Reference index
Every control in the app, organized the way the interface is — what it is, what it does, its limits, and the guide that covers the workflow.
Toolbar
- Body buttonB
- Toggles selecting the van (base vehicle), opening the Van inspector in the right rail: pick the vehicle and variant, shell build-up (insulation), body style, paint, cab seats, measured wheel arches and door openings, per-panel visibility, camera auto-hide, and cutting openings. Guide: The van body & openings →
- Undo / Redo⌘Z
- Steps back through your changes in the order you made them — the layout (placement, resize, rotation, grouping), measurements, cable and water runs, and measured door / wheel-arch dimensions. Selection and camera moves are never recorded. Guide: Projects, autosave & version history →
- Free move
- The default tool: drag items across the floor. They stay inside the walls and rest on the floor or on whatever they overlap (stacking). Guide: Placing components →
- Transform gizmo
- One control on the selected item: arrows move along an axis, the centre dot moves freely, three arcs rotate (green flat, red pitch, blue roll) in 15° steps, squares resize from a corner, a side or the top with the opposite side pinned. The size, or the live number, sits under the item. Guide: Placing components →
- Rotate 90°R
- Rotates the selected item a quarter turn and re-clamps it into the van. Guide: Placing components →
- Duplicate⌘D
- Copies the selection and drops the copy beside the original, already selected. Guide: Placing components →
- DeleteDel
- Removes the selected item(s). Undoable. Guide: Placing components →
- Top viewT
- Straight-down floor-plan camera — the easiest view for alignment and clearance checks. Toggle back for the 3D orbit. Guide: Placing components →
- Doors openO
- Swings every door, drawer, and hatch open and shows their clearance zones so you can catch collisions between openings. Guide: The van body & openings →
- MeasureM
- Measuring tape: click any two points — furniture, floor or wall — to read the exact distance. Points snap to corners, edges and walls (hold Alt to place freely), endpoints can be dragged, and every measurement is saved with the project and listed in the right sidebar whenever the tool is open. Hold Shift while clicking to chain points into a multi-point path — a cable route, a worktop edge, a perimeter — with a length on every segment and the total at the end; Enter or a double-click finishes it, Backspace takes back the last point, Esc cancels it. Guide: Placing components →
- View segmented switch
- One segmented control for the five mutually-exclusive camera modes: 3D orbit, Top (floor plan), Roof (the roof face only), Walk (first-person walkthrough), and Photo. The active mode reads amber. Guide: Photo mode →
- Walk modeW
- First-person eye-height (1.65 m) walkthrough: WASD/arrows move, Shift runs, drag to look. Walls and unopened doors block you; a live headroom chip in the shortcut bar warns when the shell build-up or an overhead item cuts your standing height. Esc or the toolbar exits. Guide: Walk mode & the newest planning tools →
- Auto-hide wallsH
- Fades out whatever walls sit between the camera and the interior as you orbit, so the inside stays visible. On by default; toggle it off for a fixed cutaway. Guide: The van body & openings →
- X-rayX
- Hold to peek through the near walls without toggling auto-hide off — a quick look, not a mode change. Guide: The van body & openings →
- Command palette⌘K
- ⌘K opens a searchable list of every action, every item in your build (select + fly to), the calculators panel, camera presets, and catalog components to add by name. Guide: Getting started with VanPlot →
- Calculators panel
- Six live readings, plus the System sizer, fed by the actual layout — EN 721 ventilation, water autonomy, gas locker + drop-out vent, EN 1646-2 payload reserve, bed sit-up vs garage height, and cable gauge for the longest routed run. Open it from the command palette. Guide: Walk mode & the newest planning tools →
- Build Sheet
- The planning report: budget, materials and cut list, payload vs kerb weight, daily power budget, packed gear, and the fuel-cost impact of the build's weight. A card grid at the top holds six exports: Build Pack, plan sheets (1:20), weighbridge report, the 1:1 wall scribe template, Copy CSV, and Download CSV. Guide: The Build Sheet →
- Build Pack
- One printed document for the whole build: cover, 1:20 floor plan and elevation, grouped cut list, priced shopping list (incl. shell build-up, systems, and openings), power summary, and a heaviest-first weight budget. Guide: The Build Sheet →
- Weighbridge report
- A printable payload and axle-load summary — vehicle data, EN 1646-2 payload compliance, added-load axle split and centre-of-mass, and fill-in blanks for the real plate values. Guide: The Build Sheet →
- Loadout (packed gear)
