Guides

Open Catalogs & libraries, search by name or use, and filter by construction system. Preview concept explains the example, supported edits and limitations. Open and adapt starts a separate project through the unified workspace. These are concept starting points, not complete or approved house designs.

On a demo page, use Appearance for layers, finish and diagram or realistic look. The camera views, zoom, fullscreen and render export stay beside the preview. Export render offers three styles: Photographic, Plain model (the same light on a matte white model, with no finishes implied) and As in the viewer. It defaults to an eye-level view, a person standing 1.6 m above the ground with vertical lines kept vertical, and offers five sizes up to 4K. In the realistic look it is path traced on your graphics card under a choice of sunny, overcast or evening photographed skies; the window reveals, trim, gutters, plinth, sky and landscape it adds are illustrative finishing that no drawing, quantity or export contains. At the end of a demo story, the concept still panel can also Render the sequence: the plain white model, then the photographic still at the same camera and sky, shown in that order and downloaded together with a record that names the white model as the anchor the second was made after. The third step, a photoreal image from the decorator, is named there but not run on a demo page. Use this template opens your own project; Share design shares the public example. Design notes and source assumptions sit below the preview.

Check an attached drawing

Attach a fabrication or assembly drawing to a project as a PDF or DXF, then choose Check drawing on its file card (project tools → Documents), or under Details → Check an attached drawing in a steel or other family project. The check reads the title block for a drawing number, revision, scale, date and sheet; reads the parts list for missing positions and quantities; compares each part's profile in the list with the profile written beside it on the drawing; and, in a DXF, finds dimensions whose text was overridden or that disagree with a duplicate. Findings are listed as errors, warnings or items to review, each with its rule, page, and expected and found values. For a PDF, findings that can be traced to a place on the page are outlined on an annotated copy you can download; your original is not changed.

The check is rule-based and reads only text and vector geometry. Scanned pages are not read, and the result says how many pages had no readable text. A DXF gets the list without an annotated file, rotated pages are not annotated, and files over 10 MB are refused. A check from the file card is shown on screen; to keep findings with a project, bring the drawings in as a set, as described below. Approval of the drawing stays with whoever signs it.

Bring in a folder of existing drawings

On the start screen, the first card under Your own work is Check drawings. Choose it. Pick a folder of drawings, or a set of files. Each subfolder becomes a project; files loose in the folder are grouped by the drawing number their names start with, and the rest are offered as one unplaced set. You see the proposed projects and what will happen to each kind of file before anything is created. Your files are copied and never changed.

Each project is created with its files attached, and every PDF and DXF up to 10 MB is checked, one at a time. The result is one table: projects down, and title block, parts list, profile match and dimensions across. A cell shows errors, warnings and items to review, or says Nothing raised, Not read, Not checked or Does not apply. A scanned drawing is shown as not read, never as clear. Each project's chat opens with a summary of what was brought in and found.

Before you start you can say what permission you have to use the files; if you do not, the record says Not stated. Each project keeps an import record of what was brought in, under project tools → Documents → Import record: each file's SHA-256 hash, every page or layout with whether it was read, partly read, not read or failed and why, the unit each file declared, and any unit conversion or assumed axis, stated rather than implied. Coverage is shown as counts and per-file states, so a set with one scanned page among readable ones never reads as clean. The record is written once when the files are brought in; checking a drawing again does not change it.

The findings are saved with the project. Open it and choose project tools → Documents to see Drawing findings: each drawing with its findings, the date it was checked and the ruleset used. For each finding choose Accept into the issue list, or Not an issue and say why. Decisions are kept as a history; changing your mind adds an entry and removes nothing. Download the issue list (CSV) gives the accepted findings to send to whoever draws. Check again reads a drawing again and replaces its saved record. Projects → Drawing checks shows the same table for your 40 most recently changed projects without checking anything again; the start screen links to it.

A DWG is attached but not read; save it as DXF to have it checked. One import makes at most 12 projects of at most 60 files each. Accepting a finding never changes a drawing. A project keeps at most 60 findings per drawing and 800 in all, and says how many it did not keep. The saved record is what your browser wrote down of a check, not a new check. Drawing imports run the standard rules. Approval of the drawings stays with whoever signs them.

Steel hall site handover

Open Steel portal frames in Nordform, sign in and answer the family’s opening questions, or choose Draw it now to inspect the default concept. The preview opens on the model when a version is drawn; on a narrow screen, select Chat and preview in the top bar. The preview shows the model; the row above the chat box opens Adjust, Checks, Drawings, Quantities and Deliver over it, and Model in the sheet's head goes back. Select a member in the model or list and choose Measure for its centreline length; this is not a cutting length. Modify opens family inputs, not individual-member fabrication editing.

Every other family in the workspace opens the same five sheets over its model. The model shows the family's parts in 3D — deck members, cabinet panels, a stand's walls, a pipe run, an apartment block's storeys — with Drawing one click away. These bodies are placeholder shapes at the positions the layout counts, and the note under the model says what is and is not drawn; they are not sized sections, and there is no Measure tool or part editing for them. Adjust lists the family's inputs over the model and redraws it as you change them; nothing is saved until you choose Save as version. Drawings lists each drawing the family writes, with an SVG download. Checks shows each verdict first and the long reading behind it on a click. Quantities shows the schedule with a CSV download and keeps its assumptions and exclusions in a separate list. Deliver lists each file with its format, what it is and a Download button. A version of any family can be shared for review from Deliver → Share this version: the reviewer sees that version's model in 3D with the drawing one click away, and the discussion. A comment written on the 3D view keeps that view, and Show view returns to it. Choose Scoped expert review as the review type to invite a verified expert, who records a decision and a signed statement of what was checked, what was not and the limitations; the invitation must share at least the review context. The expert can send a quote for the owner to accept or decline, as on a kit-house review. On a comment, the owner can choose Share change to pick another saved version of the same design; everyone in the review can then switch between Before and After and read which inputs differ. Pick a part on the 3D model before writing and the comment is tied to that part, which is highlighted when the comment's view is shown. Under Review workflow, findings are tracked as a case with next actions, and the owner can mark a finding resolved by naming another saved version of the design. The owner can choose Prepare and share this version’s package to give reviewers a zip of every file that version writes with a manifest of hashes; an invited reviewer records acceptance observations against it. The package is a concept package and says so; no engineer or fabricator acceptance is implied. Successor reviews, issue tracking under a finding, and the prepare-change workflow remain for kit houses.

In Deliver → Steel hall site handover, choose a workflow stage. Enter a reviewer/recorder name, then upload a private file or link an existing file on the displayed revision. Uploading alone never resolves anything. Select linked evidence, enter a rationale and choose Record resolution. Reopen blocker records another decision and preserves the history. The reviewer name and date are declarations; the recording account is checked when saved. Evidence and decisions do not transfer to later revisions.

Production and Erection accept supplied plans labelled unvalidated, and draft planning checklists with notes. These are self-reported planning records, not executable work instructions. Expand Audit history to inspect changes. Site handover assessment (JSON) includes the selected revision’s history and source-linked member records, but not the private file bytes; evidence availability must be rechecked in the workspace. Use the version arrows to inspect an earlier revision.

Under each stage, Worked example of this stage opens the same stage of a synthetic steel hall that was taken through all ten stages with approved sources and recorded demonstration decisions. It shows what the stage holds once that information exists: classified manufacturing items, production operations, work packages, shipments and erection steps. It is not your project and does not change your assessment.

The ten-stage assessment always says Blocked — professional validation required, even when every information gap has a recorded resolution. Deleted or unavailable evidence cannot support a new resolution. Empty downstream plans are not executable work packages. Fabrication details, equipment, loads, sequencing and professional approval come from the responsible engineers.

Include the purpose, approximate dimensions, site information, budget constraints and must-haves. Attach source documents that explain a constraint. Say which information is confirmed and which is an assumption.

Independent building concepts

Plain building prompts can draw a rectangular concept beyond the selected family's limits, keeping requested dimensions, storeys, material and a flat or pitched roof. Family mismatches appear beside the model instead of preventing the preview. The concept path supports wall openings, rectangular room partitions and a covered or uncovered terrace. Computational limits are 1–200 m per footprint dimension and 1–32 storeys; this is not arbitrary geometry.

These independent concepts have per-storey plans, geometric floor areas and a project backup. Kit production exports and checked quantities stay with kit revisions, and stairs, services, fittings and structural sizing are designed in a later step.

A short brief is enough to start. In the kit-house workflow, an explicit size outside the supported envelope needs a decision before design work can proceed. The envelope is at most 10 × 16 m per storey, with one or two storeys; a 500 m² single-storey house does not fit it. Clarification responses explain the limit, let you reply in the conversation and leave the design unchanged without consuming a generation. Plot suitability, daylight performance and engineering are assessed separately.

Before you start

• Sign in with an account; a guest cannot run a reading.
• The plans, elevations and sections of one building as PDF, PNG or JPEG: at most 12 sheets, 12 pages per PDF, 3 MB per sheet once rendered.

Steps

1. On the start screen choose Drawings to model under Your own work, or type /from-drawings in a chat.
   You should see Start from a drawing set. Choose the files; each page is rendered and shown as a sheet. Name the project, say what the drawings show if you like, and state your permission to use the files.
2. Choose Read N sheets.
   You should see Reading: the sheets go to the design service once, then every printed figure it used is cropped, enlarged and read again. Keep the window open.
3. Review the result.
   You should see the family the reading chose — kit house, steel portal frame or fabric hall — and every one of its inputs with what became of it: Read and confirmed enlarged, Assumed (scaled, counted or inferred), Uncertain · not applied when the two readings of a figure disagree or the crop could not be read, Refused · not applied when a value is outside what the family holds, or Not on the drawings · default. The assumptions, what the drawings show that the inputs cannot hold, and the sheets not read are listed beneath. The design is built in the next step.
4. Choose Start the project in ….
   You should see the project open on its first version, drawn from the inputs above. The originals are attached unchanged under Documents with an import record naming each file's hash and the pages that were and were not read, and the reading itself.

Scope

• Openings, loads, steel sections and tube sizes are not read; a schedule or specification states them, and they stay at the family's defaults for you to set.
• A set that fits none of the three families, or that read nothing, cannot be started from; the reason is shown.
• A house whose envelope is outside the kit is saved as a sketch, with checks, quantities and exports off until it fits.
• Forty reading calls per account in 24 hours; a set takes two. A reading is a concept starting point.

Check sheets before they go to a manufacturer

The same dialog can check issued sheets instead of starting a project: precast wall element sheets before they go to the element factory, and nail-plate truss order sheets before they go to the truss manufacturer.

1. Choose the sheets as above, then under What should the reading do? choose Check sheets before they go to a manufacturer and Check N sheets.
   You should see Reading: the sheets are read once, then each sheet's note block is cropped, enlarged and read again on its own. The second reading is given the labels to look for, never the first reading's values.

2. Read the findings.
   You should see one card per sheet:

   • whether the sheet states what its receiver needs (for an element sheet: exposure class, cover and allowed deviation, concrete class, reinforcement grade, embedded items, element weight and how it may be lifted; for a truss sheet: span, support material, spacing, quantity, service and consequence class, dead loads on both chords, snow and wind);
   • whether the values hold together (recognised classes and grades, a cover deviation smaller than the cover, leaf weights that add up to the stated total, a snow load that says whether it is the roof or the ground value).

   Each finding is one sentence. What was read shows every field as printed and as read enlarged; a field the two readings disagree on, or that could not be read, is Uncertain · confirm on the sheet, and the check asks you to confirm it rather than passing it. A sheet of another kind is listed as not checked.

3. Choose Copy findings to paste them to whoever revises the sheets.

Scope

• The checks follow one structural designer's practice. They are advisory: a finding is something to look at, never a verdict on the design, and nothing is shown as passed in green.
• They check what a sheet states and whether its values hold together, not whether the design is adequate. Cover is not checked against exposure class.
• Nothing is stored: no project, document or record is kept.
• The readings count towards the same forty calls a day.

The new-chat view shows up to three unread Updates below the prompt box. Failed generations and workspace or connection issues appear first, followed by recent activity. Click an update to open the related work and mark that notice read, or choose View all for the full list. Reading an update does not resolve a finding. Updates refresh while this view is open; these are not push notifications and do not change email preferences.

The model name beside the message box opens the available choices, including when only one model is allowed. Company admins manage these in Settings → choose the company → Models & keys. Membership and company policy determine the available choices.

In the massing board, Add module opens a dialog. Signed-in users can describe a module, request suggested dimensions, then review or edit its name, kind, dimensions and number of homes before adding it to the palette. The same massing-request allowance applies. Guests can enter dimensions manually. Suggestions must fit the 0.6 m grid; they are concept footprints, with no generated price or engineering assessment. Adding to the palette does not place a module on the board.

Under Data-centre campus in the modules panel, state the load per rack and the distance to keep from the boundary, and choose Test-fit three options. Each data hall is laid out by the data-hall family at that load, with a power block and a cooling plant beside it sized from assumed floor allowances per MW, and the halls are fitted on the plot along one axis, along the other, and as fewer, longer halls. The three become alternatives on the board, compared in MW of IT, and each says how many phases it has and what stopped it. It is a yield estimate on a stated basis: no roads, substation, generators or grid capacity are placed or checked. A company administrator can choose Start delivery packages beside an option; the link names the company, or lets you choose one when you administer several: a delivery project opens with the option's IT load and rack density as its design basis, packages for the site, data halls, power and cooling, and the interfaces between them waiting for each side to state its values.

Use Modules and Figures & edits to show or hide the massing board’s side panels. Hiding a panel keeps its inputs and the current study intact.

Select a block on the massing board to see its footprint and height in metres. Drag its red X or green Y handle to move along one axis, or enter X position and Y position and choose Apply position. These moves preserve storeys, snap to the 0.6 m grid and reject overlapping modules. Undo restores the previous position. Double-click a block to select its tower. Catalogue sizes stay fixed; Add module defines a different footprint. These are concept massing tools, not engineering checks.

Massing on real land

A massing board opened from a project placed in Finland shows the land under it, from the National Land Survey (CC BY 4.0). You need to be signed in. Under Site in the figures panel you can switch on or off:

• the aerial photo
• the terrain, from the 2 m elevation model in N2000 heights, about 0.3 m accurate
• the buildings around, from the topographic database, each drawn at its mapped storeys times 3 m
• the sun and shadows, for a date and a time on the Finnish clock

Set Ground floor at to the height of the lowest floor. You can also let the board balance cut and fill under the selection or under everything. Selecting modules on the ground shows the ground under them relative to that floor, and roughly how much soil a flat pad would dig out or fill. Where the ground falls about a storey's height across a footprint, the board says so.

