VanPlot AI (beta)

What VanPlot AI does

VanPlot AI is a chat panel in the editor. You write what you want in plain words and it changes the van in front of you: each change appears in the scene as it happens, with a short line in the chat saying what it did — "Adding a fixed bed ✓", "Moving the kitchen ✓".

It can design the whole van, add, move, resize, turn, rename and recolour items, set an item's weight, cost or power, remove things, change the van or resize a custom one, and answer questions about your build: payload left, axle loads and centre of mass, cost, power and battery autonomy, water, berths, and what the design checks flag. It reads the same numbers the Build Sheet shows, so its answers match the planner.

It follows a few builder's rules on its own: cabinets, the kitchen and the fridge are turned to face the aisle, not the wall; the sliding-door and rear-door entries stay clear; and it keeps a walkway and room to stand in front of each cabinet. If a spot you name would block a doorway, it moves the item beside it and says so.

From a photo: attach a photo of a van interior or a sketch (the attach button in the composer, or drop it on the chat) and ask it to rebuild that layout — or use the Rebuild from a photo suggestion. It places the closest catalog parts, scaled to your van, and says what it approximated.

VanPlot AI is in beta. It is good at layouts and at reading your numbers back to you; check its work the way you would check a friend's sketch.

VanPlot AI, Render photo and Create with AI come with the lifetime licence, which includes 50 AI credits to start. They are not part of the free trial: on the trial the panel shows a card saying VanPlot AI comes with the licence.

1. Open a project and click Ask VanPlot AI… at the bottom of the canvas, or press A (the sparkle tile in the header and ⌘K → Ask VanPlot AI do the same; on a phone, the AI tab).
2. Write a request — "Move the bed to the back", "How much payload is left?", "Make the van 20 cm longer" — and press Enter. Shift Enter starts a new line.
3. Watch the changes land: new items drop into place, and a card under the reply lists each change. Every reply is one undo step: press Undo this turn on that card, or undo as usual, to take the whole reply back.
4. Keep going in the same conversation. The assistant sees the van as it is now, including anything you changed by hand.

Chats, history and asking about a part

Ask about what you selected. Click an item while VanPlot AI is open and the panel switches to the Inspector tab so you can edit it by hand; the chat stays one tab away (VanPlot AI), with your draft and any reply still running. Back in the chat, an About: Fridge chip above the message box means "this" and "it" refer to that item — "make this 10 cm narrower". Press ✕ on the chip to leave the selection out.

Retry and Edit. Under the newest reply, Retry takes the reply back (its changes undone in one step) and asks again. Hover your newest message and press Edit to change the wording and send it again. Both work while that reply is still the last thing that changed your van; an attached photo is not sent again.

Your chats are saved. New chat starts an empty conversation and keeps the old one: the clock button in the panel header lists this project's chats, newest first — open one to carry on, rename it, or delete it. Opening the project on another device continues the latest chat.

Don't want your chats kept? Switch Save my chats off at the bottom of that list: from then on a new chat lives only in the browser tab. Chats you already saved stay until you delete them.

Design my van

Design my van builds a whole layout from a short description. It asks three things — how many people, how you will use the van, and what matters most — then places a complete layout in one go.

Because it does more work, it costs more: it shows the estimated credits before you confirm. The result is an ordinary layout — every item can be moved, swapped or deleted by hand or by asking.

1. Press Design my van — the first button in an empty VanPlot AI panel, or the wand next to the send button.
2. Answer the three questions and check the estimated credits.
3. Confirm. The layout fills in item by item; undo it in one step if you want to start over.

What it can't do (yet)

VanPlot AI works with items and the van itself. A few things still need the editor's own tools:

Credits

VanPlot AI runs on paid AI models, so it uses credits. A reply debits what it actually used, rounded up, and the meter at the top of the panel shows your balance. VanPlot AI comes with the lifetime licence: every licence includes 50 credits once, existing licences too. The free trial has no AI credits.

After that, you buy credit packs — one-time payments, no subscription. Credits never expire, and bigger packs carry a volume bonus: 250 credits (no bonus), 700 (+5%), 1,500 (+10%) or 3,300 (+20%). Packs need the lifetime licence (see Pricing). To buy, click the credit meter: the AI credits sheet has a slider with four stops and a card that shows the credits, the bonus, the price and roughly how many renders or layout changes that is; press Buy N credits. There is a daily cap of 300 credits, so a long session cannot empty your balance by accident. When you run out, the reply is replaced by a card with Add credits; the planner itself never needs credits.

Render photo

Render photo turns the current view into a photoreal picture of your build. Pick a style — Scandi, Industrial, Warm wood, Minimal or Photo — and a view (rear, side or front), add an optional note such as "evening light, rain outside", and the render comes back, usually in 30–90 seconds, with a before/after slider.

Renders are an interpretation of your layout, not a measured drawing: materials and small details are invented to look right. Rendering the same view, style and note again within a day returns the same picture without spending credits.

1. Frame the van the way you want it photographed.
2. Press Render photo in the strip at the top of the VanPlot AI panel, or choose it in ⌘K — or ask the assistant to render, and it offers a Render photo button under its reply.
3. Choose a style and view, check the credit cost, and press Render.
4. Download the picture or press Render again for a different take.
5. Find earlier renders under My renders in the same dialog: open one full size to download it again, or delete it (credits are not refunded).

Privacy and safety

To answer, your message and the current layout — the van, the items and their names, and the build numbers — are sent to Anthropic (Claude), as is a photo you turn into a layout; under its API terms Anthropic doesn't use it to train models. For a render, a screenshot of your 3D view is sent to kie.ai, which runs Google's Nano Banana image model to produce the picture — for how kie.ai handles it, see its privacy policy at kie.ai/privacy. Nothing is shared with other users, and your renders are stored privately in your account.

Saved chats: your messages, any photo you attach, the replies and the changes they made are stored with your account for 12 months after you last used the chat, so you can reopen it and so we can find and fix the assistant's mistakes. Only you and the VanPlot team can read them. Switch Save my chats off (chat history list) to keep new chats in your browser tab only; delete a chat to remove it straight away.

VanPlot AI can only change the van you have open. It cannot see other projects, other people's builds or the web. Item and project names are treated as data, never as instructions, and every change goes through the same checks as a change you make by hand — an item that doesn't fit is refused, and the assistant says so.

Every reply is one undo step, so nothing it does is permanent until you keep it.

Questions

Do I need VanPlot AI to use VanPlot? No. The planner, every check and every export work without it.

Does it make mistakes? Sometimes. It may place an item where you would not, or misread a vague request. Undo the reply and say it more precisely — sizes and positions ("behind the driver's seat", "60 cm wide") help most.

Why did a reply cost more than usual? Big rearrangements take more work, and a long conversation is re-read with every reply. Short, specific requests are the cheapest.

Can it see my other projects? No. It only sees the project you have open.

Do credits expire? No. Pack credits and the 50 credits that come with the licence never expire: they stay in your account until you use them.