- Weight-only lines for what you carry but don't build — clothes, food, tools, and more — counted in the payload bar without touching cost or the cut list. Guide: Walk mode & the newest planning tools →
- Photo modeP
- Hides the UI, offers framing presets (¾ front, side, ¾ rear, top), and captures the current view as a PNG. Guide: Photo mode →
- Save / Snapshot / History⌘S
- Changes autosave continuously; Snapshot stores a version named by date and time (rename it in History); History lists snapshots with restore. Restoring is itself undoable. Guide: Projects, autosave & version history →
- Share
- Share links you can turn off again (with view counts, a replay-reel link and viewer notes), the permanent remix link that carries the whole layout in the URL, the build-replay reel recorder, and the Layout Roast card. Share links work on the trial; the permanent link and reel recording need a license. Guide: Sharing your build →
- Send feedback
- A pill above the shortcut bar opens a short form — feedback or feature request, up to 2,000 characters — that reaches me directly. Guide: Getting started with VanPlot →
- Settings menu
- Theme (dark/light), units (metric/imperial display), currency, scene backdrop (studio, desert, lake, meadow), camera auto-rotate with speed, a field-of-view slider with a Home view, floor grid, the center-of-mass marker and the weight distribution map. Guide: Getting started with VanPlot →
- Roof view⇧T
- Orthographic straight-down view of the roof face only — floor furniture hidden, the usable rectangle outlined. Drag fans, panels and rails; the Roof planner HUD shows usable area, clear area and the solar array wattage, with Auto-fill panels to grid-pack a preset panel around everything on the roof in one undo step. Guide: Roof planner, weight map & tilt test →
- Overall height
- Build stats row: the van plus the tallest thing on its roof — metres, or feet and inches rounded up with imperial units. A design check fires only when roof gear takes the van over a bar the bare van clears: 2.0 m / 3.0 m in metric, 7′ / 9′ in imperial. Guide: Gear outside the van: rear doors, roof & under the floor →
- Tilt test
- Alpine-hairpin stability check: sweeps the van's visual lean past its computed tipping angle, then hands you a slider. Reports the tipping angle empty vs. loaded and the Static Stability Factor. Visual only — nothing in the layout moves. Guide: Roof planner, weight map & tilt test →
- Weight distribution map
- Settings › Scene toggle (or ⌘K): tints the cargo floor on a 15 cm grid from sky to red by kg/m², relative to the densest cell of this build, so a heavy corner shows up before the axle numbers do. Guide: Roof planner, weight map & tilt test →
- Comments chip
- Top-right of the canvas when a share link has notes: counts open notes and opens the Comments panel in the right rail — pin number, author, date, note, item; click to highlight the pin, Resolve, Reopen or Delete. Guide: Sharing your build →
- Trial chip
- Toolbar countdown of your free planning time — it only runs while you edit, pauses when you are idle, and turns red at zero (view-only until you upgrade). Click it for the license sheet and ways to earn more minutes. Guide: Trial, license & your account →
- Help menu
- The ? icon: the keyboard-shortcut cheatsheet, Explain the interface (hover any control to read what it does, click for its docs page — E toggles it, Esc leaves), the Guided first task, three short tutorials (scenes, routing water, the build pack), the interface tour, and the docs in your language. Guide: Getting started with VanPlot →
- Focus modeI
- The toolbar's target button: everything but the selection fades and stops taking clicks, so one item can be placed with nothing in the way. Nothing selected means nothing fades; press again to leave. Guide: Placing components →
Left sidebar
- Components tab
- The outline of your build: every placed item as a row — click to select (even through walls), eye to hide, trash to delete. Groups collapse into a single header row. Guide: Placing components →
- Library tab
- The catalog: 162 parametric components in ten categories with real 3D thumbnails. Click to add at the van's center, or drag onto the canvas to place directly. Guide: Placing components →
- Gear presets
- Real-product chips under catalog items — actual models with manufacturer size, weight, typical EU price, and power draw. Place one directly, or switch a placed item between models in the Inspector. Guide: Placing components →
- Rear-door & roof gear
- Catalog items marked rear doors — bike rack, spare wheel carrier, rear door box, jerry can holder, rear ladder — mount on the outside of the barn doors and swing with them; a roof box and an LED light bar join the roof items. All count toward payload and axle loads; a rear-overhang check tips above 35 kg and warns above 75 kg. Guide: Gear outside the van: rear doors, roof & under the floor →
- Person silhouette
