): date and time sliders and a day animation, using the project location.
• Materials (MATERIALS): the material editor sets colour, roughness, metalness, transparency and texture. MATBROWSER opens a library of CC0-style materials with rendered thumbnails to add to the drawing or assign to the selection. Pattern textures are stored in Application Support by absolute path, so they don't travel with the file to another Mac.
• Render (RENDER): renders the model at a chosen size, with sun date and time, exposure and white balance, ambient occlusion, soft-shadow quality and an environment (clear sky, overcast, sunset, studio, night or your own HDRI file), or a white or transparent background. Clay mode renders everything in a white material. Ambient occlusion, soft shadows and sky settings apply to renders, not yet to the live viewport. Built-in presets range from Draft 720p to Print 4K, and you can save your own. Renders save as images, and Export Video makes a turntable MP4. WALKTHROUGHVIDEO renders a video along a camera path, SUNSTUDYVIDEO a shadow study over a day, and PANORAMA a 360° equirectangular image. The render sky is a physically based model; glass reflects the environment (no refraction yet), and textures can drive bump.

Photographic lighting presets. RENDERPRESET (aliases LIGHTINGPRESET, PHOTOLOOK) gives the Realistic view and renders one of four looks, and switches the 3D view to Realistic:

Each preset sets its own sun position, a sky generated at run time, soft shadows, exposure, bloom and ambient occlusion; glass is tinted and reflects the sky, and the ground becomes a large meadow that fades into haze at the horizon. RENDERPRESET Off returns to the default Realistic look. The preset is stored in the drawing. The Render window has the same choice under Look, and a Supersampling picker (off, 2× or 3×): the image is rendered larger and filtered down for smoother edges and foliage.

Rendering to a file without the window. RENDERSAVE <preset> <camera> <width> <height> <path> (aliases RENDERPNG, RSAVE) renders offscreen and writes a PNG, for example

RENDERSAVE Goldenhour Front 2560 1440 ~/Desktop/cedar-front.png

The camera is a saved camera (SAVECAMERA) or Current for the current 3D view. The size can be 16 × 16 up to the renderer's maximum; images up to 1920 × 1080 are supersampled 3×, larger ones 2×, on top of 4× multisampling. Eye-level cameras keep vertical lines vertical (two-point perspective); aerial cameras keep their natural perspective. A relative path is saved next to the drawing (or in your home folder for an unsaved drawing); .png is added when missing. White balance is applied to the finished image.

The Cedar House sample on the start screen has three saved cameras, Front, Corner and Aerial, and textured materials with bump and roughness maps, so it is a good place to try the presets.

More 3D view tools. MEASURE3D measures in the 3D view, GIZMO3D moves and rotates objects in plan directions, CLIPPLANES manages clipping planes, and materials can be dropped onto elements. A camera path editor with keys, timeline, playback and MP4 export saves paths in the drawing; the render queue writes PNGs and keeps a render history.

The 3D gizmo moves along X, Y and Z (also MOVEZ), rotates, and scales uniformly in plan. LEVELVIEW3D isolates or explodes levels, FOV sets the field of view or lens length and VIEWIMAGE saves the 3D view as PNG, JPEG or TIFF (optionally with a transparent background).

Round 7 3D view. Walk mode (with collisions and gravity), FLY, LOOKAROUND, POSITIONCAMERA, TWOPOINT perspective and the NAVSWHEEL steering wheel. LIGHT places artificial lights, with IES profiles; MATEMISSIVE, FOG, MATMAPPING (texture mapping and positioning) and BILLBOARD extend rendering. RENDERTOFILE renders a region or the whole view at up to 8K as beauty, alpha, depth, normal or material-ID passes. There is a sketchy (hand-drawn) visual style. STEREOPANORAMA writes stereo 360° panoramas, PHASEANIMATION animates the construction sequence and WEBVIEWEREXPORT writes a web viewer. The sun position uses the NOAA solar calculator.

Round 8 rendering. PATHTRACE renders with a CPU path tracer (glass refraction, PBR textures, denoiser) and LIGHTMIX rebalances light groups after rendering. PROCMATERIAL generates procedural materials, MATFROMIMAGE turns a photo into a seamless PBR material and MATASSET edits identity, appearance and graphics assets. WEATHER and SEASON add rain, snow, fog and seasonal foliage; SCATTER places vegetation, WATER creates animated water surfaces, and ANIMATE animates objects (doors swing about their hinges). ARQUICKLOOK exports USDZ at real-world scale. REGEN rebuilds the display and REDRAW repaints from the cache. SPACEMOUSE configures a 3D mouse.