When you ask for a massing, the planner is told about the ground and the nearest buildings. Google Maps and Street View open Google's own pages at the project's point. Nothing is read back from them.

These are concept readings: not a survey, not a foundation design, and not checked against the local plan. A plot wider than 400 m shows only its middle.

To try it without an account, open the demo's On real land tab. It is one plot in Kauniainen centre with the land stored in the page, played as a scripted agent run: the parcel, the aerial photo, the ground model and the mapped buildings are fetched in turn, a closed block is laid out inside the plot, the soil under the houses is read against a balanced floor level, and the sun is put where it stands on an equinox afternoon. Pause it and the plot is yours: ask for a change in words from the few kinds the page reads by rule, adjust the block, floor and sun by hand, or click a storey to walk in.

Info icons open supplemental explanations on hover, keyboard focus or tap. Escape dismisses them. Errors, unsaved-state notices and unresolved design issues remain visible.

Projects and libraries

All projects opens personal and company projects inside the workspace. Reviews, saved design reviews and decisions sit alongside the project list. Company project details retain their versions, files, activity and team permissions. Profile and personal data controls are under Settings; recipient-facing review and portal links keep their standalone views.

Settings → Library lists the families, skills and templates, context packs and MCP tools in one place, with a search box and filters by category, maturity, country and source. The switch on a row hides that item from your own pickers (the family list, the chat's Context menu and the skill menu); projects that already use it keep it. Settings → Library → Write a skill or template opens the skill editor. A company's own context packs are written under Settings → choose the company → Context packs: an owner or administrator publishes one alone, members then find it in the chat's Context menu under the company's name, marked Company pack · not reviewed, and a design keeps the version it was made with. A pack that claims compliance, approval or a permit outcome, or links a page it does not list as a source, cannot be published. The planner can quote a company pack, but it will not rest a regulation or engineering answer on one. Use /brief, /inspect, /change, /compare, /review or /handoff in a kit-house chat, or select a task in the composer controls. Company administrators can enable Lammi-opening and timber-material libraries and create company skills or request templates under Settings → choose the company → Libraries. The same page holds two short lists the planner reads on every run of the company's designs: what it never does for the company, answered as unsupported when asked, and up to six house rules, plain facts such as who makes the design and contract calls. House rules are context, never permission. Each save of either list is a new version, and older versions stay as they were. Availability follows the construction system and required context packs.

An adopted result in a kit-house chat offers Save as a procedure to a company owner or administrator. It opens that company's skill editor with the chat's first request as the starting point and each later request as a step, and it saves nothing until you save the draft. Save a draft, check its example requests for configuration and applicability, then publish a version. These example checks do not call an AI model or validate engineering results. Retiring a skill removes it from new requests; existing runs retain their admitted definition. Templates supply starting requests, not executable geometry. Handoff prepares a checklist; it does not send files or grant approval. Other product families keep their existing tools; these executable skill libraries currently cover kit-house concepts.

A signed-in project saves to the cloud each time you adopt a revision. The status beside Needs review shows saved, saving, unsaved, in conflict, signed out or offline. Unsaved dimension, brief and context edits stay in this browser only, and are offered back on the same revision with a Discard draft action. If another browser saved the project first, your save is refused and you choose between opening the latest version and keeping your copy as a new project. If your session ends, edits stay in the browser until you sign in again. A share or company role withdrawn while you were away closes when you return to the tab; your unsaved changes are kept.

Open Version history and choose Portable project archive to download a project archive that keeps its history, originals, references, studies and factory evidence. Restoring verifies file integrity and creates an independent private copy; review authority and sharing grants are not restored. Background archives are kept for 24 hours.

Open your name in the workspace header and choose Your profile, or open Settings → Edit your name and avatar. Save a display name or upload a JPG, PNG or WebP image up to 5 MB, cropped to a square. An uploaded avatar replaces your Google photo, and you can switch back.

Choose “Show a first concept” in the new-project opener to open an editable design using the displayed outline and default use and character. House concepts use the timber-frame system, which supports coordinated door and window edits. These defaults are recorded as starting assumptions. You can instead choose the details, compare three alternatives or write a brief. This is an unchecked starting concept. Manufacturer availability and regulatory answers come from the project's own source information.

Revisions includes Reuse a personal change. Choose a recorded adopted timber dimension change, name it and save it in your personal cloud library. Adjust its increments and inspect the before/after values, then request the checked change. The personal cloud library works across browsers, with explicit copying of older local recipes and refreshable removals. Recipes do not save approvals or bypass normal runs. Shared reviewed recipes remain a later step.

The estimate panel includes a window configuration and quote inspector. Enter a supplier source, price and validity dates against one opening; missing prices and frame dimensions stay unknown. Quote matching is separate from product fit. Personal projects support cloud saving: reopen exact dated offers across sessions and compare them with another selected revision without rewriting the source quote. Permitted product evidence can be downloaded; saving does not place an order or establish manufacturer acceptance.

Independent observations in expert and family reviews let invited reviewers record receiving CAD units, dimensions, agreed tolerance, file hashes, information loss and repair time. Out-of-tolerance measurements cannot be submitted as a passed receiving-tool task. Earlier reports without measurements remain explicitly unmeasured.

Chat recovery offers a checked repair for supported opening-addition conflicts after the normal correction attempt fails. Review the suggested move or width reduction and explicitly apply it. Locked values and named product widths stay fixed; unsupported combinations remain refused.

Conversation and history

The conversation shows your requests, design results and questions or failures that need attention. While a run is active, one status shows that it is updating your design. Stop it from the composer. Open Tools → Context to inspect the saved brief, or Version history for earlier responses and their source revisions.

Returned CAD comparison

Tools → Documents → Compare returned CAD includes an ASCII DXF comparison. Choose the actual original export and returned file, confirm each up axis and choose a comparison tolerance in metres. Missing file units require an explicit choice. Straight LINE entities with unique BUILDABLE identities can show endpoint movement, length changes and changed layer/material/section metadata. Duplicate or lost identities, unsupported entities and source IDs absent from the return remain visible; the tool does not guess geometry matches or recover native features. Download the complete comparison JSON with both file hashes and normalized line evidence. Files stay local and must be preserved separately. Selecting a revision does not verify that either file belongs to its package; comparison does not edit the design or establish engineering acceptance.

The front-page prompt continues into the new-project conversation. Keep your brief, choose the house family and confirm the country before choosing a construction system. Lammi, Lammitalo, kivitalo and stone-house requests suggest the Lammi block-wall system where it is offered. An unavailable system is explained before you choose an alternative.

For a two-storey starting point, choose Use the two-storey Kivitalo example. This is Nordform’s authored concept with block walls and openings, not a reproduction of an imported manufacturer model. Confirm the system, opening products and context modules, then open the concept. The questions do not use a generation. Your original brief and answers remain in the project conversation. Uploaded reference files are attached after these questions; keep the landing tab open until saving finishes. Module fit and concept geometry do not establish engineering approval.

Settings keeps preferences, credits, API access, notification settings and company administration together. Open your account menu at the bottom of the sidebar to choose Personal or a company; the button shows your active workspace. Company pages cover members and teams, model choices and keys, plans, kit records, connections, branding, activity and retention, according to your role and the company’s enabled services. Existing company and account links still open their corresponding pages.

Preferences → Appearance offers Light, Dark and Match the system. The choice is stored in this browser and also used by the operator pages. Context packs lets you search the available source packages; selections are made in the chat’s Context controls. Publishing and reviewing packages uses the existing operator tools. Company administrator permissions do not grant Nordform operator access.

Support gathers email support, help articles, public support pages, guides and API documentation. Support requests run through email.

In the workspace, the model starts with its structure visible. Open Layers and choose Exterior view to show the illustrative walls and roof, or Structure view to uncover the frame again. These presentation choices do not change the design, quantities or CAD exports.

The steel workshop demo has Exterior and Structure views. Jumping to a chapter pauses on a complete assembly; playback shows the sequence. The workshop is designed in three disciplines on one model: the steel frame, a staff room with a WC and doors and gable windows, and the building services, where the extract duct, the lighting and power circuits and the cold-water branch are laid out and sized by the product's duct, circuit and pipe kernels. One clash check runs over all three: it finds the bracing crossing the loading door, and after the bracing moves it finds the moved brace crossing the duct, which is then rerouted. The agents' turns are scripted; every size, length and clash comes from the code. The concept PDF has eight sheets: a roof framing plan, the two long elevations and the end portal frames, a floor plan, the gable elevations, and ventilation, lighting and power, and water plans. Members are drawn to their sample profile outlines, with grid bubbles, bay and overall dimensions in metres, eaves and ridge levels and member labels. Hidden members are dashed. The download adds IFC models of the duct, the circuits and the water branch and their schedules; partitions and openings are in the drawings and a room schedule, not in an IFC file. Connections, fasteners, base plates, drainage, hot water, fans, protective devices and every fire, escape, accessibility and building-code check are excluded. These are concept drawings, not fabrication details, services design or engineering approval.

In the drawing review example, scroll through the four synthetic sheets, open one and use Fit sheet or the zoom buttons to inspect it. Findings and review decisions are scripted. To check your own PDF, open Drawing QA in the signed-in workspace; the public preconstruction example links there and to the sample review.

Steel Platform engineering and drawing review

The integrated Steel access tool connects a platform, stair or tower's model, member verification, drawing checks and handover. In the pre-construction demo, the Steel Platform design tab opens a recorded synthetic reference; its buttons open saved evidence and run nothing. Signed in, a steel platform, stair or stair tower starts in the access platform conversation in the workspace. The chat asks the engine's inputs one at a time, in millimetres: the structure type, the height of the walking surface, the platform length and width, the stair width and angle, landing levels, environment, design load, handrail, grating and free-standing, a profile family and where the stair arrives. A typed value in metres is converted to millimetres and shown as such. Optional wind, guardrail and beam-restraint inputs are asked only if you say you have them, and each needs its source note; skipped inputs are left to the engine's own defaults. The answers are saved as one immutable version and the run uses your workspace allowance: 3D model, structural analysis, PDF and native DXF drawings, Drawing QA over the generated drawing artifacts and a handover, opened in the preview beside the chat. Sheet counts depend on the design; the recorded reference produces five PDF sheets and four DXFs. New generated drawing sets also include an isometric assembly sheet. Their member outlines share the 3D model's section definitions; connection plates, bolt layouts and weld details are detailed separately. Steel access in Nordform starts or continues a named project chat. The conversation is told in five steps: access need, layout, check and resolve, project evidence, and review and handover. Steps you have moved past fold to a line you can reopen, the step you are on is open, and the next one is offered as a reply. Moving past a step does not complete its checks: open findings stay on the Checks sheet. Beside the chat is the model, where you can select parts; checks, drawings with their drawing QA, quantities, the handover and the detailed inputs open over it one sheet at a time, with a way back to the model. Explicit dimension changes such as “Set height to 6 m” produce a proposal in chat; only applying it there saves and runs a new version. Review tasks group the frame, walking surfaces, foundations and engineering review, with detailed results and inputs available when needed. The detailed layout editor submits to the same saved-version run as the chat. Changing inputs creates a new version in that project; each version in the conversation reopens its run and evidence. Results keep their source revision and the viewer refuses an archive whose hashes do not match it. A declared input is retained with the run but leaves the engine's open source-verification items for engineering review, and capacity checks can also fail. The handover stays "Not released". The detailed layout editor also accepts a catalogue reference section for a member group that needs more capacity; the deterministic selector chooses a stronger section and reruns its checks in a new saved version. Engineering lists each open preliminary review item with its required next step. Source verification and engineering release stay with the engineer. Engineering inputs let you select first-order or elastic P-Delta analysis and record member-specific orientation, effective lengths and sourced LTB properties. The bounded checks include general LTB with supplied restraint/loading properties, class-1 I/H biaxial interaction, fin-plate block tearing, and steel anchor shear/tension interaction. Explicit foundation design data enables rectangular full-contact, bearing, sliding and anchor-envelope comparisons. These are checks of stated models and capacities: soil and concrete/anchor resistance derivation, actual connection local detailing, global guardrail load transfer, imperfections and applicable action combinations come from project engineering. Missing inputs remain review items. Preliminary findings link to later analysis evidence for the same design without changing the original findings or granting release. Free-standing tower generation includes collision-checked plan bracing below landing beams where its column layout permits it; decking is not assumed to act as a diaphragm. Member-capacity failures block the handover; an incomplete structural analysis adds a blocking review reason. Drawing-quality findings and unresolved engineering requirements are separate: a drawing check cannot approve a structure or release it for fabrication. Change an existing design in the workflow’s Inputs stage and generate a new version. The chat directs free-text change requests for an engine design to Inputs. Scripted ship and process stories, the fixed Finnoo study and recorded steel references are in Examples & demos.

In Review & share, choose Customer, Partner or Internal, then set the context slider from none to full saved context. The invitation preview names what the recipient can see; the server applies the same boundary to direct review links. Manage pending invitations and revoke an active grant from the same panel. Company and team shares use the same audience and context controls. Steel portal and pipe-run projects can be shared as revision-bound concept snapshots, labelled as concepts.

In a house chat, open Context just above the message box. Write a note such as “We’re a family of four; keep the living area open to the garden” and choose Keep as context. Click a saved note to edit or remove it, or switch it off to leave it out of the next request; switch it on again without retyping. The same notes are in Tools → Context, beside the design brief and the context packages.

Each change saves a new version and starts no run. Notes that are on go with your next request to the house designer; turning one off does not undo geometry already made from it. Earlier versions keep the notes and switches they had. Notes record your preferences. Projects in other families keep their own brief controls.

Before you start

• Sign in. The project must be saved to your workspace and its latest version open; on an older version the Site tool says “Site is project context. Open the latest version to change it.”
• Parcel outlines, ground screening and the 2 m height model are Finnish sources. They work only when your workspace has the National Land Survey key; without it the buttons say so.
• To read a zoning plan, plot map or soil report, have it as a PDF with a text layer.