- A resizable stand-in person (1.78 m, 75 kg, in Extras) to drop into the layout for scale — sit them on the bench, stand them in the aisle. Guide: Placing components →
- Systems tab
- Wiring & plumbing: route cable and water runs point-by-point; clicks snap to the walls and floor of the interior shell. Lengths feed the budget. Guide: Wiring & plumbing runs →
- States tab
- Named arrangements of the whole van — bed up vs bed down. Capture the current arrangement, then apply any state with one click. Guide: Scene states — bed up, bed down →
- Design button
- Opens the component designer to build a custom component from primitive shapes. Guide: The component designer →
- AI button
- Create a component from a plain-language description (up to 2,000 characters). The result lands in My Components and the scene, ready to refine. Guide: Create components with AI →
- Import button
- Imports a 3D model — GLB, STL, OBJ, or SketchUp Collada (.dae), up to 30 MB. Heavy meshes are auto-optimized to about 60k triangles; size is capped to the van interior. Guide: Importing 3D models →
- Library search
- Filters the catalog and My Components by name as you type. Guide: Placing components →
Inspector
- Position & rotation
- Exact numbers for the selected item: X/Z position and rotation in degrees. Drag a label to scrub, scroll the field to step — Shift for coarse (10×), Alt for fine (0.1×). Guide: Placing components →
- Dimensions & Max
- Per-axis size in meters; a sheet can be as thin as 3 mm (18 mm / ¾″ ply is typed as it is). Each axis has a Max button that grows the item to fill the free space up to the van wall or the nearest neighbour. Guide: Placing components →
- Color & texture
- Per-item color plus a texture picker: built-in wood/ply/metal materials tinted by the item color, your recently-used colors first, and your own uploaded images. Guide: Placing components →
- Weight / cost / power
- Per-item overrides for the planning math — kilograms, purchase cost, and daily Wh draw — with catalog defaults filled in. A link field stores where you'd buy it. Guide: The Build Sheet →
- Placement — Under the floorU
- On water tanks, the grey water tank, the diesel heater, the gas bottle, the storage box and every custom component: slings the item under the floor pan, between the chassis rails and the axles. Height is pinned — the Inspector shows ground clearance instead, and says so when the item is taller than the space. Deselected, it is hidden by the floor and ignores clicks; hold X or press N to reach it, or turn on the toolbar's see-through floor (Shift+X) to keep everything under the floor visible and clickable. Exhaust, driveshaft, fuel tank and spare wheel are not modelled. Guide: Gear outside the van: rear doors, roof & under the floor →
- Placement — Outside
- The natural mount of camp gear — a camp table, chairs, a stove, the awning's kit — standing on the ground beside the van, not counted in the payload. Gear stacks on gear: drop a stove on the camp table and it rests on it instead of on the ground. Height is yours too — the Y field, the lift gizmo and PgUp / PgDn raise it by hand, measured from the GROUND (0 = standing on it). Turn Stack on overlaps off and it goes back to the ground. Ground gear and floor gear never support each other. Guide: Gear outside the van: rear doors, roof & under the floor →
- Placement — Anywhere
- The last option of the Placement control, on every item (the first is the item's own mount: Inside the van, Rear doors, Roof, Body side or Outside). The item can be placed anywhere within about 1 m of the body, rests on the ground rather than sinking into it, snaps onto the outer skin of the side walls and rear doors, and is never re-settled. It still counts for weight, axle loads, tilt and overall height; support and stacking checks skip it. Guide: Gear outside the van: rear doors, roof & under the floor →
- Placement — On a drawer slide
- A switch in the Placement block on any item — a fridge on the rear doors, a kitchen pod, a battery box, your own part — with a Travel field (5 cm to 2 m). Doors-open mode (O) glides the item out by its travel, the keep-clear zone and the blocked-door check cover the travel, and the Build Sheet lists the rated slide pair. Guide: Placing components →
- No-stack
- Opts the item out of stacking: it rests on the floor, overlaps neighbours freely, and nothing lands on top — for squeezing things into tight spots. Guide: Placing components →
- Group / Ungroup⌘G
- Groups the multi-selection into one unit that moves and hides together. Guide: Placing components →
Body & openings
- Van picker
- 29 vehicles across 195 size/drive variants, grouped by brand — North American vans (Transit (US), ProMaster, Sprinter (US), Metris) as their own entries on their makers' US sheets. Interior dimensions, door openings and payload are the makers' published figures, re-checked against their documents in September 2026; ceilings and doors differ by drive on Transit, Crafter / TGE, Sprinter and Master, so pick the drive you have. Items re-settle when you switch. Guide: Choosing your van →