Round 9 view. ZOOM 1/100XP (or ZOOMXP) sets the selected sheet viewport to 1:100, or on the plan shows the drawing at that paper scale at true size on the screen. The 3D viewport casts sun shadows that follow the solar position.

Ambient occlusion and VR. AMBIENTOCCLUSION (or AODIALOG) sets intensity, radius and samples; the 3D viewport, renders and shaded elevations, sections and axonometric/perspective views (and their PDF/SVG exports) follow it. VRVIEW writes a WebXR page with an Enter VR button for headsets (not yet tested on a real headset).

Sheets, plotting and PDF

• Sheets: LAYOUT creates and manages sheets and their paper size. MVIEW places viewports (plan, elevation, section, 3D) at a scale such as 1:100, and VPLOCK locks a viewport's scale and position.
• Title blocks: TITLEBLOCK edits the sheet's title block fields (sheet title and number, scale, date, revision) and the project information shared by all sheets.
• Page setup (PAGESETUP, ⇧⌘P): paper, scale, lineweights, colour/monochrome/greyscale plotting and a plot stamp.
• Plot (PLOT, ⌘P) and Preview (PREVIEW, ⌥⇧⌘P): the plot dialog shows a live preview, and printing or saving uses exactly the previewed PDF.
• Publish (PUBLISH): writes all sheets to one multi-page PDF.
• Sheet set manager (SHEETSET, Sheets panel): orders, duplicates and numbers sheets. SHEETRENUMBER numbers them with a prefix and start number, SHEETINDEX places a sheet list table, and SHEETREVISION adds a row to the sheet's revision table.
• View titles: VIEWTITLE (core) and SHEETVIEWTITLES (app, editable) place a number bubble, title and scale under each viewport. Sheets with editable titles no longer draw the automatic captions.
• Plot styles (PLOTSTYLE, also STYLESMANAGER): colour-dependent (CTB) tables with pen colour, lineweight and screening; custom tables are stored in the drawing and chosen in the page setup. PLOTLOG lists past plots and BATCHPUBLISH publishes several sheets or drawings.
• HPGLOUT writes the current plan as HP-GL/2 for plotters and cutters.

SHEETIMAGE exports a sheet or the model view as an image at a chosen dpi.

Round 7 sheets. EXPORTPDF writes vector PDF with one PDF layer per drawing layer, searchable text and clickable HYPERLINKs. SHADEPLOT plots 3D viewports with hidden lines or shading. TITLEBLOCKDESIGN designs your own title block from a block with {field} placeholders. Page setup supports large-format custom pages and roll paper.

Analysis

• TAKEOFF: quantity takeoff of walls (net of openings, per type and material), slabs, roofs, columns, beams, doors, windows and rooms. It can also be written to CSV.
• COSTESTIMATE with UNITPRICE: a cost estimate from unit rates stored in the drawing or loaded from a JSON price table.
• ROOMSCHEDULE: rooms with net area (columns deducted), gross area (to wall centre lines), perimeter and volume.
• CLASHDETECT: hard clashes between elements and 3D solids, with select and zoom-to. Touching, hosted and joined elements are ignored.
• CHECKMODEL: a model audit that reports walls without height, openings wider than or outside their host, overlapping or duplicate walls and rooms, unnamed or duplicate rooms and missing levels. AUDIT checks and repairs the drawing's data.
• SUNPOSITION: sun azimuth and altitude, sunrise and sunset for a date and time at the project location.
• Building physics: UVALUE (EN ISO 6946 from element layers), HEATLOSS (steady-state envelope and ventilation heat loss with annual demand), DAYLIGHT (average daylight factor, BRE formula), SOLARRADIATION (clear-sky irradiation on walls, windows and roofs), SUNPATH (polar sun path diagram), REVERB (Sabine RT60) and CARBON (embodied carbon A1–A3). Solar radiation, daylight factor, embodied carbon, reverberation time and isovists are checked by tests against hand calculations; they are still simplified models.
• More analysis: ENERGYBALANCE (heating need with solar and internal gains; set degree days with the HDD variable for accurate climate data), EGRESS (escape travel distances, measured on a grid, can read up to about 8% long), ACCESSIBILITY (door clear widths and wheelchair turning circles), BOQ (bill of quantities) and TAKEOFFPHASE (quantities by phase or level).
• Spaces: LEVELAREAS (gross and net area by level) and ISOVIST (area visible from a point).
• Structure: ANALYTICALMODEL writes the analytical model (nodes, members, panels, supports, loads) as JSON, and FRAMEANALYSIS solves the column and beam frame for displacements and reactions (up to 300 nodes; walls and slabs only add load).
• Checking: CODECHECK checks rooms, stairs, ramps and doors against JSON rules (CODERULES), STANDARDSCHECK checks layers, properties, text and linetypes against a drawing standard, IFCVALIDATE checks an IFC file and IDSCHECK checks the model against an IDS specification. Code and standards issues can be selected and zoomed to.
• Review and collaboration: COMPARE finds added, removed and modified objects against another version (with a colour-coded overlay), MARKUP adds review comments linked to a view and objects, and BCFOUT/BCFIN exchange issues as BCF with viewpoints and selection.
• Inquiry: DIST, AREA, ID, LIST, MASSPROP, MEASUREGEOM, COUNT, STATUS.