Steps

1. Open Tools in the chat box and choose Site.
   You should see the Site panel with a field for an address, place or pasted map link.
2. Type an address and choose Find place, then pick the right result. Coordinates or a Google Maps link are placed directly.
   You should see the address, the municipality, the east and north on the ETRS-TM35FIN grid, and under Context packages from the location each package with the reason it was chosen. If packages were added, Review your proposed change opens: write a reason and choose Adopt & save revision to keep them with the version. For a UK site, choose the constituent country. England's sources are selected for England.
3. In Finland, choose Fetch parcel outline.
   You should see the parcel on the site plan with the house centred on it, and a notice giving the parcel's identifier and area and saying it is an index map, not a boundary survey. It comes from the National Land Survey's cadastral index.
4. Choose Fetch ground heights.
   You should see how the ground falls across the footprint and which source answered: the National Land Survey's 2 m model (N2000) where the workspace has its key, otherwise a coarse global model.
5. If your workspace offers it, choose Screen ground and terrain.
   You should see a summary of the land under the whole parcel: lowest and highest ground, relief, mean slope and the steepest spot from the 2 m model, the base and surface soils on the Geological Survey of Finland's 1:20 000 soil map with the share of the parcel each covers, bedrock from its 1:200 000 map, and any public ground-investigation points within 500 m.
6. Drag the house on the site plan, set Rotation, or choose Centre on parcel.
   You should see Site checks follow the house: distance to the boundary, footprint against adopted building rights, and snow and wind inputs. When the version has a saved room study, its ground-floor rooms are drawn inside the footprint and turn with it; they are a concept layout without wall thickness.
7. To read the zoning plan (asemakaava), plot map or soil report, attach it in Tools → Documents with Choose files. Back in Site, choose Read for site facts beside the file.
   You should see recognised values (building rights, storeys, boundary distance, roof pitch, soil strength, groundwater depth) as proposals with their source sentence, each with Adopt and Reject. Nothing becomes an input until you adopt it.

If it goes wrong

• “No place found for that”: add the town to the street address, or paste coordinates from a map.
• The municipality could not be looked up: type it under Municipality so the context packages can be selected.
• Fetch parcel outline is greyed out with “Parcel lookup is not configured”: the workspace has no National Land Survey key.
• Screen ground and terrain is greyed out: fetch the parcel outline first.
• A scanned PDF without text is not read for site facts.

The context packages are added for review; an expert verifies applicability, edition and the current building ordinance. The ground screening is from regional maps. Its concern levels, and one screening zone for the parcel as a whole, only sort sites for a closer look. It gives no earthworks volume, bearing capacity or foundation type, feeds no check, and always says a site-specific ground investigation is still needed. Ground snow load is not taken from the map: read it from the national annex and adopt it.

Open Tools → Rooms. Rooms lets you add and edit rooms; Examples offers two visual starting layouts and opens the chosen layout for editing. Import plan opens the plan reader. Requirements, paint tools, site studies, saved options and drawings are under More tools. Open Wall thickness, doors and furniture for construction settings. There is no save button: each edit that leaves a valid plan is saved as a new version after a moment, and the line at the top right says whether it is saved. A plan with two rooms on the same floor is not saved until that is fixed. Saved options lists each named layout at its newest version; give a layout a different name to keep it beside the others. Replacing the plan with an example asks for confirmation; earlier versions stay intact.

Use Model → Modify for openings, storeys and stairs, Tools → Rooms for the editable room study, and Tools → Site for site planning. In Rooms the floor is a board: drag on empty floor to draw a room, drag a room to move it, and use the handles of the selected room to resize it, or add a room by its use. A move that would put one room on another is not taken. The board is drawn the way the site plan is, with the front wall at the bottom. It shows each internal door with the way it opens, any furniture as faint outlines, and what a room is for under its area; doors and furniture are edited in Walls and furniture, and which way an outside door opens is not recorded. Rooms that are not rectangles keep their shape editor, and the board does not move walls or furniture. A door stays where it is when a room moves, in the wall its two rooms still share. A move that would take that wall away from under the door, or part the two rooms, is not taken, and the board says which door is in the way. Saved versions remain immutable; save or discard a model draft before changing tools. Model inspection includes selection, measurements, layers, cuts and element properties.

A building added beside the design becomes its own project on the same land, with the parcel, ground heights and adopted facts copied. The site plan shows every building on the plot. Two checks read them together: distance between buildings (8 m unless you adopt another figure from an authority document) and total footprint against building rights.

The guided starting interview at Help → New project interview asks where the building goes, then offers the systems available there. A new conversation also lets you select a construction system:

• Timber frame concept: ordinary sawn timber, offered everywhere.
• Lammi block wall: offered where Lammi sells, which is Finland. Measures the envelope and openings against Lammi's 200 mm module and counts blocks, core concrete and wall mass. A brief that says “kivitalo” or “harkko” pre-selects it. Adjust has a Wall block choice: LL400 (the default), LL500, EMH350, KK400, or the formwork blocks MH150 to MH300. The model, the block count, the bill of materials and the package use the block you choose. Formwork blocks have no insulation and Lammi publishes no U-value for them; their module lines are on the inner face, so the outside size changes with the wall. In a block-wall project, Quantities also lists what Lammi publishes for the chosen block: U-value where there is one, sound, fire and carbon class, the frame size each opening takes on the 200 mm module, the temporary props under each lintel while it is cast, and the casting lifts per storey. Other Lammi products are listed with their published figures but are not drawn or counted. These are figures read from Lammi's public pages, not confirmed by Lammi; no lintel or wall is sized.
• Skylark 150 reference envelope: openly licensed, offered everywhere, and marked unavailable until you name the CNC shop that will cut it. Naming a shop records a note only; nobody is contacted. The starting point is 4.572 × 6.372 m with 2.4 m walls and a 42° pitch, with no door, assembled floor or roof, or engineered joints.

Systems your country excludes are recorded with the design. To start from an example, open one on the catalogs and libraries page and choose “Make it yours”; examples have no complete layouts.

Before you start

• A project on the Skylark 150 reference envelope, with its latest version open. The system is unavailable until you name the CNC shop that will cut it (see Choose a construction system).
• An older Skylark revision needs a new successor revision before cloud runs.

Steps

1. Open Tools → Kit openings.
   You should see Place a kit window with Opening, Wall, First module (1-based), Window width (m) and Window height (m). In another system the tool says to use Model → Modify instead.
2. Leave Opening on New window, or pick an existing opening to move or resize it. Choose the wall and the first module, then Review window change. For an existing opening, Review removal takes it out.
   You should see Review your proposed change, comparing the saved revision with the proposed one.
3. Write a Reason for this change and choose Adopt & save revision.
   You should see the version count beside the project name go up by one.
4. To change the span, depth or wall height, ask for it in the conversation, for example “Make it 7.572 m long”.
   You should see a proposal with the new dimensions. Review its dimensions, wall blocks and cutting-sheet changes, then choose Apply this change.
5. Open the Deliver tab of the preview and download Revision package (ZIP).
   You should see a ZIP with the Skylark sheets described under Choose an export.

If it goes wrong

• “Choose a whole module position.”: enter a whole number for the first module.
• A message naming modules that cannot compose: choose another module or wall.
• “The selected opening is no longer in this revision.”: open the latest version and pick the opening again.
• Unsupported dimensions and unchanged proposals fail without spending a generation.
• The kit window tool places windows only; doors are not supported there.

Supported: spans of 3.372 or 4.572 m, depth steps of 0.6 m with the 0.372 m allowance, wall heights of 2.4 or 2.7 m, and the 42° pitch. The source's 2.1 m walls are below the editor's minimum. Existing openings are kept; the W-O-M-1 window can be added, moved, resized or removed, and any other opening needs an explicit edit. Door placement and access clearance on the W-O-M-4/5 entrance candidates are unverified.

Before you start

• The latest version open, with no proposal waiting. Modify is greyed out on an older version.
• The preview showing: choose Chat and preview or Preview in focus in the header.
• The Skylark kit is single-storey, so a two-storey design is built as a stick frame.

Steps

1. In the preview, open the Model tab, choose Modify and open Storeys & stair placement.
   You should see two cards, One storey and Two storeys, each with its eaves and ridge height.
2. Choose Two storeys.
   You should see a note that both storeys sit on the same grid, a ground-floor plan for the stair, and the Unsaved draft bar with Save version and Discard. Walls repeat above a 300 mm floor structure, and the wall height is the clear height of each storey.
3. Point at the plan where the foot of the stair should be, or use the arrow keys, and choose Across the width or Along the length.
   You should see a line giving the risers, run, width, the void in the floor above and the foot's position. The flight is sized at a 250 mm going with risers of at most 190 mm, and the floor above opens for headroom.
4. Choose Save version.
   You should see the version count beside the project name go up by one.
5. Choose View, then Ground, Upper or Stack, and switch Exploded on to pull the storeys apart.
   You should see the chosen floor, or the whole stack.
6. For a window or door in an upper wall, ask for it in the conversation, naming the wall and the upper storey, and choose Apply this change.
   You should see the opening on the upper storey. A door or window placed with Door or Window in Modify goes on the ground storey.

If it goes wrong

• “The stair flight … leaves the envelope” or “The top landing … leaves the envelope”: move the foot of the stair or turn it.
• Not what you wanted before saving: Undo, or Discard to drop the draft.
• Going back to one storey removes the stair and the upper-storey openings.
• Three or more storeys, split levels, mezzanines and basements are not supported.

The concept sheet gives a plan and quantities per storey; IFC has a storey per floor and DXF a layer per storey. Advisory checks read clear room height against 2.4 m and the stair against the Finnish usability decree. The concept shell, programme and budget still assume one storey.

Before you start

• Sign in and save the project to your workspace.
• To give a room an upper storey, the design needs two storeys first (Add a second storey).

Steps

1. Open Tools → Rooms.
   You should see Plan your rooms: the floor as a board, Add room and a button per use (Living or bedroom, Kitchen, Bathroom, Sauna, Hall, Storage, Technical), and the save state at the top right.
2. Drag on empty floor to draw a room, or choose a use to add one. For a room that is not a rectangle, open it in the list and use Draw a shape other than a rectangle. To paint instead, choose More tools → Paint room uses, paint the floor, and choose Propose … rooms from the paint; each connected painted region becomes one room.
   You should see the room on the board and in the list below it, or a line saying how many rooms were added from the paint.
3. Open the room in the list and set Use, and Storey on a two-storey design.
   You should see the use in the room's row and under its area on the board, and the save state reading Saved as a version.
4. Read Room checks below the list.
   You should see the advisory checks against the Finnish decree on dwellings: at least 7 m² for a habitable room, 2.4 m clear height, and a window light opening of at least a tenth of floor area from the envelope walls the room touches.

If it goes wrong

• “Not saved until the plan is valid”: two rooms on the same floor overlap. Move or resize one.
• A painted room that would overlap an existing one is refused: clear that part of the paint, or remove the existing room first.
• A move on the board that would put one room on another is not taken.
• Paint that cannot form one room is proposed as rectangles covering the painted cells.

Areas come from the outline, net of any stair opening. A fourth check reads whether doors join every habitable room to the outside; it needs a wall-aware layout (Wall thickness, doors and furniture), and a concept room without one is not assessed. No fire-safety requirement is read (escape time, exits, route widths). The IFC with rooms carries each room as a space with floor area and volume, grouped as one dwelling, but without the national room-use code, since no code list has been confirmed against these uses.

Before you start

• Sign in. The plan reader is in Rooms for personal projects.
• The plan as a PNG, JPEG or PDF, and one distance on it you know: a figured dimension, or a standard object such as a door.

Steps

1. Open Tools → Rooms, choose Import plan and choose the file under Plan image or PDF.
   You should see Start from a plan and the plan. For a PDF, set PDF page and choose Read page. Straighten a turned scan under Correct a turned scan or with Manual rotation (degrees); reading the page again resets the calibration.
2. With Pick on source on Known distance points, click two points a known distance apart and enter Known distance (m), or choose the object under The span is a known object. To check the scale, tick Check a second independently measured span and enter it.
   You should see the two points marked on the plan, and with a second span a line saying whether the two scales agree within the tolerance you set.
3. Set Pick on source to Opposite envelope corners, click two opposite outside corners, and choose Measure traced envelope.
   You should see Confirmed envelope width (m) and Confirmed envelope length (m) filled in from the drawing. On a PDF with text, Dimension candidates from this PDF page offers figures to Use as width or Use as length.
4. Tick I checked the two points and source dimension and choose Save calibrated source privately.
   You should see “Calibrated source added.”
5. Under Suggest enclosed regions, choose Find region candidates locally. For each real room, tick I identify region … as a room to correct, correct its dimensions, and choose Add confirmed region proposals.
   You should see “Confirmed regions added. Inspect the room dimensions.” Then name the rooms and set their use in Rooms.
6. To take the envelope from the plan, check the confirmed width and length and choose Preview envelope change.
   You should see Review your proposed change. Write a reason and choose Adopt & save revision.

If it goes wrong

• Save calibrated source privately stays greyed out: pick two points, enter a distance above zero, and tick the check box. If the two scales disagree, pick the points again.
• “Save a calibrated source first.”: do step 4 before step 6.
• Text, furniture and broken walls create false candidates: leave them unticked.
• Region candidates are bounding rectangles of light areas in the image, not recognised rooms; their fill percentage is not a probability of being a room.

Detection and English/Finnish text recognition run in the browser. Automatic wall and opening geometry and accuracy on real plans are not established. Internal doors show disconnected routes, and furniture footprints flag door-swing conflicts. The passage width you enter is a preference, not a compliance rule.

A compact selection card shows the selected opening or member and offers Ask about this, Properties and supported opening edits. Quick 3D, Plan and Fit controls stay on the canvas. A saved/proposed switch lets you compare geometry from the same camera without adopting it; adoption remains in the conversation. New browser preferences give the canvas more space while existing layout choices are retained. Independent concepts gain the same comparison flow, named room/wall/opening selection and Ask about this. Focus and Isolate change the view without saving geometry; choose apertures from the object list. To keep a dimension, say so in the request: “keep the width” holds it for that request. Changes and checks shows dimension and object changes with recorded checks or explicitly missing assessments. Proposals require an explicit adoption action, including single changes.

