Fences, walls & panel runs

The 🪵 Fence-wall group on the left palette draws boundary treatments. All three tools place the same kind of object — a run of points with a style — and the style decides whether it is a fence, a wall or a line of repeated panels.

The three tools

• Fence — a light boundary line: close-boarded, lap panel, post & rail, bow-top railings, mesh, acoustic barrier or a clipped hedge.
• Wall — masonry with real thickness: brick, stone, rendered, gabion or retaining.
• Panel run — a library object repeated along a line. The built-ins are Railing panels 1.5 m, Heras fence panels and pedestrian barriers — the last two being what site hoarding and temporary works are actually made of.

Click to place points and press Enter or double-click to finish. Esc cancels the run you are drawing. Snapping and the typed-dimension box work here exactly as they do for the boundary.

Panel runs: drawing in whole panels

A panel run is laid one panel after another from its first point, so a corner or an end only meets a panel joint when every leg before it is a whole number of panels. With a panel style chosen — Heras, pedestrian barrier, pit barrier or railing — the line therefore steps out in whole panels: each click lands on a joint (every 3.55 m for Heras, 2.00 m for a pedestrian barrier, 1.00 m for a pit barrier), so corners close cleanly and the end neither overshoots nor stops short.

• The panels show as you draw, with a tick at each joint, in the colour plan and in sketch view. Where a corner or the end would not fit, it is marked in red with the gap or overshoot in metres. None of this is stored or printed.
• The box by the cursor gains a ▦ field — the leg in panels — and a chip for the whole run: fits, X m short or +X m over. Tab cycles length, panels and angle, so typing 4 in ▦ places four panels, and ↑ / ↓ add or take a panel on the leg you are drawing. A length typed in metres is kept exactly, and the chip shows what is left over.
• To draw freely, hold Alt, tap ⊹ Exact on an iPad, or turn Snap off.
• Start a run on the end of another panel run and it snaps to that run's last panel joint, shown by a cyan ring, so the two runs' panels meet instead of crossing. That run's line end moves onto the joint in the same undo step; its panels do not move.
• Finish a run on the end of another panel run and its line snaps to that joint too, but its own panels are laid from its start, so they only meet the joint when the run is a whole number of panels long. Any overshoot or gap is shown in metres; select the run and ▦ Fit keeps that end and moves the start.

The Fence-wall designer

Fence-wall styles… opens the designer. Pick a built-in to start from, then Duplicate it and change what you need — the built-ins themselves cannot be deleted, so there is always something to fall back to.

• Kind — fence, wall or panel run. This changes which options apply and how the run draws in plan.
• Height and width — real metres. Width is the thickness a wall occupies on the plan and in the 3D model.
• Material and colour — eighteen materials, from treated timber and facing brick through engineering brick, blockwork, render, natural and reconstituted stone, gabion, concrete, powder-coated and galvanised steel, welded mesh, composite board and clipped hedge.
• Junction piers — thickened at every corner. Intermittent piers repeat along the run at a spacing you set. Both take their own width and projection.
• Rails — horizontal rails along the run: the top and bottom rails of metal railings, or the three of a post-and-rail fence. Set how many, the section, and the heights of the bottom and top rail; any in between are spread evenly, and each stands a little proud of the face so it reads as a rail rather than a stripe. Heights are to the rail centre from the base of the run, so raising the fence moves the top rail with it. Two built-ins use them: Metal railings 1.1 m and Bow-top railings 1.1 m.
• Coping — none, flat, half round, saddleback, bullnose, splayed (weathered) or brick on edge, with its own material, thickness and overhang.
• Retaining and temporary — flags that describe what the run is for. Temporary runs are the hoarding and barrier kinds you take down again.
• Panel length and gap — panel runs only. Set the object, its length and the gap between panels, and the run repeats it end to end.

A 3D preview sits beside the settings and updates as you change them, so you can see a pier spacing or a coping profile before committing it to the scheme.

Building your own style

• Duplicate copies the selected style. ＋ New style starts a fresh one seeded from the built-in matching whichever Type is currently selected — so pick Wall first if you want to start from a wall.
• The Material list is filtered by Type. Masonry — brick, blockwork, render, stone, gabion, concrete — is offered on walls only; steel, mesh, composite board and hedge on fences and panel runs only; timber on both. Changing a style’s Type therefore resets its material and colour when the current one does not belong to the new type.
• Coping appears on walls only, and piers are hidden on panel runs. Retaining and temporary apply to every kind.
• Delete counts how many runs on this scheme use the style and warns before removing it. Those runs fall back to a plain 1.8 m close-boarded fence — which changes both the drawing and the appraisal, so re-style them rather than leaving them on the fallback.

Changing a run you have already drawn

Select a run and the options bar gains a style picker — switch a whole run from timber to brick in one step. This works on generated fences and hand-drawn ones alike.

Opening the designer from a selected run changes the buttons at the bottom, and the difference matters:

• Apply to selection restyles the run you came from, and closes.
• Draw a new one leaves that run alone and starts drawing a new one in this style.