More checks. ANGLEBETWEEN, TLEN (total length), DISTTOOBJECT and POINTINSIDE; LOADTAKEDOWN (loads down the structure), RAINWATER, PARKINGCHECK and FIRECOMPARTMENTS; ISSUETRACKER and the markup/issue panel keep issues in the drawing.

Round 5 analysis and design tools. STRUCTLOAD and STRUCTSUPPORT add loads and supports (with OpenSees export), THERMALBRIDGES flags likely thermal bridges, ENERGYPLUS exports an EnergyPlus IDF, WORKSCHEDULE links elements to construction tasks (4D) and resources, AUTODIMPLAN dimensions a plan, AUTONAMEROOMS names rooms, PLANGEN lays out rooms from a brief, QAASSIST reviews the model and ASK runs plain-language requests as commands.

Round 6 analysis. DAYLIGHTANNUAL computes spatial daylight autonomy and annual sunlight exposure (sDA/ASE) from a climate file. CFDEXPORT writes an OpenFOAM wind case and WINDRESULTS reads the results back. GENDESIGN generates room layouts from a brief and ranks them. SKETCHTOWALLS traces a plan image (PNG, BMP, PGM/PPM) into walls. TIME reports editing time, and CLASHMANAGE groups clashes and tracks their status. The daylight and wind results have not yet been checked against Radiance or a reference CFD tool.

Round 7 analysis. SHADOWDIAGRAM draws ground shadows for a date and a series of times and can export an animated HTML shadow study. DAYLIGHTRADIANCE exports the model to Radiance for sDA/ASE when Radiance is installed. ENERGYPLUS writes richer thermal models and reads the results back. The structural analytical model exports to analysis programs, and IFC validation checks more rules. COLORBLINDCHECK checks layer colours for colour-blind viewers (and can re-colour conflicts from the Okabe–Ito palette), and MEMORYREPORT shows the drawing's memory use. The 3D view builds meshes in the background and uses levels of detail. Radiance, EnergyPlus and structural results have not yet been checked against the reference tools by us.

Round 8 analysis. SUNPOSITION Validate checks the solar calculator against the NREL SPA and Meeus reference examples. With PSIMETHOD=ISO10211, THERMALBRIDGES computes ψ values with a 2D heat-conduction solver (EN ISO 10211) from wall build-ups. WINDRESULTS Solve runs a built-in 2D flow solver (verified on a channel flow; it underestimates corner speed-ups on tall buildings).

Import and export

DXF keeps exact ACI colours, true colour, transparency, text fonts, formatted MTEXT, dimension arrows and extended data through a round trip. OBJ and glTF exports are scaled correctly for any drawing unit. EXCHANGECHECK validates gbXML and COBie exports against their schema rules. ETRANSMIT packs a drawing with its xrefs, images and material textures into a ZIP with a transmittal report.

File ▸ Import… (⇧⌘I) and IMPORTFILE accept any of the importable formats and merge the file into the current drawing, scaled to its units.