The model starts with a compact Select, Modify, Measure and View toolbar. Each action opens one panel beside the model, or below it on a narrow screen. Element browsing and tool search open on request; opening-specific actions appear after selection, and advanced operations expand under Move, align & repeat. Modify holds exact dimensions and opening moves, alignment, even spacing, mirroring and arrays in an undoable draft; Save version creates a new revision. Earlier versions and proposed alternatives remain read-only. Drafts survive closing the preview within the open workspace, but are not saved across reloads.

Element search and material filters support selection, hiding and isolation. View offers plan, orbit, walk, sections and slices. Measure pins dimensions and notes to their source revision. Find Review selected clearances in tool search to review clearances among 2–30 selected elements using concept member boxes: normal framing joints can appear as touching pairs, and finishes and connection details are not included. Other design families retain their existing tools.

Exact concept properties

For independent rectangular building concepts in the workspace, select a room, window or door and open Edit properties. Enter room width, length and position, or aperture width, height, offset and sill in metres. Preview change keeps an unsaved draft with the affected wall or room highlighted. Compare with the saved source, undo edits or discard them, then choose Save version to preserve the source and create a new version. Drafts survive closing the preview inside the workspace; save before reloading. Boundary and same-storey overlap checks apply to edited objects. These checks do not assess circulation, structure, regulations, saleable area or cost. Earlier versions and proposed alternatives remain inspection-only.

Floor cutaway and room schedule

For independent rectangular concepts, choose Storey and Floor cutaway to inspect one floor in 3D. The cut sits 1.2 m above that storey's base; the roof, other storeys and terrace are hidden from this view. Whole building restores the complete model. These controls change the view only.

Open Rooms to see each room's storey, dimensions and rectangular geometric area. Selecting a row reveals that room's floor; picking a room partition in 3D or a room in Drawings updates the same selection. Plan rooms work with Enter and Space. Draft edits update the plan and schedule, and comparison shows the displayed source or proposal. Area is width × length, including illustrative boundary partitions; it is not net or saleable area, and overlapping rooms are not deducted. No room is inferred where none is defined.

Every proposal requires explicit adoption.

A valid change becomes a new version when you adopt it, with its source revision preserved. When you request alternatives, choose the one you want. The conversation reports the change and offers up to three next-action pills based on failed checks and the proposal’s unresolved decisions. Successful check counts stay out of the conversation; failures leave the design unchanged and offer a corrective request. Detailed evidence remains available in the check tools. Suggestions help choose a next step; they do not assess every missing building system or establish engineering approval.

When choosing what fills the openings, search the available product families by their displayed name, size or description, and filter doors or windows. The selected family stays selected while you browse. Recorded dimensions and missing information remain visible; a catalogue entry is not manufacturer approval of the design.

1. In Estimate → Supplier requests and offers, prepare a supplier request from a revision package (made in Review & share) and a saved estimate, then create a private response link for the supplier. Creating a link sends no email and places no order.
2. The supplier enters a quotation against the fixed request, or you record an offer manually.
3. Compare offers on quantities, currency, lead time, delivery, tax, validity and exclusions; unpriced lines are shown.
4. To use a fully priced current quote as a budget allowance, acknowledge its exclusions and substitutions, and replace any existing line to avoid double counting.

Response links are created and revoked under Estimate → Supplier response links. Replies, assignments, supplier activity and prices about to expire are listed under Review & share → Project activity.

In Plan, expand Opening schedule below the plan figure. Select an opening from the table to highlight it and edit its dimensions. Counts follow the displayed design; added, changed and removed openings are compared with the previous saved revision when one exists. This is a rough-opening schedule without prices.

The design uses metres and a Z-up coordinate system internally. Display units can change in Settings. Confirm units in the receiving application after importing an export.

Measure opens with Element size: click an element for its length and section dimensions. Between points shows live distance and X/Y/Z offsets, with snapping to visible element corners. Use Clear to start again or Escape to close. Clearance finds the minimum gap between two element boxes; touching or overlapping boxes report zero. These are concept dimensions and exclude finishes, joints, end cuts, illustrative layers and imported reference lines. Unsaved measurements reset when the displayed design changes. Exploded floors return to assembled positions while measuring. The compact view menu keeps Plan, Model, Walk and Section together; Slice cuts the model and Fit brings the design back into view.

Select an element or a set of elements to Hide or Isolate them. Show all restores them; these controls change only the current view. The illustrative shell steps aside during isolation or hiding. Fit frames the visible elements.

Save dimension captures a measurement and optional note against the open saved version. Adopt proposals and save draft geometry before capturing dimensions. The project retains the original coordinates and geometry identity; captures are marked historical when the displayed geometry differs and never silently move onto a changed design. Open the source version to see its saved dimensions. Archive hides a capture and Restore brings it back. Up to 200 captures are retained per project, including archived ones. These captures sync with the project and remain concept inspection records; shared review annotations, drawing dimensions and engineering clearance checks are separate capabilities.

Open the interactive demo for the steel workshop, with plant and shipbuilding stories in the first group of the example menu. The earlier timber study remains available by direct link. The drawings story, opened by its own link and not listed in the demo menu, plays a six-chapter story over four synthetic drawings of one platform: the folder, what the reader read and where, a parts-list and callout mismatch placed on the sheet, every drawing against every rule group, two decisions recorded with a reason, and the issue list and marked-up copies handed back. The reader's and the rules' results were produced beforehand by the real drawing check and are shown as they came out; the order and the two decisions are scripted, and the request in words maps to a fixed result. It checks no drawing of yours and approves nothing. The Pre-construction tab is a read-only walk through a synthetic steel hall after design approval: ten information stages from design baseline to site handover, with each object traced to its manufacturing item, shipment and erection step. It uses no customer data and verifies no fabrication, delivery or site readiness. Each handoff offers a PDF plan and four elevations to open or download, plus geometry and quantities from the handoff revision (revision 03 for the steel workshop). Timber includes roof overhangs and full-height opening king studs; steel includes door jambs and a head member. The steel and masonry comparison switches between revisions at the same camera, and the masonry legend identifies added or recut blocks. Design workflow progress, collaboration and the steel agent narrative are scripted in these presentations. The close-up steel connection is an unverified illustration, excluded from CAD exports. The steel workshop is drawn with cladding, a roof and a yard so it reads as a building; those surfaces are presentation only and are in no schedule, check or export. The masonry shell is likewise shown under a roof at the start and the end of its story, on a slab in a yard, and the fabric hall with a door, on a pad in a yard; none of these is laid out by the product or included in any count or file. The fabric hall story also takes a request of your own: press a suggestion or type one (bays, span, snow load, a tube size). A phrase reader, not a language model, places it on the hall's inputs, the same code that draws the story computes the new hall, its change from the first delivery and its frame check, and a request the reader cannot place is answered with a sentence saying so. The demos run without an account and do not change your projects.

A fourth tab, Block, plays as an agent run over a live kernel. A written brief goes in, and scripted specialists answer it in turn with typed proposals — the plot, the house types, the block form — which the module kernel lays out and counts on the spot: apartment blocks read from their developers' public sales brochures, in a city block closed round a yard (umpikortteli) or open in rows (avokortteli). The orchestration is scripted and no AI model is called. Pause it and ask for a change: the page reads a few kinds of request by rule rather than as language — open or close the block, set the plot's width or depth, choose the house types — or use the same controls by hand, and the difference in homes, floor area and efficiency is computed from the layout before and after. Click a storey of any house to lift the floors above it off, then a flat, then a room. The downloadable study file is the massing board's own format and holds only the modules; facade tones, balconies, roofs, streets and trees are presentation.

It is geometry and counting. The outline of each floor is measured from the brochure; the flats, stairs and party walls on it are even divisions of ours, chosen so they can be counted; and the rooms inside each flat are a diagram dealt by one rule, not the architect's plan — no door, window, shaft or wall thickness is drawn and nothing is counted from it.

The gaps between houses are figures of ours, with no daylight, fire, parking or plan rule read for them. Neither the developers nor the architects had any part in it, and each house says what was read, what was measured and what is ours. The page runs one of the apartment-block family's checks, the lift required from the third storey under decree 241/2017 § 7, on each house's storey count and stated lift; the family's other checks are in the workspace rather than on this page.

In a real house preview, choose Garden under Layers (or Appearance → Look → Garden presentation in the public viewer) for the same warm background, trees and shadows. Garden scenery is illustrative and appears in PNGs and local fly-by exports; it never changes CAD, quantities or engineering scope. Camera movement remains under your control.

In the workspace, open Tools → Review & share. Choose a recipient, Customer, Partner or Internal preset, then adjust the context slider: the version’s interface only; saved model and scope; review discussion; explicitly shared documents; or the saved revision’s brief and selected context references. Enter the fixed scope to create a 14-day invitation and copy its link without leaving the workspace. Model-only invitations are view-only. Interface only is a model-only share that shows no model at all: the recipient sees the version’s outer box, its connection points, the support loads its equipment makers state and the spaces that must stay free, worked out from the saved version each time it is opened, never its parts, inputs or quantities. Connection points, loads and free spaces are stated for data halls and power blocks so far; for every other design the interface is the outer box, and the page says what is not stated. When a design in another company reads a design you shared as its interface only, and both sides confirm the link, it is told when a newer version changes the interface: which connection points moved or changed, which stated support loads changed and by how much, which free spaces changed and whether the outer box changed, against the version it reads. A newer version whose interface is unchanged tells that confirmed link nothing. In personal cloud family projects, Deliver → Shared interfaces offers a separate source-review workflow: choose an interface shared with your company, inspect its envelope and stated connection points, loads and clear spaces, then explicitly save the source version reference and hash. Reopening requires current source access. Compare with latest shared version re-reads both versions and shows their interface differences; saving the newer reading adds a record. After saving a reading, Follow changes optionally requests confirmation from the source owner. Confirmed following sends notices when the shared interface changes; unchanged interfaces stay quiet. Open the followed reading, compare versions, save a newer reading and choose Follow this version to update the pin. Stop following retains saved readings. Each project has one following link: a project already following a structural host can save and compare interface readings but cannot also follow one. The structural host picker excludes interface-only sources, and no structural kernel recalculates from them. The audience does not grant editing, company membership or private-library access.

Invitations bind to the selected saved revision, excluding unsaved edits. Existing invitations retain their previous model, discussion and explicitly shared document access. Reissuing an invitation rotates its link and requires acceptance again. Review and document management opens separately; scoped expert review remains available and requires at least review context. These controls do not enable reviews for independent sketches or local-only product families.

The review page places the conversation beside the model on larger screens and below it on phones. People have initials avatars, replies stay in their thread, and feedback status uses a small menu.

Timber-frame comments include the current camera view when 3D is available. Show view restores that angle. After preparing, adopting and saving a change from a comment, the owner can choose Share change and explicitly share its model with that review. View change opens a Before/After switch in the same viewer. The comparison uses saved inputs and the current concept kernel; it does not compare historical job artifacts. New comments remain on the original reviewed revision. Earlier decisions and engineering approval do not transfer to the changed model. Other construction systems retain their existing previews.

In a process-plant family project, Adjust → Routing branches optionally joins existing compatible streams with tees. Choose a branch-from or join-into line, then use the normal revision save. The choices keep the same medium and shared source or destination, with branch size no larger than the header. Invalid or cyclic choices are refused; the router may still report an unavailable route. Successful routes feed the existing per-line PCF exports. Pipe sizing, pressure ratings, stress and supports come from the piping engineer.

The process plant demo plays a six-chapter story over a hydrogen-to-methane chain that runs in your browser: the brief, the generated P&ID, equipment set out either side of a central two-tier pipe rack, lines routed from each nozzle up to the rack tier for their service, along it and down to the next nozzle, a change asked for in words, and the hand-off. The agent run in the side rail is scripted orchestration and no model is called, but every count, drawing and 3D route on the page comes from the chain as it runs. Pause at any point to orbit the model, open the P&ID, plant view, isometric, PCF or trace, or ask for a change to the hydrogen line's stated size: a small phrasebook turns a request such as “Increase the hydrogen line to DN 200” into one typed operation, the chain runs again, and the page shows what changed, computed from the two results. Upsizing that line changes the routing order, so three lines find new routes; a further increase changes only its fittings. A request it cannot read is answered with the changes it can make. Playback has pause, scrub, restart and optional looping, and respects reduced-motion preferences. Equipment shapes, rack steelwork, pipe posts and the site are presentation: the rack is a reserved route with no structure designed, the units stand inside the layout's assumed envelopes, and pipe sizes are stated, not calculated. Sign in and choose Process plants in the workspace library for bounded P2M scenarios, calculated balances, revision history and downloadable revision packages. You can retain the latest scenario inputs in this browser and recompute them when reopening; exact output is retained in downloaded packages. Edit scenario inputs reopens the controls after you hide them. Changed inputs are marked as unapplied until you generate a revision; Discard input changes restores the displayed revision’s inputs. Revision-package downloads wait until the displayed model matches the inputs. For cloud projects and shared reviews, start a process-plant family project. Hydraulic sizing, hydrogen safety and engineering approval come from the responsible engineers.

The Blocks demo also offers an experimental Finnoo 31126 study, based on supplied 2022 planning documents. Compare apartment count with estimated apartment net area inside five manually traced building regions, inspect source apartment volumes in 3D with a floor cut and download the study as JSON. The reference study searches YIT Suvikulma and Peab Haspeli typical floors first, then fits unchanged source apartment shapes where a complete floor does not fit. Haspeli polygons come from native brochure vectors; Suvikulma boundaries are manually interpreted. Boundaries, map calibration and source-plan interpretations are unverified; the result is the best sampled layout rather than a global optimum. New apartment assemblies use assumed core/corridor space and conservative packing reservations. Ground floors, circulation and cores are reserved; parking figures express demand, not a fitted parking layout. This scenario does not verify current planning status, detailed apartment design or engineering. The same local study is available from the Masterplan entry. Click through block, building, floor and apartment, or use the hierarchy menus and breadcrumbs. Selecting a level isolates it in the view. Whole-building moves keep apartments together, check boundaries and overlaps, and support local undo/redo. Room counts are visible. Its review workspace accepts source-linked zoning and plan-library JSON, blocks unresolved inputs, compares permitted reviewed floorplates and exports an evidence package.

Check results stay visible alongside the saved response. Each finding shows its status, scope, sources and any next action without an expansion step. A passed parameter check is not engineering approval.

Who is here now

Hover over, focus or tap the presence avatars in a saved design’s header to see active windows, activity and saved versions. Company designs show members with current design access; personal projects show only your own windows. Shared review pages have their own roster, visible to the owner and accepted reviewers of that exact review. The project list marks a project with a ring while a reviewer is in one of its reviews; you appear in that review’s roster only once you open it.

