Reference index
Every control in the app, organized the way the interface is — what it is, what it does, its limits, and the guide that covers the workflow.
Toolbar
- Insulation
- Wall/ceiling insulation thickness in millimeters (0–200). Shrinks the usable interior on walls and ceiling; items re-clamp when it changes. Guide: Choosing your van →
- Body menu
- Everything about the van itself: pick the vehicle and variant, panel-van vs box body style, body paint, per-panel visibility, camera auto-hide, and cutting openings. Guide: The van body & openings →
- Undo / Redo⌘Z
- Steps through layout history — placement, resize, rotation, grouping. Selection and camera moves are never recorded. Guide: Projects, autosave & version history →
- Free move1V
- The default tool: drag items across the floor. They stay inside the walls and rest on the floor or on whatever they overlap (stacking). Guide: Placing components →
- Move gizmo2G
- Axis arrows on the selected item for controlled one-axis moves, including lifting to an exact height. Guide: Placing components →
- Rotate gizmo3E
- Free-angle rotation ring when 90° steps aren't enough. The item's collision footprint follows the angle. Guide: Placing components →
- Rotate 90°R
- Rotates the selected item a quarter turn and re-clamps it into the van. Guide: Placing components →
- Duplicate⌘D
- Copies the selection and drops the copy beside the original, already selected. Guide: Placing components →
- DeleteDel
- Removes the selected item(s). Undoable. Guide: Placing components →
- Top viewT
- Straight-down floor-plan camera — the easiest view for alignment and clearance checks. Toggle back for the 3D orbit. Guide: Placing components →
- Doors openO
- Swings every door, drawer, and hatch open and shows their clearance zones so you can catch collisions between openings. Guide: The van body & openings →
- MeasureM
- Measuring tape: click any two points in the scene to read the exact distance. Guide: Placing components →
- Build Sheet
- The planning report: budget, materials and cut list, payload vs kerb weight, daily power budget, and the fuel-cost impact of the build's weight. Guide: The Build Sheet →
- Photo modeP
- Hides the UI, offers framing presets (¾ front, side, ¾ rear, top), and captures the current view as a PNG. Guide: Photo mode →
- Save / Snapshot / History⌘S
- Changes autosave continuously; Snapshot stores a named version; History lists snapshots with restore. Restoring is itself undoable. Guide: Projects, autosave & version history →
- Settings menu
- Theme (dark/light), units (metric/imperial display), currency, scene backdrop (studio, desert, lake, meadow), camera auto-rotate with speed, floor grid, and the center-of-mass marker. Guide: Getting started with VanPlot →
Left sidebar
- Components tab
- The outline of your build: every placed item as a row — click to select (even through walls), eye to hide, trash to delete. Groups collapse into a single header row. Guide: Placing components →
- Library tab
- The catalog: 60+ parametric components in nine categories with real 3D thumbnails. Click to add at the van's center, or drag onto the canvas to place directly. Guide: Placing components →
- Runs tab
- Wiring & plumbing: route cable and water runs point-by-point; clicks snap to the walls and floor of the interior shell. Lengths feed the budget. Guide: Wiring & plumbing runs →
- States tab
- Named arrangements of the whole van — bed up vs bed down. Capture the current arrangement, then apply any state with one click. Guide: Scene states — bed up, bed down →
- Design button
- Opens the component designer to build a custom component from primitive shapes. Guide: The component designer →
- AI button
- Create a component from a plain-language description (up to 2,000 characters). The result lands in My Components and the scene, ready to refine. Guide: Create components with AI →
- Import button
- Imports a 3D model — GLB, STL, OBJ, or SketchUp Collada (.dae), up to 30 MB. Heavy meshes are auto-optimized to about 60k triangles; size is capped to the van interior. Guide: Importing 3D models →
- Library search
- Filters the catalog and My Components by name as you type. Guide: Placing components →
Inspector
- Position & rotation
- Exact numbers for the selected item: X/Z position and rotation in degrees. Drag a label to scrub, scroll the field to step — Shift for coarse (10×), Alt for fine (0.1×). Guide: Placing components →
- Dimensions & Max
- Per-axis size in meters. Each axis has a Max button that grows the item to fill the free space up to the van wall or the nearest neighbour. Guide: Placing components →
- Color & texture
- Per-item color plus a texture picker: built-in wood/ply/metal materials tinted by the item color, your recently-used colors first, and your own uploaded images. Guide: Placing components →
- Weight / cost / power
- Per-item overrides for the planning math — kilograms, purchase cost, and daily Wh draw — with catalog defaults filled in. A link field stores where you'd buy it. Guide: The Build Sheet →
- No-stack
- Opts the item out of stacking: it rests on the floor, overlaps neighbours freely, and nothing lands on top — for squeezing things into tight spots. Guide: Placing components →
- Group / Ungroup⌘G
- Groups the multi-selection into one unit that moves and hides together. Guide: Placing components →
Body & openings
- Van picker
- 27 vehicles across 105 size/drive variants, grouped by brand. Interior dimensions and payload derive from the real vehicle specs; items re-settle when you switch. Guide: Choosing your van →
- Body style & paint
- Panel van (unibody, curved) or box body (square Luton-style), plus exterior paint color. Guide: The van body & openings →
- Body panels
- Per-panel visibility (cab, walls, roof, rear, bulkhead) and auto-hide, which drops the walls facing the camera as you orbit. Guide: The van body & openings →
- Cut an opening
- Cuts a window, roof fan, or plain hole into a chosen wall — a real hole in the body, sized and positioned exactly, clamped to the panel, and counted in weight and cost. Guide: The van body & openings →
Component designer
- Shapes
- Five primitives — box, cylinder, sphere, cone, wedge (ramp) — added at real-world size and edited like editor items. Guide: The component designer →
- Layers panel
- Every part as a row: click to select, double-click to rename, eye to hide, hover for duplicate and delete. Newest on top. Guide: The component designer →
- Scale gizmo4S
- Designer-only fourth tool: stretch a part along any axis by dragging the handles; the exact size stays editable in the inspector. Guide: The component designer →
- Hollow
- Replaces a box with an open-top tub built from five 18 mm panels — each panel stays an editable part. Guide: The component designer →
- Frame
- Replaces a box with a 12-member stud frame (45 mm studs and rails) — the skeleton you'd actually build. Guide: The component designer →
- Save to library⌘S
- Stores the component in My Components. A brand-new component is placed into your scene automatically when you return. Guide: The component designer →