Annotations, measuring and layers
The drafting side of Sketch Mode — lines, shapes, text, measurements and dimensions, organised on layers and groups, plus the typed command line.
A layout is a set of positions. A drawing is a layout somebody can build from: it carries the dimensions that matter, the labels that name things, a north arrow, a scale, and the notes that explain the parts a plan view cannot show. The annotation tools in Sketch Mode are how you turn the first into the second without leaving the application.
Annotations are drawing content. They do not clear ground, they are not counted in the plant totals, and they never change the capacity — that is the difference between them and the equipment tools on Sketch Mode. What they do is travel: onto the screen, and into the exported CAD drawing on layers of their own.
Getting to the tools
Switch ✏ Sketch Mode on from the toolbar. Every tool on this page is in the same palette as the editing tools, and one tool is active at a time.
Each element you draw is created on the current layer, in the current stroke colour, and can be put into a named group. The default stroke is an orange-red, 1.5 pt wide; 🎨 Colour changes it for what you draw next.
Drawing shapes
Eight tools draw geometry. Some are a single click-and-drag; the multi-point tools all end the same way — right-click.
| Tool | What you do |
|---|---|
| ╱ Line | Click and drag a straight line |
| ⌒ Polyline | Click each vertex; right-click or double-click to finish |
| □ Rect | Click and drag a rectangle |
| ○ Circle | Click the centre, then drag the radius |
| ◜ Arc | Click the start, then the end, then a point on the arc |
| ⬭ Ellipse | Click and drag a bounding box |
| ∿ Spline | Click the fit points; right-click or double-click to finish |
| ▨ Fill/Zone | Click inside a closed polygon to fill it |
Two of those deserve a note.
◜ Arc takes three clicks in a specific order — start, end, then a point the arc must pass through. The arc is not drawn until the third click, so nothing appears to happen after the first two.
▨ Fill/Zone works on a closed shape that already exists. Draw the boundary of the zone first — with ⌒ Polyline or □ Rect — then click inside it to fill it. It is the tool for marking out a phase, a contractor's work area, or a land parcel that is not an exclusion.
Switch ⊾ Ortho on before drawing anything that has to run square, and 🧲 Snap on before drawing anything that has to meet existing geometry exactly.
Text labels
🅣 Text places a label. Click where the label goes, type it — it accepts more than one line, so a note does not have to be a single long string — and the label sits at that position on the plot.
To reposition a label, switch to ↖ Move and drag it. Labels select, move and delete like any other element.
Text is the tool that carries the things the geometry cannot say: a plot name, a phase number, an access route, a caveat about a survey. Write them as they should read on the printed drawing, because that is where they end up.
Measuring
📏 Measure answers a question; it does not add anything to the drawing.
| Points you click | What you get |
|---|---|
| Two | The distance between them and the bearing from the first to the second |
| Three or more | A running total along the whole chain of points |
- What it shows
- A measurement between two points with the distance and bearing readout visible.
- How to get there
- In Sketch Mode, pick the measure tool and click two points.
The bearing on a two-point measurement is what makes this useful for setting out — it is the number you hand to a surveyor along with the distance. The running total is for the cases where the answer is a path rather than a straight line: the length of an access track around three sides of a plot, or the run a cable would take if it followed the fence.
All internal geometry is in metres, projected to the site's local UTM zone, so a measurement is a ground distance, not a screen distance. Zooming does not change it.
Dimensions
📐 Dimension places a dimension that stays on the drawing. Click and drag between the two points, or click one point and then the second.
- What it shows
- A dimension with its extension lines and value, placed against something recognisable such as a row pitch.
- How to get there
- In Sketch Mode, pick the dimension tool and drag between two points.
The distinction between the two tools is worth being deliberate about:
| Aspect | 📏 Measure | 📐 Dimension |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Check a distance now | Record a distance for someone else |
| Stays on the drawing | No | Yes |
| Goes into the exported drawing | No | Yes |
Dimension the things a construction team would otherwise have to derive: row pitch, the gap between table runs, the setback from the fence to the first row, the clearance around a control room. Those are the numbers that get queried on site.
Layers
Layers control what is visible. The palette carries two layer controls:
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| ＋ | Creates a new layer and makes it current |
| 👁 | Toggles the visibility of a layer |
Everything you draw goes onto the current layer, so create the layer first and then draw. The habit that pays off is one layer per audience — dimensions on one, civil notes on another, a client's mark-ups on a third — because then you can show one and hide the rest instead of deleting anything.
Groups
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| ⧉ Group | Puts the selected elements into a named group |
| ⿲ Ungroup | Breaks the group apart again |
A group moves as one. Select the elements that belong together — a dimension and the label that explains it, an outline and its fill — group them, and from then on ↖ Move picks up the whole thing. Ungroup when you need to change one part.
Groups are independent of layers. An element carries a layer and, optionally, a group name; grouping elements does not move them onto a layer of their own.
Why layers matter beyond the screen
The exported CAD drawing separates the plant from the annotations. Boundaries,
tables, control rooms, inverters, cables and trenches each land on their own
layer; the Sketch Mode annotations land on SKETCH, and labels and text land on
ANNOTATIONS.