Presence refreshes every 15 seconds, and inactive windows expire after 45 seconds. A connection failure is shown explicitly. Members of a shared project also see each other's pointers and selections live in the design. Each save is its own version. On a company design, a save that changes different parts from a version saved meanwhile is combined with it; one that changes the same part to a different value is not saved, and you choose which value to keep.

Open Storyline in the project tools to read the saved history, recorded feedback contributors and iterations. Documents connects originals and manually imported meeting minutes to that history. Open a source, review the requirements in Context to apply, then choose Apply context. This saves a new revision without generating geometry. Later design requests include your selected summaries; removing context affects later revisions while earlier ones retain it. Summaries are working notes for later design requests.

Related work keeps links to your other saved projects or external references. Linking does not apply their contents or change access. Meeting imports accept pasted minutes or text/Markdown exports, and Meetings can connect a notetaker with your provider API key.

Decisions & notes shows the project's record on a timeline by date: recorded and reversed decisions, meetings, saved versions and notes, grouped by month and day. Drop a text or Markdown file of meeting notes onto it, or paste them, give the meeting its date and it joins the timeline; this needs a project saved to your cloud account. When a meeting has a summary, each line it calls a decision has a Record as a decision button. Nothing is recorded until you press it, the record is yours and cites the meeting, and it changes no geometry. Word and PDF files are not read; export notes as text first.

In a cloud-saved personal engine hall, boiler house or process-plant family project, open Deliver → Existing plant and rebuild. This optional study keeps the design unchanged. Choose PDF, PNG or JPEG drawings, read them, review the interpreted outline, equipment and main lines, then explicitly save the reading and its private source originals. Printed dimensions receive a second crop reading; disagreements remain uncertain and are excluded. Skipped sheets, assumptions and missing information remain visible.

Choose a saved reading and open Assess a rebuild. Select an accessible published equipment version, enter its position in metres and rotation, and assess the placement. The plan shows existing equipment and the proposed placement. Save an assessment to retain its source reading, design revision and equipment snapshot. Reopening recalculates findings with the current checks; the JSON download includes findings and sources.

Each assessment places one new unit and can name existing units proposed for removal. These are coordination findings for an engineer, not demolition instructions, structural design or a site survey. This panel supplies no crane reach or structural capacity, does not change the design geometry, and does not store archived calculation results. Company-design versions and independently accepted real-plant drawings are outside this workflow.

Every proposal requires explicit adoption, including a single change.

1. In timber building scope, ask for window, door and envelope edits, or for two or three alternatives.
2. Select an element to target it, and lock dimensions or openings that must not change.
3. In the workspace, inspect the proposed geometry and choose its adoption action to save a new version. Earlier revisions remain available. Preview alternatives before choosing which to use.

Open Earlier design responses in the conversation to inspect saved replies, assumptions, alternatives, recorded decisions and failures by source revision. Load earlier pages for longer histories. These records are read-only; opening them uses no generations. Missing old artifacts cannot be reconstructed.

Open Compare all alternatives on a response with two or three options to compare dimensions, openings, preserved locks, concept frame quantities and recorded checks together. In an active timber response, choose a saved estimate as a shared pricing scenario. Missing rates remain unpriced; the subtotal covers the concept frame, not the whole house.

When adding an opening in plan intake or review changes fails horizontal clearance, inspect up to two valid moves or width reductions. Choose one to update the draft, then use the existing preview and adoption flow. Existing openings stay fixed, named product widths are preserved, and product fit and engineering assessment remain separate.

In a house chat, adopting a proposal that changes the load path (the width, length, wall height, roof pitch or overhang, the storey count, the stair or the openings) first asks the same three questions as a download, once per version. Leave them open and it is adopted all the same; an answer is saved as a decision on the new version. A room-only change is not asked.

Proposals show their changes, editable assumptions and unfinished work. An independently useful supported part can proceed while an unsupported part remains listed as unfinished.

Downloads use your saved revision until you adopt. Checks available today: geometric bounds, opening clearances and frame integrity. Header sizing, manufacturer connection rules and site-specific engineering are not assessed.

Open People → Access & invites to invite an email address to a review of the current version, with view or comment permission and a 7-, 14- or 30-day expiry. Existing invitations show their acceptance and expiry state and can be revoked. You can also share the version with a team in one of your company workspaces, with the same choices: view or comment, and a 7-, 14- or 30-day expiry. A team that can view sees the version’s geometry, or, if you set What the team sees to Interface only, just the version’s interface. A team that can comment also opens that version’s review and comments in the same threads as invited reviewers; the context level decides what else of the review it sees. Future versions stay private, and removing the team share ends the team’s access straight away. A team that can comment finds the review in its own Your reviews list, marked with the team, the company and the date the share ends, and it leaves the list when the share ends or the person leaves the team. Its members are told about new comments in Updates as invited reviewers are, and by email only if they turn on Comments and mentions on reviews shared with you. At context level 2 or higher they can add their own cloud documents to the review, as an invited commenter can. The review’s owner sees each team share beside the invitations: when it was made, when it ends, how many members the team has and when one of them first commented. Review cases, portals and package grants retain their separate management screens.

In a review comment, type @ to mention someone. The list offers only people who can already see that review: its owner, invited reviewers whose access is live and the members of a team whose share lets them comment. Nobody else is listed or can be mentioned, and the server checks each name again when the comment is saved. A mention shows as a highlighted name in the comment and sends that person an update; it does not share the review with anyone.

Here now shows activity in the workspace, refreshed every 15 seconds. A personal workspace’s live list covers its owner’s other windows. Reviewers and team members use separate pages and are not counted here. Presence shows activity and grants no access.

In the project list, a dot before a title marks a project that asks for something. A solid dot means an unread update is waiting for it: a comment, a finding, a finished or failed run. A ring means somebody is in it right now: a reviewer in one of its reviews, or another window of yours. Hover over the dot to read which. The mark refreshes with presence, every 15 seconds, and a project you have open in this window is not marked for your own sake.

In a revision’s discussions, Notes on the plan shows numbered markers for saved notes. Choose one to read the text and highlight its source element when available. Markers belong to the open revision; the plan projection can overlap notes on different storeys.

The Overview combines measurements and the estimate with versions, decisions and people. The expand/minimize icon switches between a compact summary and a floating panel; the dock icon opens a full-height sidebar. The conversation uses the same controls and both panels can be dragged to either edge, or moved with arrow keys on their handles. On a wide canvas a docked panel makes room beside the model; on a narrow canvas it opens over it. Center conversation places the conversation and its composer together in the middle of the preview, including compact and full-height modes. A centered conversation overlays the model; use its handle to return it to either edge. The browser remembers your placement. Needs attention appears when the loaded record has unresolved notes, findings, requirements, stale evidence or undecided options. Your run allowance is in the profile menu under Credits & usage. Estimates keep their stated scope and are not quotations. The version list shows the status each version was issued. Compare opens the versions and their comments beside the model; Get a review opens the expert review tools, with what a structural safety audit would need folded under them. A version's status says "Concept · not checked" until a check has run, and nothing in the workspace indicates engineering approval.

Save the design first. Keep each thread tied to that version, describe the concern and identify the desired outcome. If the direction changes substantially, fork a revision to explore it separately.

In project tools, open Version history and expand Compare revisions. Choose the earlier version under From and the later one under To; the Change brief line counts what moved between them. Download PDF saves the brief and Open page shows it in the browser. It lists each changed input with its before and after values, changed frame quantities, check results that changed, and comments opened or closed in between. Both versions' hashes are printed on it, and the same pair always gives the same document. It is a summary for the review, not an approval.

Frame members are compared for timber-frame projects only. Product-family projects such as the steel portal and tanks do not have a brief yet. Briefs are not kept in the project's files; make one again when you need it.

1. Save the revision. Checks from an AI generation apply to its proposal, so adopt it, save and run checks on the new revision.
2. In the panel over the model, choose Get a review. Compare shows versions and their comments side by side.
3. Share the exact revision, brief, site information, open questions and the files for the agreed scope. Keep each comment thread tied to that version and state the outcome you want.
4. An invited reviewer opens the link in the invitation and is signed in as that address; no account set-up is needed. In an expert review or a family review, they can record observations against the exact package hash.

An ordinary review opens on the model and its comments. Shared files and recorded decisions appear once there are some; Share a file beside the comment box grants a file from your private cloud documents. Expert and family reviews also carry the Review workflow: findings, package follow-up and independent observations.

A verified expert must state what was checked, what was not assessed and the limitations before signing. A statement names one revision and does not carry over to a later one. Retrying a submission does not create a second sign-off.

Under Who answers for this in the same panel, record who commissioned the work, who owns it, who reviews it and which professional may release it, with the disciplines included and what is excluded. The release status is read from the sign-off, never typed in: until a named professional signs the current revision, the design is a concept. Nordform prepares and checks design information; it holds none of these roles.

In a company project, an editor can grant an external reviewer one exact baseline without company membership. The grant closes on expiry, revocation or loss of the editor's authority, and the notification email carries nothing of the design beyond its name and the scope.

Find a Nordform expert · Open the learning hub

1. Adopt the change and save the new revision.
2. Start a new review of the saved revision. In an expert or family review, prepare the successor package and link it to the original from the Review workflow. Participants and approvals are not carried over.

An owner's resolution, a passed check or a customer's acceptance never counts as the reviewer's acceptance.

In a personal project, Tools → Decisions & notes includes an optional Assumptions section for reviewing suggestions from recent saved AI responses or record an assumption yourself. Confirm the decision, measurable value and unit, check date and evidence source. The person tracking it owns the check. Correcting a suggestion keeps the original extraction; amending approved terms keeps the earlier version.

In the open project, a due check is marked Check due in the Assumptions list. Record an observed value and evidence reference to compare against the original threshold. Missing evidence stays unknown with an explicit next check date. A failed assumption identifies the decision to revisit; it does not change the design or grant approval. Earlier observations remain in the history.

Suggestions are read from up to three recent successful workspace responses, on request. Existing design work needs no new setup.

Due checks in your updates, and portable history

For projects saved to your cloud account, due and failed checks also appear in Project updates, even when the project is closed. The list is refreshed every five minutes and whenever the workspace loads your updates, using the UTC calendar date. An update opens Decisions & notes at the exact assumption. A check leaves the list once a result shows it holds, it is rescheduled, its terms are amended or its decision no longer stands; a failed result stays there as a prompt to revisit the decision. These updates are never emailed and add no email subscription.

In Assumptions, open Export history to download one JSON file per original assumption, including later amendments, source excerpts and results. The file names stay the same between downloads, so you can compare them in Git or another tool. This export is for inspecting history; use the project backup for a complete design copy.

The family file lists offer a Nordform review package with a cover letter, drawing register, logo and bottom title blocks. With a saved project, it includes the selected revision's ancestry and owner notes; frame families add source-derived 2D/3D views, enlarged references and parent-change drawings. An export-only record identifies its supplied files by a snapshot hash and explicitly says when design history is unavailable. Housing review packages retain the system-specific drawings and their scale conventions. The timber, steel and masonry demos include A3 drawing sets with an axonometric sheet, cover/register, recorded changes and scope notes.

The optional issue dialog saves a local, verifiable record of the preparer, nominated checker, intended recipient and purpose. It does not send the file or grant approval. Original machine exports are unchanged; these are concept review documents, not construction or fabrication releases.

In a personal cloud family project, open Checks → Company rules and choose a company and a published version. Review company rules combines that version with the published rules: an explicit replacement names the exact rule version it replaces, while other rules remain in the report. Missing facts remain unknown. If needed, open Additional stated facts to supply the values the company rules request, in their declared units. Values read from the design cannot be overridden.

Company administrators can expand Publish company rules to upload a typed ruleset JSON file, inspect its scope and source declarations, then publish an immutable version. Corrections require the next version. Current company members can read published versions. These are the company's stated rules, with source declarations supplied by their author; publication is not independent verification or engineering approval. Draft and expired rules do not replace published rules.

Save review inputs retains the design revision, published ruleset reference and stated facts. Saved company review recalculates with those inputs and the current reader; it requires current company access and does not archive the earlier results. Return to published rules restores the ordinary checks. This optional workflow does not change design geometry or drawing-import checks.

Saved industrial alternatives

In an engine hall or boiler house, expand Tender comparison and estimate, then Saved alternatives. In a process plant, expand Comparison and estimate, then Saved alternatives. An editor can name the shown saved revision and optionally choose a rate table already saved to the design. Keep alternative retains those choices. This works for personal and company-owned designs; current readers can reopen and compare retained alternatives.

Select two to four alternatives for quantities, current checks and priced subtotals, or download the comparison workbook. Each alternative keeps its own revision and rate-table reference when newer versions or rates arrive. Missing prices and unit mismatches remain visible, and currencies stay separate. Results are recalculated with the current kernel from the pinned inputs; they are not archived historical check results. Up to 100 immutable alternatives can be retained. Keeping a company alternative also consumes one of the design’s 100 company revisions. To change a choice, keep a new alternative. This saved comparison flow covers engine halls, boiler houses and process plants.

Process comparisons show equipment envelope count, layout footprint, envelope volume, straight pipe length and placed piping components. Footprint is the XY bounding rectangle of equipment envelopes, including gaps; volume sums their assumed boxes without deducting overlaps. Pipe length aggregates modelled straight components across nominal diameters. Unrouted lines and unplaced items are reported separately. Expand the source and check details for quantity assumptions. Imported drawing overlays, structural-host checks, building quantities, supports and material mass are excluded from this comparison.

Company equipment designs and interface items

Start an engine hall, boiler house, process plant, pipe run, electrical-circuits design, steel portal, skid frame, access platform, fabric hall, roof truss or foundation from the company project list by choosing Design type. Editors use the same preview and Adjust controls; each save creates a company version, and viewers cannot save. Hall comparisons, saved rate tables, company-rule review records and saved shared-interface readings are available to editors. These designs remain company-owned. Company steel portals, skid frames, access platforms, fabric halls, roof trusses and foundations can also supply structural members to a process, pipe or electrical design through its existing host chooser. The reading pins one accessible source version; updating the source does not replace the saved host. Editors can also save plant drawing readings and rebuild assessments, and import KKS/DEXPI sources into process plants. Originals stay with the company design and downloads require current design access. Drawing reads use a model provider and are refused for confidential company designs; deterministic process-file review remains available. Company editors can use Follow changes on a saved shared-interface reading. The source side confirms the link; changed interfaces then notify current readers who still have source access. Readings remain pinned until an editor explicitly saves and follows a newer version. Stop following keeps saved readings. Confidential company designs cannot request following. Company engine halls, boiler houses, process plants, pipe runs and electrical circuits also offer a collapsed Interface register in Deliver. Editors prepare a frozen workbook/JSON package and issue all its items to selected existing design readers. Recipients open that version’s register to return an overall code or individual item responses; approval with comments and rejection require a reason. Responses are immutable and stay with that issue. Issuing grants no new access, and downloads and responses require current design access.

