Guide images

A guide image is a reference picture that sits flat under the grid — a floor plan, a hand sketch, a survey drawing. Scale it to its real dimensions and it does the measuring for you: trace walls over it instead of guessing lengths. Guide images belong to the level they’re added on, so a multi-storey plan can have one guide per floor. They’re part of the References control in the bottom toolbar, alongside scans from Pascal Capture.

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Add a guide image

In the bottom toolbar, expand the References control and open Guide images, then click the upload button and pick a JPEG, PNG, WebP, or GIF. A photo of a paper plan works fine. Uploaded guides also appear in the Files tab of the sidebar, and clicking a guide selects it and opens its panel on the right.

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Position, rotate, and resize

The 2D view is the easiest place to line a guide up — click the compass to align the view to north. With the guide selected:

• Move — click and drag it.
• Rotate — press R or T to rotate in steps, or grab a corner handle to rotate freely.
• Resize — drag the corner handles.

The panel on the right also has precise Position and Rotation fields, and a Replace action that swaps the image while keeping its placement.

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Set the scale

Handles get the guide roughly in place; Set Scale makes it exact. In the guide’s panel, click Set Scale and click both ends of a known distance on the plan — the legend if it has one, or any dimension you know, like a room width. Type its real length in whatever unit you prefer and the whole image snaps to true size. Calibrating locks the guide automatically so it can’t drift while you build. Edit Scale re-runs the calibration, Hide Scale tucks the scale line away, and Clear Scale removes the calibration and unlocks the guide again.

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Opacity, lock, and visibility

• Opacity — fade the image so it reads clearly under the grid without competing with your walls.
• Lock / Unlock — a locked guide ignores clicks, drags, and keyboard nudges, so you can’t grab it by accident while tracing. Unlock it to reposition.
• Hide / Show — per guide, without losing its placement. The References button in the bottom toolbar toggles all references on the level at once.
• Delete — from the guide’s row in the Guide images list.

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Build over it

With the guide scaled and locked, trace directly on top of it: arm the Wall tool (B) and follow the plan’s walls in 2D — tap Shift to cycle snapping modes; Angles keeps corners square. When walls enclose a space, Pascal creates the room automatically. For doors and windows, Split view helps: place the opening in 3D to get the height right, then fine-tune its position against the plan in 2D. When the model is up, hide or delete the guide.

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Watch it in action

A full build over a real plan — from a blank scene to a furnished studio apartment.