Fitting a panel run you have already drawn

A run drawn before whole-panel drawing, or drawn freely, may not fit. Select it and the plan shows each leg's length in panels (3 ▦, or 3.4 ▦ when it is not whole), a tick at every joint, and a label only where something does not fit: a red gap or an amber spur at a corner, +X m over or X m short at the end. The edit bar says how many panels the run lays on how much line, and how many places misfit — for example 6 panels (21.30 m) on 21.00 m of line · 2 misfits.

• ▦ Fit appears while the run does not fit. It rounds each leg to whole panels along its own direction, keeping the first point — or the last point, when only that one is on another panel run's joint — so every corner and the end land on a joint. A leg exactly half-way between two counts rounds down. A toast says how far the corners and the end moved, and one Undo takes it all back. On a closed run the closing leg is left as drawn, and the toast says how far it is over or short.
• − N + shows how many panels the run lays, and adds or takes off a panel at the far end by moving the last point along the last leg. It never makes the last leg shorter than half a panel, and it is off on a closed run, which has no free end.
• Right-click the run (⋯ on an iPad) for ▦ Fit to whole panels — keep this end, which keeps the end nearer where you clicked and moves the other, and ▦ Fit the end only, which moves only the last point.

Fitting moves the run's points only. It never changes how panels are laid, so a run you do not fit opens, prices and exports exactly as before. Fit and the panel count are not offered in 3D, and are greyed out in a view-only session; a run hidden in the phase you are viewing cannot be selected to fit. To add a node to a panel run, right-click the line and choose Add a node here (⋯ on an iPad): a click on the panels selects the run.

Moving a panel run's points

Drag a point of a selected panel run and its panels move with it as you drag. The point steps along its leg a whole panel at a time, so it always lands on a panel joint, marked by a cyan ring. A readout by the pointer gives the leg in panels and metres, a ✓ when the point is on a joint, and how many panels the run lays; anything that then does not fit is listed in red.

• Drag an end to add or take off whole panels. Drop it on the end of another panel run and it lands on that run's last panel joint, and that run's line end moves onto the joint in the same undo step. Dropped there, the first point's panels meet that run's panels instead of crossing them; the last point's panels meet it only when the run is whole panels long, and the readout shows any overshoot, which ▦ Fit then closes. A line the end crosses still wins.
• Moving a point in the middle of a run puts that point on a joint, but the panels on the legs after it shift too, so check the end: ▦ Fit tidies it.
• To drag freely, hold Alt once the drag has started (Alt as you press removes a section), tap ⊹ Exact on an iPad, or turn Snap off.
• Add a node here puts the new point on the panel joint nearest where you clicked, so adding it moves no panel. ＋ node on an iPad does the same near the middle of the longest leg.

Gates in a fence or panel run

A gate snaps into a run and opens it (added 30 October 2026). Drop or drag a Gate, a barrier gate or any other gate or entrance object close to a fence, wall, hedge or panel run, and it jumps onto the line and turns to face along it. A cyan band shows the stretch it will open, with a ring on the gate. Let go and that stretch of the run is taken out.

• Panel runs (Heras, barriers, railings) open in whole panels. A gate up to one panel bay wide, such as a Heras pedestrian or vehicle gate, lands on a bay and replaces that one panel. A wider gate lands on a joint and replaces as many bays as it covers. The other panels stay exactly where they were.
• Fences, walls and hedges open by exactly the gate's width.
• Move the gate and the opening moves with it. Delete it and the run closes again. One Undo takes back either.
• The opening is taken out everywhere the run is read: the plan, sketch views, sheets and the DXF, the 3D model, a privacy screen (it stops either side of the gate), the fencing metres, the panel count, the barrier hire and the schedules. The run's − N + panel stepper still counts the gate's bay.
• The catch is the same distance on screen at every zoom, and wider for a finger on an iPad. To place a gate near a run without snapping, hold Alt, tap ⊹ Exact on an iPad, or turn Snap off.
• A locked run, a run hidden in the phase you are viewing and the vehicle security barrier (HVM) line do not take a gate. An HVM line's opening is the removable bollard / HVM opening object.
• A gate placed before this feature, or with snapping off, opens nothing, even when it stands on a run. Drag it a little to snap it in.

Drawing a panel run on an iPad

• Aim before you lift. Touch to place a point and, if you move your finger before lifting, the point follows it through the panel stops, with the panels and a readout above your finger. You can pause to read it; lift to leave the point there. A still tap places it as before, and a still hold finishes the run.
• ↶ takes back only the last point; ✕ throws the whole run away. On a keyboard, Backspace with nothing typed does the same.
• −▦ and +▦ make the last leg you placed one panel shorter or longer.

Where the styles go

• Styles save with your template, so the palette you build carries to your next project. They merge by id on load rather than replacing: bringing a template in adds its styles without deleting the ones already in this scheme.
• Runs are measured in the stats and priced in the appraisal — fencing shows as a length, walls and panel runs at their own rates.
• Walls and panel runs export to DXF and to Revit as real walls at the right thickness, with piers and coping. Fences export as a line.