New readings under Shared interfaces include the placed equipment interfaces of engine halls and boiler houses: stated ports and support loads, and spaces to keep free. Placeholder equipment may state none. Earlier saved readings retain their original projection; the wider coverage does not rewrite their hashes. Process-plant readings also include the schematic layout’s connection positions, directions, media and nominal sizes. These are concept connections, not maker-certified nozzles; support loads and equipment clearances are not supplied. Internal routes, the complete P&ID and source files are not shared.

Issuing a personal hall register issues all its frozen items to the selected existing reviewers. In the review’s shared files, Review register items lets a recipient choose an item and return an immutable approval, approval with comments, or rejection. A rejection or approval with comments requires a reason. Item responses are independent of the overall document code and stay with that issued register; a new revision starts without them. The issuer can expand Item responses in the register panel. These are coordination responses, not engineering approval, and they change no geometry.

In Deliver, download the Revision package, extract the ZIP and open START-HERE.html. The offline cover links to the drawing set, the quantities or reservations available for that system, and the included model files. It names the saved revision and the work still outside the concept. Construction and fabrication release are separate steps.

In a kit-house chat, the latest version's drawings are listed with its result in the conversation, one button per sheet, and each opens that sheet over the model. A version whose drawings cannot be drawn gets no list.

Open Adjust, or select a part on the model and type its dimensions on the card beside it (or Modify for openings and stair placement). Changes remain a draft until you choose Save as a version: on Adjust, or in the chat for a change made on the model, without an AI call or credit charge. Tools → Version history lets you return to an earlier revision. Select an opening and choose Duplicate opening (Ctrl/⌘D) to copy it into a free position on the same wall and storey, preserving its dimensions and product choices.

Open Deliver → Revision package to download the saved version with its drawings, quantities and file manifest. A download does not establish professional approval.

In Tools → Review & share → Share a revision package, choose an existing review or customer portal and select Share revision. Nordform saves a private copy and attaches it to that page in one action, with optional saved supplier estimates. No invitation is sent; the page’s existing access and expiry apply. Stop sharing this copy removes that page’s access after sharing. Original uploads and professional statements need separate grants.

Open Deliver and download the revision review package: one ZIP with a PDF drawing set (index, dimensioned plan per storey, four wall elevations with the roof, a section and a frame isometric, at stated scales on A3 with a title block naming the revision), quantities, the saved revision and a manifest of file hashes. The set keeps one sheet order in every revision: a sheet with nothing to show, such as the upper-storey plan of a one-storey house, keeps its number and says why it is empty. The index sheet and the README open with what moved since the revision this one was made from. A timber frame's set is drawn the way a Finnish structural designer draws one, unless its site is outside Finland: sheets numbered RAK by kind, the Finnish permit-drawing title block, one status word (always ALUSTAVA, preliminary), lettered revisions, each kind of part named on a leader with its section, and levels in metres, in Finnish. The checked and approved cells stay empty for a person. The lists the index sheet generates, such as the assumptions and what is not included, are still in English. Every other design, and a timber frame on a site abroad, gets the English set. Save edits first. Original attachments and professional statements are granted separately. Selected supplier estimates can be included; they are not quotations.

The evidence panel brings saved personal-project packages and estimates into Produced from this design, alongside local output records. It shows source revisions, recorded hashes, package contents and exclusions. Quote dates are inspected separately: matching the open revision does not mean prices are current. Missing source mappings remain unknown; unsaved prices and files produced outside Nordform are not included.

For Skylark, the package adds a wall-module plan, four module elevations, a block and cutting-sheet schedule, assembly assumptions and hashed source-file references. The gable course is a separate reference because its vertical placement is not established. These are module cores, not cutting contours; the output is not WikiHouse-certified or ready for fabrication.

For RunkoPES concepts, Deliver offers IFC 4.3, DXF, STEP, GLB, STL, SVG and PNG, alongside the PDF, opening CSV and JSON backup. Format buttons appear at the top of the panel. The ZIP includes the IFC, DXF, STEP and SVG as well as the drawings and reservations.

The 3D files describe wall reservations and illustrative roof/floor geometry from the saved revision. IFC also includes rooms saved against that revision. DXF contains an editable plan, section and four elevations in millimetres, with openings at their saved offsets. IFC and STEP use metres, Z-up; GLB uses metres, Y-up; STL uses millimetres. These files use local coordinates and omit site and partition solids. A volumetric concept borrows the panel library’s external-wall thickness; that limitation travels with each solid. None is a manufactured panel model, permit submission or engineering approval. Native DWG and BCF are unavailable for RunkoPES. STL contains separate solids and may need preparation for printing.

For timber concepts:

• DXF: frame centrelines, layered by assembly, in millimetres.
• IFC 4.3: one element per member, in metres, classed by role (stud, wall plate, rafter, ridge beam, floor joist, lintel) and grouped into walls, roof, floor and stair, with length, section area and volume. Element identities stay stable between revisions.
• STEP (AP214): an assembly tree in metres, one named solid per member. Sloping members have a plumb cut at each end; there are no notches, housings or joints.
• DWG handoff: a ZIP with a DWG converted from the included DXF by the ODA File Converter, and a manifest naming the converter and DWG version. If the recipient's program cannot open that version, ask for another, or use the DXF. Without a converter (for example, a design never saved to the cloud), the ZIP holds the DXF and steps to save it as DWG yourself.
• GLB, STL and JSON for 3D and structured concept data.
• CSV: grouped frame quantities, with a system column. It excludes purchasing allowances, fixings and some components; confirm sizes, stock lengths and quantities before ordering. A kit's cutting schedule and this timber list are alternatives for the same envelope, not parts of one order.
• Excel: the element schedule (one row per kit member, in millimetres, with its stock length and the bar it is cut from) as an .xlsx workbook, the same rows as the element CSV with the header frozen and a filter on it. Nothing in it is a formula. In a project chat, the Quantities sheet offers the CSV and the Excel file directly beside the table.

The Deliver sheet also holds the project's delivery programme: a start date and, for each gate (design, engineer sign-off, building permit, factory and site), the days someone stated for it and who stated them. Each gate gets its own dated line. One nobody has stated stays undated, and the gates after it wait on it rather than being dated from a guess. Nothing in the product estimates a permit or factory time. The programme saves on the project and downloads as a workbook. It is not a construction schedule.

In a project chat, the Quantities sheet has three views. Elements is the element schedule. Materials is a bill of materials for the whole building: foundation strip, ground-floor slab area, walls per storey, windows and doors, intermediate floor, stair, roof structure and the measured wall and roof surfaces. Each row says what its number rests on: the kit's own count, a published figure (a Lammi guide rate or a RunkoPES structure type), a dimension the drawing chose that nobody published, a measured surface, or an allowance someone stated with its source. Add an allowance, such as a percentage of offcut on the wall framing, under Allowances with who stated it and where from; it appears as rows of its own and never adds working hours. What it does not count, such as build-up layers, fixings and window units, is listed under Not counted. Group rows by shows the same rows under Talo 2000 or NRM 1 element codes; the codes are the product's own mapping of its assemblies, and a row the mapping does not cover is listed as unclassified. It downloads as CSV and Excel, with the element codes on a sheet of their own.

Estimate prices the bill from a rate table you keep: a CSV or Excel file whose first row names the columns item, unit, rate, currency and source. A rate prices a row only when its item is the row's code or its exact item text, in the same unit. A row no rate names has no figure and says "no rate". A rate in another unit is refused for that row and never converted, and a rate without a source is not read. Two rates for one item in one unit are both set aside. The download is a concept estimate: the amounts are formulas over the quantity and the rate, currencies are totalled apart, the totals cover the priced rows only, and a second sheet lists the rates that were not read or named nothing in the bill. It is not a quote or a tender price.

When two or more kept scenarios wait on a design you own, Scenarios downloads the four most recently kept side by side on one sheet: the version each was kept on and the version the design is at now, the kernel, footprint, gross building volume, steel, concrete, the foundation strip and the checks each was kept with. A scenario kept on an earlier version or kernel is marked out of date and shown as it was kept. A figure the bill does not count is written as not counted, with the reason, rather than as zero: today's house kernels draw no steel members, and the ground-floor slab's thickness is not modelled, so neither is in the concrete figure.

Build time turns that bill into the activities of the shell up to weathertight, in build order, and schedules them over working days. For each activity you give the hours per unit, the crew, their working day and who said so; for the two curing waits, the days and who said so. Nothing is estimated for you. An activity without a rate has no hours, and everything after an unstated wait stays undated. Weekends are skipped, and public holidays only if you list them. A labour cost appears only for rates given an hourly price. Under the chart, choose one of the version's saved material estimates to see materials and labour side by side. They are added into one total only when the estimate was priced on this version and has no unpriced sections, every activity with hours has an hourly price, and both are in one currency; otherwise the sheet says why there is no total. Nothing is converted, and the total covers only what its two parts cover. The Excel download works at any stage. The Microsoft Project XML download needs a fully dated schedule; an independent reader, MPXJ, opens that file and reschedules it to the same dates. The activities and their order are the product's own: a concept schedule for planning, ahead of a contractor's programme and quote. When the schedule is fully dated, the delivery programme offers its length for the site gate, and you choose whether to use it. When you ask in the chat how long the build takes or what it costs, the request carries the rates and waits you saved. The answer then quotes the computed working days, dates and cost with whose rates they are. Without saved rates, it says which ones are needed and gives no figures.

Once the schedule is dated and the rates carry an hourly price, the labour appears by month under the cost: each activity's labour spread over its working days and summed per calendar month, with a cumulative column. Only labour is placed; a chosen material estimate stays one figure for the whole version, because it is not priced per activity, and the table says so. It is not a cash flow: no retention, payment terms or inflation. The months are a sheet in the Excel download.

On the Model tab of a project with a fully dated schedule, Sequence plays that schedule on the model: a day scrubber hides what is not yet started, highlights what is being worked that day and names the activity and the date. Elements no dated activity reaches, such as a window unit or a covering, stay shown and are counted as not sequenced. It is the concept sequence, not a site programme.

Progress under Build time records how the site is going against that schedule. For a status date, give each activity its actual start and finish, how far along it is and what it has cost so far, with who stated it and where from. The update is saved as a record of its own and never changes the schedule; several updates stand side by side. Choose one to see planned against reported, activity by activity: the slip at the start and the finish, the reported cost against the baseline's cost pro rata to the date, and a forecast weathertight that reschedules what remains on the baseline network at the baseline rates. An activity you leave blank is reported as not reported, never as on plan. The comparison is a sheet in the Excel download. It is not an earned-value statement.

The first time a file leaves a house chat for a version, the workspace asks the three things an engineer would need answered before signing, such as the snow load the checks assumed or who supplies the ground parameters. Pick one of the offered answers or leave a question open; the download goes ahead either way, an answer is saved as a decision, and the revision package lists each question as answered or open.

Every timber DXF, IFC and STEP download is read back and compared to its revision, end cuts included, and a file that does not match is withheld. That read-back is our own; what other programs have confirmed about each format is under What the independent readers verify. The IFC download reports which IFC 4.3 Reference View and Finnish permit-model rules it meets and names its gaps; no national validator has been run. A project with a site writes its origin on the ETRS-TM35FIN grid. Concept files have centrelines and rectangular sections only, with no joints, connections or machining allowances.

DXF, SVG and JSON files carry their revision and an input hash in a comment. The revisions view shows whether each produced file still matches, is unaffected, or is stale.

To exchange discussion threads with a BIM tool, use Issues as BCF: a BCF 2.1 archive with one topic per thread, using the IFC element identifiers. If the design is saved to the cloud, your invited reviewers’ findings are included too, each labelled with the revision it was written on, the reviewer’s name, its status and its saved view. Import a BCF from the same panel; topics that cannot be placed are listed by name, and reviewer findings are not copied back. The exported files are checked against buildingSMART’s BCF 2.1 schemas in our test suite.

Before a CAD file leaves the workspace, our own parser reads it back and compares it with the version it came from. That is a self-check. Our parser shares the writer's assumptions, so it shows that the file says what we meant, not that another program can read it.

The evidence that another program can read our files is in the test suite. It opens sample files, written by the same code that writes your downloads, with readers that share none of our code. The tables below name each check by its test. They describe the samples, not the file you download: no other program has opened that file.

The samples are a one-storey timber frame, 7.2 × 9.4 m with 2.8 m walls and 124 members, saved four ways (on its own, on a Finnish site, on a site with national ground heights, and with four rooms); a two-storey timber frame, 6 × 8 m; six RunkoPES concepts; and a Skylark 150 module plan.

On 22 October 2026 all 53 checks below ran and passed. A check whose reader is not installed is skipped, not passed.

IFC 4.3

Reader: IfcOpenShell, an open-source IFC toolkit. Its own validator checks the schema and the EXPRESS where-rules. The two rule-set checks use its IDS checker, ifctester, with version 3.5.3 of the RAVA3.5 rule set.

• Written: the IFC 4.3.2.0 schema in metres; a site, a building and a storey per storey; each frame member as a body, classed by its role; walls, roof, floor structure and stair as typed assemblies of their members; length, section area and volume per member; on a site, the origin on the ETRS-TM35FIN grid, and the N2000 height when the ground heights come from the national model; rooms as spaces with area and volume, grouped as one dwelling.
• Not written: materials, joints, connections and notches; whether an element bears load; the designer's and the applicant's data; the national room-use code; a body for a wall or roof of its own (its geometry is its members); a height system when the site has no national ground heights, where the file says the origin height is zero and why.

