Smart align: lining up objects, houses and parking spaces

When you drag a library object, a house or a parking space, or place a new one, near things already on the plan, smart align helps it sit square and in line with them, and shows you the gaps in metres. Laying out a row of toilet blocks, a C-shaped courtyard of cabins, a street of houses at an even side gap or a row of parking spaces takes a few drags instead of careful nudging.

What it does

While you drag an object, or a free group, in the 2D plan, and while you position a new one from the library, it looks at the objects near it:

• Turn to match. Within a few degrees of square to a neighbour, the object squares up so its edges run parallel. A right angle counts too, so the side of a courtyard sits at exactly 90° to the row. The amount it turned is shown beside the guide (for example ↺ 7.5°). A newly placed object takes its neighbour's angle; one you have already turned yourself keeps your angle.
• Line up. Its edges and centre lines catch the neighbours' edges and centre lines, measured along the neighbours' own axes, so a row set at an angle on the site lines up just as well as a square one. A dashed guide shows what it caught.
• Butt up. Close to a neighbour's facing edge, it closes up flush.
• Match spacing. When two objects already sit a set distance apart, the next one catches the same gap, and equal-gap markers show the spacing (for example 1.50 m between each).
• Gaps in metres. While you drag, the distance to the nearest neighbour on each side is shown, so you can place to an exact gap.

Houses

Houses still front onto the road and line up with the houses in their row exactly as before: a house dragged near a road turns to face it at the right setback, and a house dragged into a row takes the row's angle. The building line is the plot front, at the back of the footway, so the front walls of different house types step back by their drive length, just as they do on a generated street.

• Equal side gaps. Along the street, a house catches the side gap the street already has (for example 2.00 m), with equal-gap markers on the pairs it matched, or the standard gap from the Side gap setting. The gap to the house on each side is shown in metres while you drag.
• Lining up. A house lines up its ends and centre line with the houses across the street or behind it, and with large library objects. Small objects such as bins, bollards and signs never pull a house.
• It slides along the street, never off it. Once a house is fronted onto its road or row, smart align only moves it along the frontage, so it stays on the building line, on a curved road too. Zoomed in, a house dragged clearly off the building line stays where you put it, so you can stagger a house on purpose; bring it back close and it re-catches the line.
• Terraces and semis. A terrace or semi unit dragged back to its neighbour closes up flush on the party wall and re-joins, wherever the two would join. Two detached houses are never pushed together: smart align always leaves at least 0.2 m between houses, so it can never make a terrace by accident.
• It never turns or flips a house. The only change of angle is the one a house has always had: taking the angle of its row, or facing its road. The rotate handle is unchanged.
• Hold Option ⌥ / Alt after the drag starts, or turn on ⊹ Exact on iPad, to place a house freely: it does not front onto the road or snap to the row, and the gaps are still shown. Turning the Smart align button off gives the old behaviour exactly.
• With Smart align on, the old jump of a whole slot along the row (leaving room for one more house) is replaced by the side-gap catch; drag the house to where you want it.

Parking spaces

A single parking space you have placed still takes its angle from the road, aisle or drive and seats its end on the back of the footway, or levels its ends with a space beside it.

• Spaces butt up side by side. Spaces in a row touch, so a space nudged towards the last one closes up flush. It also lines up its ends and sides with nearby spaces, including the car-park bays and the spaces that come with a house type, and with library objects, and shows the gaps.
• Squaring up to a row. A space dropped beside a car-park row takes that row's orientation. One you rotated by hand only squares up when it is within 8° of its neighbour, turning by the smaller amount. A nose-in space never turns into a parallel one, and the markings on accessible, EV and parent-and-child spaces always read towards the road or aisle.
• The rotate handle snaps to a neighbouring space's angle, and no longer makes the space jump when you grab it. A plain click on a space no longer moves it.
• Accessible spaces butt up without the 1.2 m transfer zone the drawing does not model. Beside an accessible space a 1.2 m gap is offered as well; leave it if you need the zone, because the drawing does not add it for you.

Accurate placement stays easy

• The pull is a few pixels on screen, so zooming in makes it finer in metres. Zoomed in, you can place an object 0.1 m off a line.
• It only catches when you are very close, and lets go as soon as you move a little further away, so it never flickers.
• An offset you already chose is kept: an object sitting a little off a line when you start dragging is not pulled onto it.
• Only the object in your hand moves. Locked objects can be lined up against but are never moved.
• To place freely for one move, start the drag, then hold Option ⌥ (Mac) or Alt (Windows). Nothing snaps, and the gaps are still shown. On a free library object you can also hold it from the start of the press. On an object inside a group, start dragging first, because Alt-click on its own takes it out of the group.
• On iPad, the ⊹ Exact button in the touch bar does the same while it is on.