That separation is what makes the drawing usable by somebody else. A civil
contractor opens the file, switches off SKETCH and ANNOTATIONS, and has a
clean plan of the plant with none of your working on it. Switch them back on
and your dimensions and notes are there again. Neither of you has to maintain
two versions of the drawing. See CAD export.
Your own layers stay in the application
The layer set in the exported drawing is fixed, and it does not include yours. A
layer you create with ＋ is not carried into the CAD drawing: every annotation
lands on the single SKETCH layer whatever in-application layer it was drawn on.
Three layers of working come out as one.
So layers are a tool for the screen — for hiding your own working to read the layout underneath, and for keeping a client's mark-ups apart from your dimensions. They are not a way to hand structured layers to somebody else. If the recipient needs that separation in CAD, it has to be rebuilt there.
Bringing an existing drawing in
📂 Import DXF brings a CAD drawing onto the canvas so you can draw against it — an existing site plan, a survey, a road alignment, a neighbouring developer's drawing. It is a reference to work over, not an input to the layout: importing a drawing does not create obstructions and does not move any tables.
The drawing's coordinates are read as they are, in metres. Nothing is scaled, re-centred, or fitted to the plant, so the drawing has to already be in the same coordinate system as the project.
Import a drawing that is not georeferenced to the site — one drawn around a local origin, say — and it will not appear over the plant. It lands wherever its own coordinates put it, usually far enough away to be off the visible canvas altogether. Press the plot toolbar's Home button to fit the view and you will see how far out it went.
Seven entity types come across: lines, polylines, circles, arcs, ellipses, splines and text. Anything else in the file is skipped. The status line reports how many elements were imported and which layer they landed on — they go onto whichever layer is currently selected, so pick or create that layer before importing.
To turn something in an imported drawing into ground the layout must avoid, draw it as an obstruction with the equipment tools. See Obstructions and exclusions.
The scale bar and north arrow
🧭 Scale bar + North adds both to the plot in one click. They belong on anything that leaves the application as a picture — a screen capture pasted into a report, a drawing handed to somebody who was not part of the design.
- What it shows
- The plot carrying several kinds of annotation at once — a text label, a drawn shape, and the scale bar and north arrow.
- How to get there
- In Sketch Mode add a text label and a shape, then click the scale bar and north button.
The exported PDF report draws its own north arrow and title block on the engineering drawing page, so you do not need this for the report itself. See PDF report.
Clearing annotations
🗑 Clear Annotations removes the annotation elements in one action.
🗑 Clear Annotations clears the drawing content wholesale, not only the selection. If the aim is only to get annotations out of the way — to read the layout underneath, or to take a clean capture — switch a layer's visibility off with 👁 instead, and everything is still there when you switch it back on.
Plant objects are not annotations, so clearing annotations does not remove tables, arresters, obstructions or trenches. Those are deleted with 🗑 Delete and ✂ Del Trench.
Working from the keyboard
The palette has a typed command line. If you draft in CAD every day, it is faster than finding a button: type the alias, press Enter, and the tool is armed.
| Type | Tool |
|---|---|
L or LINE | ╱ Line |
PL or POLY | ⌒ Polyline |
REC, RECT or R | □ Rect |
C or CIR | ○ Circle |
ARC or A | ◜ Arc |
EL or ELL | ⬭ Ellipse |
SPL or SP | ∿ Spline |
H, HATCH or FILL | ▨ Fill/Zone |
DIM or D | 📐 Dimension |
T or TEXT | 🅣 Text |
M or MEA | 📏 Measure |
S or SEL | ↖ Move, for selecting |
The aliases are the ones a CAD user already has in their fingers, so a drafting
session runs at keyboard speed: PL, click the vertices,
right-click, DIM, drag, T, type the note. The full keyboard reference is in
Keyboard and commands.
What to put on a drawing you hand over
The tools are general, so the useful question is which of them a recipient actually needs. This is the set that answers the questions a design drawing gets asked on site.
| Add | With | So that |
|---|---|---|
| Row pitch, and the gap between table runs | 📐 Dimension | Nobody sets out spacing from a scaled print |
| The setback from the fence to the first row | 📐 Dimension | The perimeter road width is visible as a built dimension, not an assumption |
| Clearance around each control room | 📐 Dimension | The access the equipment needs is on the drawing |
| Plot and phase names | 🅣 Text | A multi-plot site can be discussed plot by plot |
| Access routes and gates | ⌒ Polyline plus 🅣 Text | The route to each part of the plant is agreed before mobilisation |
| Contractor or phase work areas | ⌒ Polyline plus ▨ Fill/Zone | Two teams on site know where their boundary is |
| Scale and orientation | 🧭 Scale bar + North | The drawing survives being printed, cropped or pasted |
Keep each of those on a layer that says who it is for, and the same drawing serves the client, the civil contractor and the electrical contractor without being redrawn three times.
Where to go next
Sketch Mode
The hand-editing surface — select, move, copy, delete, place tables, arresters, obstructions and cable trenches, and recompute the plant totals from your edits.
Pile layout
Define a pile pattern on one reference table, stamp it onto every table in the plant, and export the coordinate report a setting-out team works from.