Versions and collaboration. VERSIONS saves, lists, compares, restores and prunes versions of a drawing; MODELMERGE does a three-way merge; STANDARDS exports, imports and checks a standards package; .archiz is a compressed package. The app keeps a .bak of the previous file when saving (ISAVEBAK), JOURNAL and RECOVERYFILES recover work after a crash and RECOVER repairs damaged files. DXF now round-trips layouts with viewports, block attributes and hatch pattern definitions; IFC export writes property and quantity sets and types, with IFC4.3 and model view options in IFCOPTIONS; USD (text and USDZ) and OBJ with materials can be imported. SHARE opens the macOS share sheet.

More formats. PDFIMPORT (vector PDF), PDFMARKUPS (PDF comments as review markups), DWFIMPORT (DWFx), DGNIMPORT/DGNEXPORT (DGN V7), IGES and FBX import and export, LAS point clouds (POINTCLOUDVIEW for thinning and section boxes, PCPLANE for plane snapping, SCANTOBIM for walls from scans) and LASEREXPORT (SVG for laser and CNC cutters). IFC export writes IFC2x3 as well as IFC4/4.3 with georeferencing (IFCGEOREF=0 turns it off); IFCMAP maps element types to IFC classes. CENTRAL works with a central model (borrowing and synchronising), GITVERSION stores a drawing in a diff-friendly form for Git, SHAREVIEW exports a read-only viewer page and TRACEREVIEW overlays another version for review. IMPORTFILE also accepts .pdf, .dwfx, .dgn, .las, .igs and .fbx.

Round 6 file handling. SAVECOPY, SAVECHECK and UPGRADEFILE (older .archi files open and upgrade; the format is now version 5). TEMPLATEOUT/TEMPLATEIN handle templates, and FILEMETADATA shows the metadata used for Spotlight. PDFATTACH and PDFUNDERLAYS add PDF underlays. BREPIN/BREPOUT exchange OpenCASCADE BREP, and E57IN/E57OUT exchange point clouds. COEDIT shares a model through a folder; changes sync when you run COEDIT Sync. RESOLVECONFLICTS merges sync-conflict copies and BCFSERVER connects to a BCF API server. DXF MTEXT keeps stacked fractions, lists and columns. DXF and SVG keep Unicode and right-to-left text.

Round 7 exchange. DXFOUTVERSION picks the DXF version (R12 to 2018). IFCXMLOUT writes ifcXML, IFC schemas 2x3, 4 and 4.3 have property set tables, and IFC 4.3 alignments export and import. STEP import reads curved B-reps (cylinders, spheres, tori, cones, B-spline surfaces) and tessellated AP242 geometry with assemblies. LAZCONVERTER sets the LAZ decompressor used to open .laz point clouds. SURVEYLINES turns coded survey points into linework ("field to finish"). PRESENTOUT writes sheets and views as an HTML slide show and DOCSITE writes this documentation as a searchable HTML site. SIGNKEY, SIGNFILE, VERIFYSIGNATURE and TRUSTSIGNER create Ed25519 signing keys, sign files, verify signatures and manage trusted signers.

Round 8 exchange. DXF exports are checked for structure and references (DXFOUTVERSION prints the result), 3DFACE imports keep their heights, ByBlock lineweight and linetype round-trip, and large point clouds (LAS, XYZ/PTS/TXT, PLY) are sampled without loading the whole file. Co-editing merges per property, so two people editing different properties of the same object both keep their edits.

Round 9 exchange. DXF exports are checked against LibreCAD's libdxfrw reader for R12 to R2018, and fit-point splines are written as SPLINE entities. IFC validation checks about 80 EXPRESS WHERE rules (WR-<Entity>.<Rule>) and each issue lists the elements to zoom to. PASTESPECIAL pastes SVG, PDF, images, DXF or text from other apps, and copied objects also go on the clipboard as a vector PDF and a PNG (COPYPICTURE). Dropping files on the plan or 3D view imports them; GeoJSON, shapefiles, OSM, CityJSON, terrain grids, point clouds and world-file images keep their map position. Every save keeps a macOS version (FILEVERSIONS opens or restores one), writes Spotlight metadata and a Finder preview icon (FILEPREVIEW turns the extras off). A drawing changed on disk (for example by iCloud Drive) reloads, or is merged into unsaved edits; iCloud conflict copies are merged. CENTRAL Permissions adds signed viewer/editor/admin roles and protected layers that Sync enforces. archi-cli --out x.pdf writes PDF without the app and archi-cli --validate checks exchange files.