- Shell build-up
- Per-surface spec of what lines the van: the finished thickness per surface (floor / walls / ceiling), the insulation material (XPS / PIR / wool / Thinsulate) for the floor and for walls+ceiling, plus battens, 12 mm subfloor and 5.5 mm lining panels. Feeds the materials estimate (m² incl. waste), payload weight, build cost and the heat-loss line; "Show build-up in 3D" draws it. Guide: Choosing your van →
- Build-up thickness
- Finished thickness per surface in millimetres (0–200) — floor, walls (each) and ceiling, insulation + battens + panels — at the top of the Shell build-up section. Walls shrink the usable width and length, floor + ceiling the standing height; items re-clamp when it changes, and the stats HUD shows the resulting standing height and width between walls. Under each material the section says how much of the figure is left for insulation. Guide: Choosing your van →
- Wheel arches
- Your measured arch box — length, depth, height and chamfer — replaces the built-in body-builder estimate; furniture clamps and stacks against it. Use the built-in figures resets. Guide: Choosing your van →
- Door openings
- Manufacturer-sourced clear openings per platform, with your own measurements on top: sliding door position from the bulkhead, width and height; rear doors width and height. Drives the wall hole, the entry zone, walk-through and plan sheets, and rides share links. The rear doors are still drawn full width; one slider, right side. Guide: The van body & openings →
- Edit as custom van
- Under the van picker: turns the database van into a custom van starting from the same figures, with every dimension and weight editable. Switch to a database van goes back. Guide: Choosing your van →
- Maker figures / Estimate
- The line under the Door openings fields says where the figures come from: Maker figures (the maker's name and the month the document was checked), Estimate where the maker publishes no door opening — today the Toyota HiAce — or Measured on your van once you type your own. Van pages on the website name the source document for dimensions and doors. Guide: Choosing your van →
- Body style & paint
- Panel van (unibody, curved) or box body (square Luton-style), plus exterior paint color. Guide: The van body & openings →
- Body panels
- Per-panel visibility (cab, walls, roof, rear, bulkhead) and auto-hide, which drops the walls facing the camera as you orbit. Guide: The van body & openings →
- Cut an opening
- Cuts a window, roof fan, or plain hole into a chosen wall — a real hole in the body, sized and positioned exactly, clamped to the panel, and counted in weight and cost. Guide: The van body & openings →
Component designer
- Shapes
- Five primitives — box, cylinder, sphere, cone, wedge (ramp) — added at real-world size and edited like editor items. Guide: The component designer →
- Layers panel
- Every part as a row: click to select, double-click to rename, eye to hide, hover for duplicate and delete. Newest on top. Guide: The component designer →
- Scale gizmo4
- The designer's fourth tool: stretch a part along any axis by dragging the handles; the exact size stays editable in the inspector. Guide: The component designer →
- Hollow
- Replaces a box with an open-top tub built from five 18 mm panels — each panel stays an editable part. Guide: The component designer →
- Frame
- Replaces a box with a 12-member stud frame (45 mm studs and rails) — the skeleton you'd actually build. Guide: The component designer →
- Cut hole
- Arms a box part for a hole: click a face, drag to draw the rectangle (or click for the default size). Cuts straight through the part's full depth; editable center/size in the inspector. Guide: The component designer →
- Save to library⌘S
- Stores the component in My Components. A brand-new component is placed into your scene automatically when you return. Guide: The component designer →
Build stats
- Build weight bar
- Bottom-left card: everything you have placed against the van's payload, as a bar that turns amber past 80% and red once the reserve is gone. Guide: The Build Sheet →
- Headline numbers
- Five figures that move as you build — standing height, width between walls, axle split, side balance, build cost — and a More numbers toggle for the rest (overall height, power autonomy, fresh water, floor used). Guide: The Build Sheet →
- Advice list
- One list for the whole plan in three tiers: Fix (wrong or unsafe now — a blocked door, gas beside a hob), Decide (not decided yet — no pump, no charge source, no CO alarm) and Check (only you can answer it, away from the screen). The first three rows are always visible, Show all opens the rest, a chevron reveals the reason, and decision rows can be dismissed for good. Guide: The Build Sheet →