Sample	What the reader confirms	Test
One storey	The schema is IFC 4.3 Addendum 2 and the length unit is the metre. There is one site, one building and one storey. A project name with “ö” in it survives.	IfcExportTest.test_schema_units_and_spatial_hierarchy
One storey	All 124 members build a solid. The four walls and the roof are assemblies with no body of their own.	IfcExportTest.test_every_member_builds_a_solid
One storey	In the reader's own world coordinates the frame spans 7.2 × 9.4 m, within the half-section a member overhangs its centreline, stands on zero and rises above the 2.8 m wall.	IfcExportTest.test_placed_geometry_matches_the_revision
One storey	Schema and where-rule validation report nothing.	IfcExportTest.test_the_express_where_rules_hold
One storey	Studs, plates, posts, rafters, collars, the ridge beam and lintels each carry their own IFC class and type. No material and no rolled profile is written.	IfcExportTest.test_each_member_carries_the_class_its_role_calls_for
One storey	Each wall and the roof gathers its members and is typed by the Finnish structural-system code (US for a wall, YP for the roof).	IfcExportTest.test_the_walls_and_roof_are_typed_assemblies_of_their_members
One storey	Every member carries its length, section area and volume, and the volume is length times area.	IfcExportTest.test_every_member_carries_its_base_quantities
One storey	Every element identifier is unique and well formed.	IfcExportTest.test_global_ids_are_unique_and_well_formed
On a site	The origin lands at the right east and north on the ETRS-TM35FIN grid (EPSG:3067), turned 30° as the sample is.	GeoreferencedIfcExportTest.test_map_conversion_places_the_origin_on_the_tm35fin_grid
On a site	With no national ground heights, no height system is named, the origin height is zero and the file says so.	GeoreferencedIfcExportTest.test_the_height_system_is_a_gap_the_file_admits
On a site	Every member and assembly is marked as envelope and as new.	GeoreferencedIfcExportTest.test_every_member_carries_the_envelope_flag_and_status
On a site	Schema and where-rule validation still report nothing.	GeoreferencedIfcExportTest.test_the_express_where_rules_still_hold
On a site	Against the RAVA3.5 rules, the coordinate-system rules pass. The height system, designer's name and dwelling-area rules fail, as this sample has none of them.	GeoreferencedIfcExportTest.test_the_rava_core_data_rule_set_when_available
National heights	The N2000 height system and the 12 m origin height are read where IFC 4.3 puts them.	HeightGeoreferencedIfcExportTest.test_the_vertical_datum_and_origin_height_are_read_where_ifc_4_3_puts_them
National heights	The site names N2000 where the RAVA3.5 rules read it, and nothing else from the applicant's property data.	HeightGeoreferencedIfcExportTest.test_the_site_names_the_height_system_where_rava_reads_it
National heights	Schema and where-rule validation still report nothing.	HeightGeoreferencedIfcExportTest.test_the_express_where_rules_still_hold
With rooms	Schema and where-rule validation report nothing.	RoomsIfcExportTest.test_the_express_where_rules_hold
With rooms	The four rooms are spaces under the storey, with areas and volumes from their own outlines (an L-shaped room is 21.36 m², not its bounding box). No room-use code is written.	RoomsIfcExportTest.test_each_room_is_a_space_under_its_storey_with_quantities_from_its_outline
With rooms	The rooms form one dwelling of four rooms and 57.36 m². No applicant's dwelling record is written.	RoomsIfcExportTest.test_the_rooms_form_one_dwelling_carrying_what_buildable_can_count
With rooms	Against the RAVA3.5 rules, 35 rules pass, including dwelling area and location. The designer's name and total area rules still fail.	RoomsIfcExportTest.test_the_rava_rule_set_finds_the_dwelling_and_the_location
Two storeys	Schema and where-rule validation report nothing.	TwoStoreyIfcTest.test_the_express_where_rules_hold
Two storeys	There are two storeys, the ground floor at 0 m and the upper floor at 3.0 m.	TwoStoreyIfcTest.test_two_storeys_with_their_elevations
Two storeys	Each storey holds its own walls; the floor is typed as a slab, the stair by its IFC type alone; joists and stringers have their own types, and a tread stays a generic member.	TwoStoreyIfcTest.test_members_are_contained_by_storey
Two storeys	The upper wall head lands at the 5.7 m eaves in world coordinates.	TwoStoreyIfcTest.test_upper_members_land_at_their_world_height
Six RunkoPES	Schema validation (not the where-rules) reports nothing. Storeys match the saved version, lengths are in metres, every element's body lies within 0.002 mm of its saved corners, and the room is 2.7 m high on the top storey.	RunkoPesExportTest.test_ifc_schema_geometry_and_saved_storeys

DXF

Reader: ezdxf, an open-source DXF library.

• Written: AutoCAD R12 DXF with millimetres declared in the header; for a timber frame, one line per member on a layer per wall and one for the roof (the upper storey's layers start with L2-, and the stair has its own), each line carrying the member's name, material and section; on a site, the parcel and the buildings on the plot on their own layers, each line naming the plot and where its outline came from. RunkoPES writes six views in millimetres; Skylark writes its module plan.
• Not written: member outlines or solids (a timber DXF has centrelines, with the section carried as data on the line), joints and connections.
• The DWG handoff contains a DWG converted from this DXF by the ODA File Converter. No reader in the test suite opens the DWG.

Sample	What the reader confirms	Test
One storey	The file is R12, its unit is the millimetre, and the wall and roof layers are there.	DxfExportTest.test_version_units_and_layers
One storey	There are 124 lines, each on a wall or roof layer, each carrying two names and two positive section sizes.	DxfExportTest.test_every_member_is_a_line_with_its_identity
One storey	A dash in the material name comes through intact. This check found a fault our own parser could not, because it shared the writer's assumption about encoding.	DxfExportTest.test_non_ascii_survives_the_code_page
One storey	The lines span 7.2 × 9.4 m to within 1 mm and rise above the wall.	DxfExportTest.test_extents_match_the_revision_in_millimetres
On a site	The parcel and the building have their own layers; the frame is still 124 lines.	DxfSiteLayerTest.test_the_site_has_its_own_layers_beside_the_frame
On a site	The parcel outline closes, lies flat at ground level and keeps its 48 × 40 m sides.	DxfSiteLayerTest.test_the_parcel_closes_and_lies_flat_at_ground_level
On a site	Every site line names its plot, the date the outline was retrieved, and that a cadastral index map is not a boundary survey.	DxfSiteLayerTest.test_every_site_line_names_its_plot_and_where_the_outline_came_from
Two storeys	Each storey has its own layers.	TwoStoreyDxfTest.test_layers_per_storey
Two storeys	Every line sits on its storey's layer at its storey's height.	TwoStoreyDxfTest.test_lines_sit_on_their_storey_layer
Six RunkoPES	Each file is in millimetres and passes ezdxf's audit, holds six views on their own layers, draws the first view 4000 × 8000 mm and names its revision.	RunkoPesExportTest.test_dxf_has_six_editable_views_in_millimetres
Skylark 150	The module plan is in millimetres: 136 flat lines forming 34 closed module rectangles.	SkylarkDeliveryTest.test_units_and_closed_module_rectangles
Skylark 150	The plan spans 4572 × 6372 mm from its origin.	SkylarkDeliveryTest.test_external_dimensions_match_the_saved_fixture

STEP

Reader: OpenCascade, the open-source geometry kernel behind FreeCAD and CadQuery, through its Python package cadquery-ocp.

• Written: STEP AP214 in metres; for a timber frame, an assembly tree from the building to its walls and roof to one named solid per member, with sloping members cut plumb at each end; for RunkoPES, one solid per saved element.
• Not written: notches, housings, birdsmouths, joints, connections and materials.

Sample	What the reader confirms	Test
One storey	The file opens as one building named after its version, with five assemblies and 124 parts, each named after its member.	StepExportTest.test_assembly_tree_holds_every_member_under_its_own_assembly
One storey	Each rafter has two vertical end faces and stops where the plan says, to 1 mm; a stud stands exactly its own length.	StepExportTest.test_sloping_members_are_cut_plumb_and_level_ones_are_not
One storey	Every solid is valid and closed, with six faces.	StepExportTest.test_every_solid_is_a_valid_closed_box
One storey	The reader's own volume of the solids equals the timber volume of the member list, and the extents match the version.	StepExportTest.test_volume_and_extents_match_the_revision
Six RunkoPES	Each shape is valid, has one solid per saved element, and spans the saved extents to 0.01 mm.	RunkoPesExportTest.test_step_builds_valid_solids_with_the_same_extent

PDF drawing set

Reader: pypdf, an open-source PDF library. It reads the sheets' text and page size. It does not see the drawn lines, so it cannot confirm that a line is drawn where its figure says.

Sample	What the reader confirms	Test
One storey, abroad	Nine A3 landscape sheets. The index lists every sheet, puts what changed first, and lists what the set does not include.	DrawingSetTest.test_index_lists_every_sheet_of_the_set
One storey, abroad	Every sheet carries the title block: “S3 · FOR REVIEW AND COMMENT”, the saved record, drawing number, revision, date, scale and sheet number.	DrawingSetTest.test_every_sheet_carries_the_title_block
One storey, abroad	The upper-storey plan of a one-storey house keeps its number and says why it is empty.	DrawingSetTest.test_a_sheet_with_nothing_to_show_keeps_its_place_and_says_why
One storey, abroad	The drawn sheets state their scale, carry the scale bar's and grid's labels, and mark levels on elevations and the section but not on the plan.	DrawingSetTest.test_every_drawing_sheet_carries_a_grid_and_a_scale_bar
One storey, abroad	The opening and member schedules state the openings' sizes, the rafters' plumb cuts and all 124 pieces.	DrawingSetTest.test_schedules_state_the_openings_and_the_pieces
One storey, abroad	The plan, elevations and section carry the sample's figured dimensions, such as 7200 and 9400 overall.	DrawingSetTest.test_figured_dimensions_add_up
One storey, Finnish set	The index lists every sheet by its RAK number, puts what changed first, and lists what the set does not include.	FinnishDrawingSetTest.test_index_lists_every_sheet_by_its_rak_number
One storey, Finnish set	Every sheet carries the permit-drawing title block's captions, RAKENNE, the status ALUSTAVA, an unsigned designer's cell, the saved record and its sheet number.	FinnishDrawingSetTest.test_every_sheet_carries_the_permit_title_block_and_stays_preliminary
One storey, Finnish set	The upper-storey plan keeps its number and says, in Finnish, why it is empty.	FinnishDrawingSetTest.test_a_sheet_with_nothing_to_show_keeps_its_number_and_says_why
One storey, Finnish set	Views are titled over them with their scale, levels are in metres, parts are named with their sections, and no grid is drawn.	FinnishDrawingSetTest.test_views_are_titled_over_them_with_metre_levels_leaders_and_no_grid
One storey, Finnish set	The schedules, in Finnish, state the openings and all 124 pieces.	FinnishDrawingSetTest.test_schedules_in_finnish_add_up_to_the_members

Formats no independent reader opens

• GLB and STL: read back by our own parser only.
• SVG and PNG drawings: pictures, read by no program as geometry.
• CSV and Excel schedules: the numbers are the kernel's, and no other program has checked them.
• BCF 2.1: the archives are checked against buildingSMART's schemas, which confirms they are shaped as the standard says.
• JSON backup: our own format, for this product to read back.
• DWG: see the DXF section above.

Restore a Nordform JSON backup under All projects → Open a project backup. This is separate from attaching source files to a revision.

1. Drop a DXF or IFC into a project. Nordform reports its declared unit, extents, contents and every entity type it could not read.
2. If no unit is declared, say what one drawing unit means.
3. Import the straight runs as reference geometry, or propose the footprint's dimensions as a change.

Reference geometry is saved privately with its source hash, units and alignment, and no check, quantity or export includes it.

A DWG is identified but not read: Nordform reports the AutoCAD version, text code page, preview and internal sections, but no unit, extent, layer or geometry, and it cannot be imported. Save it as DXF in the program that made it and drop that in instead.

In a house project, open Render & video and choose what to make: Still image, Flyby or AI video. Choose Structure view or Finished exterior, then a sky. Individual layers, materials and sun position, and camera and export settings sit behind expandable headings. In the workspace, model and render views share the selected layers and sky for each revision during the session. Photographed skies also light the live preview and local flyby; photographic stills use higher-quality path tracing. Presentation cameras stay above the ground. The flyby is drawn on your machine from the same model the canvas shows: choose a camera move, length and frame size, then watch the clip and save it. Nothing is uploaded and no credits are charged.

AI video hands a picture of the saved version to a video model at Google, which returns an eight-second 720p MP4 that starts from that picture and moves the camera slowly once. It needs a video provider to be switched on for the workspace; until then the panel says so and asks for nothing. When it is on, you choose the surroundings, In a garden or On its own, and tick the consent line before anything is sent. The clip takes one to three minutes, plays in the panel when it is done, and is listed with a player and a download under Deliver for that version. Generated details may differ from the model: it is an illustration, not evidence for measurements, engineering or construction approval. The pilot permits two attempts in 24 hours, one at a time; failed and cancelled attempts count, and no credits are charged. Cancelling stops the clip arriving in Nordform but may not stop processing at Google.

Walkthrough page in the same panel makes one HTML file to move through a scene at a time. It holds the arrival and the rise, each drawn on your machine and resting on the exact last frame of its clip, then the rooms saved for that version in the order a person would walk them through doors and stairs. Arrow keys, space or a click move one scene. Each room with a clear place to stand is pictured from there, as the plain concept model the room walkthrough shows: walls or room outlines, furnishing blocks and the stair opening, with no finishes or materials. A room with nowhere clear to stand is described in words only. The file opens offline and loads nothing.

When an answer offers supported design changes, choose an option button to send that specific request. Review and explicitly adopt the resulting proposal, including a single change. Alternatives and blocked proposals keep their review controls. A usable proposal uses one generation. Options belong to their source version, so finish pending work and continue from the latest version. Recognized older numbered suggestion lists also offer buttons; other saved answers remain text.

A failed check names the finding and asks you to change the affected design and rerun checks. Missing inputs must be supplied first; prerequisite checks must be resolved before their dependants can run. Outside-scope and unassessed results need a professional assessment. Verification of a reviewer is separate from qualification of a workflow and sign-off of a design.

A chat request applies to the whole building, the storey in focus, or the room you are commenting on; the line above the composer shows which. The envelope (width, length, wall height, pitch, storeys) belongs to the whole building, so a request from a storey or room that would change it is refused and nothing is applied. Switch to the building to change it.