Rhino and SketchUp. RHINOIN imports Rhino .3dm files (versions 2–8) with units, layers, meshes, B-reps and blocks; RHINOOUT writes a version 4 .3dm with layers, meshes and exact curves (materials go out as object colours). SketchUp .skp files open through a converter you install yourself, set in SKPCONVERTER; without one, the app shows the preview image and explains how to export from SketchUp.

Scripting and AI agents

• Script files: SCRIPT runs a .scr file of command lines, as in AutoCAD. A blank line or ; is Enter. SCRIPTTEXT runs lines given as text. SCRIPTRECORD records what you type and pick as a script.
• JavaScript console (Script ribbon tab, ⌥⌘J or SCRIPTCONSOLE/JS): the archi API reads and edits the document, runs commands and creates building elements. Each change is one undo step. The script library (SCRIPTLIBRARY) keeps your scripts, and startup.js runs in every new window if enabled in Settings. The console has autocomplete (⌃Space) and a snippets library. See SCRIPTING.md.
• Agent server: a local JSON-RPC server in the running app (off by default, on 127.0.0.1 only, token-protected) lets AI agents drive the open document live. Configure it with AGENTSETTINGS.
• MCP: archi-cli --mcp project.archi is a Model Context Protocol server for Claude Desktop, Claude Code and other clients. It provides tools for commands, documents, import, takeoff, cost, schedules, clashes, model checking and sun position. CONNECTCLAUDE explains the setup. See AGENT-API.md.
• Batch jobs: BATCH (and archi-cli --batch jobs.json) runs a script or commands over many drawings and saves or exports the results.
• The MCP server offers resources (the open document, schedules, the command list) and prompt templates.
• Command-line tool: archi-cli also converts files, runs scripts headless and has a REPL. archi-cli --convert FMT files… [--outdir DIR] batch-converts files.
• The MCP server also offers analysis tools (heat loss, U-values, daylight, code check, level areas, schedules, structural model, sun path, plan SVG, IFC and IDS validation). Long command logs stream as progress notifications and can be capped with maxLines.

Plugins. Put a plugin folder (a plugin.json manifest plus a JavaScript file) in the plugins folder; PLUGINS lists, enables, disables and creates plugins, and their commands appear on the command line and run in the script engine. SCRIPT2JS turns a recorded script into JavaScript. DELAY pauses scripts and RESUME continues a script stopped with Escape.

Round 5 scripting. archi.registerCommand(name, fn, {aliases, summary}) turns a script function into a command, in the app console and in archi-cli. archi.on/archi.off subscribe to selectionChanged, documentChanged, elementAdded/Removed, saved and commandEnded, and archi.panel shows a script-defined panel. archi-cli runs JavaScript (--js) and Python (--py, --python-module) and watches folders for automation (--watch). LISP and LISPLOAD run an AutoLISP subset, including C: commands. MACROBUTTON creates buttons that run AutoCAD-style macros; they appear in the status bar. SYSVARMONITOR warns when watched variables change.

Round 6 app. Window tabs, file tabs, canvas split views and tiled views; FULLSCREEN; Model/Layout tabs; contextual ribbon tabs; a design center; object info and quick properties panels; an annotation scale selector; import/export of settings; an integrated help browser with contextual help, tutorials and sample projects. On sheets, viewports can be rectangular or polygonal (MVIEWPOLY, VPCLIP), maximised and aligned. You can drag views onto sheets, add guide grids, placeholder sheets and custom sheet fields, give title blocks a logo, and export layouts to SVG. The 3D view has orbit, standard views, perspective/parallel projection and wireframe, hidden, shaded, shaded-with-edges, conceptual and X-ray styles, plus a visual styles manager.

Round 7 assistant. ASSISTANT opens an AI chat panel that uses the Anthropic API or a local model (Ollama or another compatible server). Its edits run as normal undoable commands, and bulk changes ask for confirmation first. RENDERPROMPT styles renders from a text prompt, GRAPHPLAYER runs saved node graphs with their inputs, RADIALMENU opens a radial menu, HYPERLINK attaches links and SYSWINDOWS arranges open drawings side by side.

Automation and node packages. Shortcuts and other apps can drive the app with oanarina-archi://run?command=…, open?path=… and export?format=…&path=… URLs, and AppleScript can send commands with do script. NODEPACKAGE saves node-editor groups as reusable packages (Packages menu in the node editor).

