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The custom-object editor

When the catalogue does not have the thing you need, you build it. The custom-object editor is a second editor inside the app with its own toolbar and panels, where you stack basic shapes - boxes, cylinders, spheres - and combine them: Add joins a shape on, Subtract carves it away, Intersect keeps only the overlap.

It is laid out like the van editor, so most of it will already be familiar:

  • The Pieces list down the left is the object’s recipe: every piece, in the order they combine, each with its Add / Sub / Int switch beside it. It is the van editor’s Object List, for shapes.
  • The Inspector down the right shows whatever you have selected: where it is, how big it is and what it is finished in, with the actions for it - duplicate, reorder, delete - at its foot.
  • ＋ Add primitive, at the top left of the 3D view, opens a drawer of everything you can add, as ＋ Add component does in the van.
  • Save on the toolbar opens the save card, where you name the object, set its weight and cost, and turn its catalogue picture to its best side before it is saved.

The result is saved to your catalogue as a single component and placed like any other. It carries its own name, category, weight and cost, so it behaves exactly like a built-in component once it is in your van.

You reach it from the catalogue’s New custom object button, or by pressing Edit on a custom object’s card. It takes over the whole window while it is open, and your free session clock is paused for as long as you are in there.

The editor is desktop-only. On a narrow window (below 760 px) neither door is offered, because the editor is a full-screen workspace of its own and there is no useful way to fit it beside the van on a phone. Custom objects you have already made are unaffected: they still appear in the catalogue, still place into a design, and are still selected, moved, resized and billed like anything else.

What is in this section

Section titled “What is in this section”
  • The editor toolbar - previewing the fused result, the extra actions menu, and saving or discarding the object.
  • Object properties - the save card: the catalogue picture and its angle, the name, category, weight and cost.
  • Adding pieces - the ＋ Add primitive drawer: basic shapes, catalogue components as building blocks, and reference ghosts.
  • Shaping a piece - the Inspector: move, rotate and resize, the steppers, edge rounding or chamfering, and the actions at its foot.
  • The Pieces list - the stack of pieces, their combine modes, reordering, removing, and grouping.
Section titled “Related”