Once a project has a saved space study, ask for room changes from the building, for example "split the living room so a study sits at the back", "merge the kitchen and the dining room" or "add a 2 by 2 metre sauna". The proposal shows the change, areas in square metres, a plan of the storey and the room checks. Adopting saves a new version of the study without moving the envelope, storeys, stair or openings. A room that does not fit the free floor, a merge of rooms with no shared wall, or a locked room is refused with the reason. Without a study, add or paint a room in Spaces first.

Drop, paste or use the image button beside the paperclip, then write in the caption what to take from it, such as "match this window arrangement on the front". Up to four PNG, JPEG, GIF or WebP images, 4 MB each, per request; they are stored privately as project documents. Anything the kit cannot build is listed under "still to resolve". Text inside an image is not treated as an instruction. If the design service cannot read images, the answer says it read the captions only.

In a timber-frame project, select building scope and the context packages, then choose “Ask about the design or regulations” under Design intent. Answers use your design, the kit's capabilities and the supplied passages from selected packages, and show excerpts, source links, jurisdiction and the date sources were checked. Missing sources lead to a clarification question. Long selections may supply only relevant passages from a package. A passage omitted from the request is not evidence that a requirement does not exist. Summaries are dated: check the authority source when current applicability matters. Every standard an answer names, such as EN 1991-1-3, is looked up in what the run was given. One that is not there is marked named from memory · unverified until you open its source and record the page you read. Catalogue products the answer names are listed with their own source and date. A product or manufacturer named from memory is not recognised this way, so check any name the list does not show. Questions cost no credits and change nothing; normal request limits apply.

Every drawing, sheet, share image, render and viewport carries one status label inside the image, naming the revision:

• Concept · not checked: no checks have run.
• Advisory checks only: checks have run.
• Checked by a named verified expert: a deterministic check they stand behind has passed.
• Signed off by a named expert, with the date: a professional review statement exists for that exact revision.

Each view of a version is built in steps: a white model in the plain style first, then the clad still. The white model is that view's anchor, the picture later images of the view are held against, and the render tool lists the stills made of each view under Stills made of this version. The Decorator, which hands a picture to an image model, is no longer part of the house render tool; it remains in room studies, where its instruction lists what the image must keep, such as the storey count, the roof pitch and the doors and windows on each wall. Nothing measures the returned image against that list, so check it before you use the image. Decorated renders add Illustrative, and older visuals are marked Superseded once a newer revision exists. Nordform sets the label from the revision's record; no comment, quote or portal acceptance can change it.

The maritime demo runs a 66-second scripted walkthrough: a synthetic workboat brief, equipment and deck constraints, two spatial conflicts, a revised arrangement, a revision-bound question and a downloadable JSON review record. Playback starts automatically, with pause, chapter selection, timeline scrubbing and restart. Reduced-motion preferences and chapter links start paused. Compare both arrangements or switch between 3D and the dimensioned deck plan. The envelope checker runs locally; the story and review note are scripted. There is no live AI, cloud maritime project, vessel-specific feasibility assessment, hydrogen safety analysis or engineering approval.

Explore project brings building massing, P2M scenarios and the Finnoo block study onto one concept site. Select a placed design and choose Open design. Use the breadcrumb to return or the neighbouring design links to move between editors. The site and open editors retain their camera and selection while you navigate within this workspace.

Returning records changed design inputs as a candidate revision. Preview latest update shows that candidate on the site; Adopt this revision on site changes the placed version and retains its position and rotation. Earlier revisions remain available. Working copies and site history are saved per account in this browser; export a site backup before moving devices. Successful plant generations enter the working copy; ungenerated form changes do not.

In Connections & workspace signals, choose the source design, the design it affects, a relationship and the changes to watch. For example, connect a plant to its building, then the building to the masterplan. A recorded revision or placement change raises direct and downstream signals in the workspace inbox. The revision-alignment check runs automatically; spatial, capacity and requirements checks are clearly identified as tasks requiring human review. Draft edits do not signal until recorded. Use Open affected design to investigate and record a review note for the exact inputs. Reviewing a signal does not adopt a revision or dismiss downstream reviews. New inputs require a fresh review. Exporting the site includes connections and review notes.

The workspace inbox and site history are kept in this browser. Finnoo is a residential source example, and placing it beside a plant leaves its zoning as it was. Plant previews show equipment envelopes; the full plant site and safety distances come from the plant designer.

Design quality report

The workspace includes an automatic quality report for saved cloud kit-house designs. It combines the recorded check classes and requirement marks with the saved room study's programme, rooms, site, budget and carbon assessments. The report explains supported results, shortcomings and missing evidence; it does not award an overall architectural grade or engineering approval. Download its JSON to retain the source evidence and digest.

Automatic checking is on by default while the chat is open. Settings → Design quality, or the switch in Checks, disables future automatic starts in this browser; an active job has its own Cancel control. Existing saved jobs are reused, and failed jobs need an explicit retry. Manual checks remain available. A supported improvement can be requested from a failed check with one click on the latest saved version, using the usual design and review workflow. Missing information opens the relevant project tool. Imported drawing audits, independent concepts and other families retain their existing behavior.

In the workspace, the report is part of Checks. Automatic checks stay active when the preview is hidden. An improvement request returns to the conversation and model, stays within the kit workflow, and is checked automatically after the proposed design is adopted. A pending request is not treated as a completed improvement.

The workspace also keeps the latest design’s checks active while you inspect an older version. Saving a room study refreshes its matching quality assessment in the open chat. This does not add unattended checking after the chat is closed or automatic engineering calculations across connected designs.

The access structures demo lets you inspect saved platform, stair and tower examples. Select components, compare measured clearances, inspect selected profiles, and read convergence history and checks that remain unimplemented. Steel access examples in Nordform also open compatible review bundles and download the component schedule. The Engineering review tab provides a TRY-based reference agenda for connection behaviour, materials, execution requirements, erection stability and robustness, with source pages and a downloadable revision-linked brief. This agenda does not evaluate project evidence or calculate additional capacities. These are preliminary concept results with explicit unverified inputs; the saved examples do not generate a live cloud design, save a project or approve engineering or fabrication. New cloud-generated drawing packages include a downloadable handover PDF containing the same vector drawing sheets. Connection proposals require explicit sourced dimensions; they are not automatically inferred or approved for fabrication. From the reference inspector, “Open Steel access workflow” starts or continues a saved project in the workspace. The project chat runs the Steel Platform engine described below; the displayed reference example is not automatically adopted into the project. Existing review-file import, review downloads and component schedule downloads remain available.

In the workspace, a version with saved Steel Platform inputs stays with its engine workflow when the connection is unavailable. Its preview does not substitute a local illustrative model, checks or downloads for the saved run. An engine interview already underway also keeps its questions if its engine client becomes unavailable. Recorded engine answers reopen on the same question; once the client is available, explicitly submit your answer or run request to continue. If a local save refuses an interview answer, the question stays open and typed text remains available for correction or retry.

In an access chat, an unavailable engine connection or unreadable saved engine inputs leave your typed request in place and create no replacement local design. If local saving refuses your submitted request on a saved engine version, your typed request stays in the composer; retry it before opening its proposal or requested panel. Requests arriving from a panel or an initial brief also remain in the composer if submission is blocked by a busy run or an unavailable engine client; send them again when ready. Reconnecting restores the existing proposal-and-review flow; new versions still require the same explicit apply action.

In the workspace’s access input sheets, submitting while the engine client is unavailable keeps the sheet open with your unsaved edits and an explanation. Once the connection returns, use the same submit button to try again; reconnecting alone does not save a version or start a run. These edits remain only while the sheet stays open. The sheet also waits for the chat to accept its inputs before closing. A refused handoff is shown in the same form; use the existing submit button to retry. This acceptance is separate from cloud saving and engine execution, whose progress and failures appear in the conversation.

In access projects that use saved engine inputs, version cards show a short layout summary. Models open in the existing viewer, and historical local models remain selectable with the engine connected. Local model assumptions are available under Checks. They cannot be restored over the current engine version. Projects that still use local inputs retain their existing version-restore action.

In a signed-in engine hall or boiler house, open Inputs → Company equipment. Company administrators can check a JSON, CSV or Excel equipment file and explicitly publish its versions. Members can select an accessible published generator or boiler version, including shared entries. Save the draft as a new design version to retain the source company, entry version, hash and equipment snapshot. Older design versions keep their original equipment. Conflicting entry keys from multiple sources are shown but cannot be selected here.

Administrators can open Review supplier arrivals to inspect mailbox entries and publish or decline them. Manage equipment sharing grants a named company access to a complete published version or withdraws future catalogue access. Existing design snapshots remain unchanged. These optional controls stay collapsed while choosing equipment. Publication remains separate from selection.

For a cloud-saved personal engine hall, boiler house, process plant, pipe run or electrical-circuits design, Deliver → Interface register prepares a frozen workbook and JSON register from the saved revision. It compares the available loads, connections and building requests with the latest earlier revision whose register was issued. Preparing alone does not issue it. Invite reviewers with file access through Share, refresh the reviewers, then explicitly issue the register. Returned review codes and comments remain attached to that issued package.

Company halls, process plants, pipe runs and electrical circuits use their own saved registers and existing design readers as described below. Process registers list schematic equipment connection points. Under Building structure, enable Include building boundary and enter the inside box in process coordinates (metres, Z-up). Saving pins those limits to the revision; the register lists routed centreline crossings separately from equipment connections. Personal and company pipe and electrical-circuits registers include opening and sleeve requests against their saved assumed crossing zone or an accessible, unchanged pinned structural host. Crossing conflicts remain visible; a requested opening is not approval to cut the structure. Personal and company process plants can optionally select a saved structural design under Building structure. Routed lines produce penetration requests against that pinned structure; no building boundary is inferred. Company process, pipe and electrical versions keep the selected host until you explicitly read a newer version and save. Choose Follow changes beside the saved building to request source confirmation. Confirmed links notify structural changes. Review the member-change counts and choose Use version N to save a new company version with the existing service inputs and placement. Stop following retains the saved building version. Missing inputs are listed. The portal remains unsized, auxiliary generator equipment remains a placeholder, and publication or a review code does not establish engineering approval or fabrication readiness.

In an engine hall or boiler house, Deliver → Tender comparison and estimate compares two to four saved revisions of the same project. Choose the revisions explicitly, inspect the quantities and current check counts, and download an Excel comparison with source revision IDs, equipment versions, quantity bases and individual check states. This recalculates saved inputs with the current kernel; it does not reproduce archived check evidence or compare kept house scenarios.

Upload a CSV or XLSX rate table to download a concept estimate for the shown revision. The columns are item, unit, rate, currency and source. Missing rates stay unpriced, unit mismatches are refused and currencies are totalled separately. Inspect the imported rates before downloading; personal cloud projects can explicitly save the parsed table for reuse. Steel members are unsized, so steel tonnage is not reported; concrete covers assumed equipment pads only, excluding hall foundations and slabs. These are concept quantities, not a quote or engineering approval.

Saved hall rate tables

A personal cloud hall can explicitly save an imported rate table and select it again after reopening the project. Saving retains the parsed usable/refused rows, source-file hash, source revision and optional quote/validity dates; it does not upload the original spreadsheet. Earlier tables are retained unchanged, and saving rates does not change design inputs. The project limit is 100 tables and 256 KiB of rate records.

Choose a saved table explicitly before downloading an estimate for the shown revision. Expired, future-dated or unstated validity is shown; it does not establish a current supplier quote. The estimate includes the chosen table identity, source-file hash and stated dates. Company-owned engine halls and boiler houses can also retain rate tables; each save appends a company version with the same design inputs. Archived estimate results are outside this flow.

In a personal cloud process-plant family project, Deliver → Process source files reviews an owner’s KKS code table or a Proteus XML P&ID without replacing the design or its generated tags. This is separate from the browser-local Process plants library workspace.

For a code table, supply CSV or XLSX columns kind, code, meaning, applies_to. Check the revision’s generated tags or supply a tag list with object, tag columns. Inspect the findings before saving the source record. Imported codes remain the owner’s stated table; they are not verified against the KKS guideline. Refused rows must be corrected before saving.

For a DEXPI drawing, check the XML, choose the equipment types and fluid meanings it needs, then check again. Additional valve functions are explicit choices. Unmapped required content prevents a mapped P&ID from being saved; up to 500 unsupported elements are listed, and further omissions are counted. Instrumentation and control loops are not imported. Each file is limited to 2 MB, with up to 100 equipment items and 500 lines in this review.

Saving retains private originals, their hashes, the source design revision, permission declaration and DEXPI mapping choices. Reopening verifies the originals and recalculates the review with the current reader. The review can be downloaded as JSON. Owners and company editors can reopen a saved P&ID, choose Preview model, inspect its layout and checks, then explicitly Adopt as new version. This replaces the process equipment and piping in a new immutable revision. The first adoption scope accepts up to 12 equipment items, 20 nozzle-to-nozzle lines and 60 valves, with no unread elements. Branches, instrumentation and control loops remain source-review content. Equipment envelopes and positions use standard layout rules, not drawing coordinates. Earlier revisions, saved alternatives and issued registers remain unchanged. Comparisons and checks use the current kernel.

In the tank example, choose Try a change to compare the current position with three offsets. The model, clash and clearance findings, and pipe and cable lengths follow the selected position. Continue this tank case opens that example position in the workspace, with its example sources and rates.

In Tank pre-design → Placement, inspect the comparison before choosing Adopt placement. Adoption creates a new input revision and opens The set with its regenerated outputs. Save the case into a customer space to keep it and reopen it. The example starts with unconfirmed code clauses and no owner acceptance or engineer signature.

Open Project tools → Output → Presentation from a saved project version. Create a deck, edit the slide text and order, and use Present for the browser presentation or Export for PDF and standalone HTML. Decks use saved independent-concept dimensions, or kit dimensions when the version is not in Sketch mode. Sketch versions without an independent concept, and other design families, carry their version and source details. Connect changes enter the deck after they have been adopted as a project version and you choose Refresh from selected source.

Closing the editor keeps a draft on this device. Refreshing the source keeps your edits and asks you to review retained text. Project owners can save private cloud versions in project documents; guests, project members and company designs can use device drafts and downloads. PDF pages use the same slide artwork as the browser, with rasterized text. Slides carry S3 · For review and comment.