Settings and customisation

OPTIONS (⌘,) opens Settings, where you can change:

• units, grid and snaps
• autosave interval
• canvas background and crosshair size (CURSORSIZE)
• accent colour and light/dark theme (THEME)
• file locations (templates, exports, scripts)
• quick access toolbar
• recent files limit
• agent server and scripts

Start screen and templates: STARTSCREEN shows recent drawings with thumbnails and templates. NEWFROMTEMPLATE starts a drawing from a .architemplate (such as Metric Architectural, with its layers and dimension styles) and SAVEASTEMPLATE saves the current drawing as one. EXPORTCOMMANDS writes the full command reference with where each command is in the menus. Every command is on the ribbon, a menu or a palette; the Tools menu and each tab's More menu hold the rest, and system variables have their own menu.

Keyboard shortcuts can be assigned to any command. For example, record ⇧⌘W for WALL. Your shortcuts take priority over menu shortcuts. The shortcut list can be searched, warns about conflicts, and can be exported to and imported from JSON. Reset to defaults restores every setting. All changes apply without a restart.

New side-panel tabs: Navigator (mini-map), Selection Info and Notifications (click a warning to zoom to it). WHATSNEW shows what changed after an update.

Command line and ribbon. CMDLINEOPTIONS sets the command line's text size, number of lines, opacity and whether it floats. The app accepts launch arguments: files to open, -t/--template, -s/--script and -c/--command. CUI customises the ribbon (reorder panels and buttons, export and import). Full-screen state survives relaunch and windows fit a Split View half.

Round 9 accessibility. VoiceOver reads the canvas, 3D view, sheet view, status toggles and icon buttons, and speaks new prompts; SPEAKDRAWING describes the drawing. Keyboard-only drawing: arrow keys move the crosshair at prompts, Return picks the point and Tab selects under it (KEYBOARDNAV sets the step). LANGUAGE translates the ribbon and the menu bar into Romanian, German, French, Spanish and Italian (dialogs are still English).

Crash reports and menus. CRASHREPORTS On turns on opt-in crash reports (off by default). Reports have file names and home paths removed, and the next launch offers to open a GitHub issue or copy the report; nothing is sent automatically. The menu bar titles and common menu items now follow LANGUAGE.

Keyboard and mouse

Tutorial videos

The app can record its own tutorial videos. The tutorial series (twelve scripts, from a first look at the interface to scripting and AI agents) builds the Cedar House from an empty drawing:

Tools ▸ Tutorial Videos (TUTORIALRECORD, aliases TUTORIALVIDEOS, TUTREC) has three options:

• List prints each bundled tutorial with its number of steps and estimated length.
• Check plays every step against the real editor without recording and reports failed commands or buttons that could not be found (a dry run).
• Record asks which tutorials to record (numbers or names separated by spaces; Enter records all) and an output folder, then opens a new window at 1440 × 900 and plays each script there: it types into the command line, presses ribbon and panel buttons, clicks on the plan and orbits the 3D view, and records the window as an H.264 MP4 at 30 fps with an animated cursor, click ripples, captions and keystroke pills. A .log file next to each video lists what was typed and what the app answered. The Finder shows the folder when it has finished.

Leave the recording window alone until the recorder closes it: real mouse and keyboard input still reaches it, and closing it stops the recording. Recording takes about as long as the videos. The window is captured with the app's own drawing, so it needs no screen-recording permission and works while the screen is locked. Videos follow the display's resolution (2880 × 1800 on a Retina display).

The scripts are plain text files (.tut, one step per line: type, click, pick, orbit, camera, note, wait and others); the format is described in tutorials/README.md in the source repository. From the Terminal, scripts/make-tutorials.sh record [numbers…] records them, and the app accepts --record-tutorials DIR to record and quit.

Command reference

Every command can be typed on the command line, used in scripts and called by agents. Aliases are alternative names. Any system variable can also be typed as a command (for example TEXTSIZE 350), and HELP <command> describes a command inside the app. This table is generated from the command definitions in the source (python3 docs/gen_command_reference.py).

994 commands.

Draw

Modify

Parametric

Edit

Select

Annotate

Blocks

Layers

Settings

Inquiry

Architecture

Structure

Site

3D

View

Output

Layout

File