Switching it off

The Smart align button in the toolbar, beside Snap, turns it on and off. Your choice is remembered on this device. Snap (the S key) is the master switch: with Snap off, smart align pauses too.

What it lines up with

Library objects line up with other library objects, with house walls and the building line, and with parking spaces; they can butt up flush against a house wall or a space. Houses line up with houses and with large library objects. Parking spaces line up with other parking spaces and with library objects. Houses and parking spaces do not line up with each other. Trees and plants are left out on purpose, both as the object you drag and as something to line up with, so planting stays natural. An object that is part of an array run can be lined up against, but the run itself decides where its own copies go. Locked houses and spaces can be lined up against but are never moved. Anything hidden — objects hidden in the phase you are viewing (Build, Live or Derig), or houses and parking hidden on a sketch sheet — is ignored.

Tidying a selection: Align, Distribute, Match rotation

Select several objects or houses, or a mix, and choose ⊞ Align in the selection bar, or ⊞ Align / distribute… from the right-click menu. Each command is one undo step.

• Left, Right, Top, Bottom, Centre across, Centre along line the objects up with the key object, in the key's own frame. The key starts as the first object you selected; ⇄ Key moves it to the next one.
• Distribute makes the gaps equal, edge to edge, along the longer spread. It needs three or more objects, and the two end objects stay where they are. A locked object in the middle of the run stops it.
• Match rotation turns each object to the key's angle, keeping the way each one faces.

Locked objects and objects inside an array run are left where they are, and the message says how many were skipped.

With houses

When the key is a house the buttons are named for houses: Fronts (building line) levels the plot fronts on the key house's building line, so front walls step by drive length; Rears lines up the rear walls; Centres front-to-back and Centres along the street; and the two Ends buttons, named by where the key's ends lie on screen. Fronts, Rears and Centres front-to-back only move houses facing the same way as the key. The Ends and Centres along the street skip houses in the same row as the key or another selected house, because that would stack them; use Distribute for a row.

• Distribute spaces houses evenly along the key house's street, keeping each front on its own building line. Only houses facing the same way as the key take part, the two end houses stay put, and it refuses if a house you did not select sits between them, or if houses would end up almost touching. The message warns when the gaps come out under the Side gap setting.
• Match rotation turns each house about its own centre to the key's angle, keeping the way it faces, by at most 45°. A house that would need more is skipped; rotate it by hand.
• A terrace or semi whose units are all selected moves as one block, so its party walls stay flush. A partly selected terrace is skipped. Match rotation never turns a terrace or semi — a whole selected run as much as a single unit — because turning each house about its own centre would break the party walls: turn a run with the selection's own rotate handle, or by hand.
• A house that would overlap another house or the road, or push its plot further over a neighbour's, is left where it is, and counted in the message. A plot that already overlapped its neighbour (a house nudged sideways) does not stop its front being levelled.
• The key starts as the first library object you selected, so a box selection of objects that clips a house still lines up the objects. It is a house when you select only houses, or when you start the selection by Ctrl/⌘-clicking a house; ⇄ Key moves it on through every member.

What it does not do yet

• Arrow-key nudges, typed positions and the 3D move gizmo are unchanged: they are the exact-placement tools. In 3D a house still fronts onto its road and row as before, without guides.
• The house rotate handle has no snap; Shift still turns it in 15° steps.
• Dragging a mixed multi-selection moves it as one rigid set; use the commands above to tidy it. Parking spaces cannot be multi-selected, so there is no Align or Distribute for them yet; drag them into a row instead.
• Angled (echelon) car-park bays are not lined up against; square ones are.
• On a curved street, the equal side gap is offered against the house a dragged house lines up with, not against the house on its other side. Distribute works along a straight frontage only.
• A terrace or semi unit moved on its own does not always join its neighbour again: where the two would not join, it is offered the ordinary side gap instead of a flush party wall. To move a terrace or semi without breaking it, select every unit and drag them together, or use the commands above.
• Nothing lines up with roads, fences, zones, water or the site boundary.
• Alignment uses each object's footprint rectangle, which for a few event objects is slightly larger than the drawing (a trailer's drawbar, for example).
• There are no guides in 3D, and collaborators see where you put the object, not your guides.