Engines overview
What engines are, how to add one, the shared tools they all use, and how they export.
Engines turn one drawing into many deliverables. Each is a focused overlay that adds its own tools and exports, without changing the plan underneath.
What an engine is
An engine is a non-destructive layer attached to a drawing and saved alongside it in your project. Add it, work in it, and the source drawing is untouched. Remove it and your clean plan is exactly as it was.
A drawing can carry any number of engines, and each reads the drawing live - edit your rooms later and the engine picks up the new geometry. Engines also follow their drawing: move the drawing to another project and they move with it; delete it and they go too.
Adding an engine
In a project, the Engines section lists every engine beside its drawings. Tap New, choose a kind, then choose the drawing it should overlay (and name it, if you like). The engine opens in its editor, already reading your rooms, walls and openings. To find one again later, the Library tab has an Engines filter.
Shared tools
The six overlay engines use the same chrome, so once you learn one you know them all (3D has its own viewer controls, and Marketing trades the canvas for its page editor while keeping the same panels, undo bubbles and exports):
- Tool rail, Pointer plus the engine’s tool categories (a labelled rail on iPad/Mac, collapsed behind a single button on iPhone).
- Place-then-pick, tap a category, tap the plan to mark the spot, then choose the exact item from a preview grid.
- Undo & Redo, tappable bubbles in the top-right (plus ⌘Z / ⇧⌘Z with a keyboard).
- Overlay visibility, hide the overlay to check the plan beneath - exports always print it.
- Plan opacity, fade the base drawing so the overlay stands out; on-screen only, never in exports.
- Layers, per-drawing toggles for measurements, doors, windows, room names and furniture (furniture starts hidden so device plans stay clean), applied to the export too.
- True-to-scale symbols, engine symbols and labels sit on the plan at real-world size and zoom with it, like CAD annotations - identical in the editor and in print.
- CAD power tools, per-item Delete and Duplicate actions in a floating bubble; press
[and]to scale a selected symbol; all symbols draw at 2x for crisp detail; a Type carousel in the inspector lets you swap the exact symbol without re-placing; hide the engine’s own layer overlay so you can focus on the base plan; edit route and cable-run paths node by node, inserting or removing vertices as you go. - Editor panel, a side panel on iPad/Mac, a half-height sheet on iPhone, for the selected item.
- Export, PNG, PDF or CSV, depending on the engine.
The eight engines
| Engine | Use it to… | Guide |
|---|---|---|
| Fire Escape Plan | Lay escape routes, exits and safety symbols | Guide · Overview |
| 3D | Walk the plan in a lit 3-D model | Guide · Overview |
| Fire Alarm Zone | Colour rooms by detection zone | Guide · Overview |
| CCTV & Security | Place cameras with coverage cones | Guide · Overview |
| WiFi Coverage | Model an RF coverage heat-map | Guide · Overview |
| Marketing | Export a property brochure | Guide · Overview |
| Network & IT | Map patching and generate reports | Guide · Overview |
| Deck Plan | Colour vessel decks and place IMO safety signage | Guide · Overview |
Regions & standards
The active region, US, UK, EU or AU, is a single app-wide Setting (Settings → Region), not a per-engine control. It changes symbol artwork, default colours, the export page size of most engines (Letter in the US, A4 elsewhere), the compliance guidance engines show - even the WiFi channels and power limits. Change it once and every engine follows. Two engines stand apart: Fire Escape Plan keeps a Signage standard picker in its plan settings, so you can switch the symbol artwork mid-session - it snaps back to your Region setting the next time the plan opens; and Deck Plan has no region at all, because maritime safety signage is harmonised worldwide by SOLAS and IMO, so it always follows a single international standard.