Floor and Tiles · Documentation

The PlannerBeta

Planner… at the foot of the Areas rollout opens a window with the plan of the floor the open row is on: every tile of the field and the borders, coloured by material ID, over the outlines the rows were cut to. This is where tiles are set by hand: their IDs, which ones are missing, where the borders' edges fall. The panel's rollouts sit beside the plan.

Beta. The Planner is one of the newest parts of the plugin. It does what is written here and it is in daily use, but it is the part most likely to change. If it gets in your way, or you have an idea for it, write to contact@immersiveviz.com.

Wheel to zoom, middle button to pan, click or drag a band to pick tiles; Ctrl and Shift add and toggle as usual. The window stays open when the object is deselected and follows the floor as the picked shapes change; it closes when the object is deleted. An object with several floors gets a tab per floor over the plan; a Volume Tiles room, a tab per surface.

The first time it opens, a guided tour walks through the window: every button of the ribbon in turn, then the side panel. The ? button on the ribbon starts it again whenever you want it.

The side is Max's own rollouts: Area, Select, Material, Properties, Borders. Under the plan is a ribbon of icon buttons; every button has a tooltip. In the corner of the plan is an info card with how many tiles are picked and their area, the tile under the mouse, a legend of colour, ID, count and area, and any message the window has; its own arrow folds it to one line.

Looking is free; setting tiles is Pro. In the free edition the plan, the legend and the exports work, and the tiles cannot be changed.

Ribbon

	Tiles / Areas	How a click picks: one tile, or the whole area the tile is in (the field, or one border).
	Lasso (L)	Draw round the tiles to pick. Ctrl adds to the selection, Alt takes away.
	Brush (B) + px + ID	Paint this ID onto tiles under a ring of this many pixels; Ctrl paints tiles out. Set when the button is released, as one undo step.
	Origin (toggle)	The area's pattern origin as a gizmo: drag the handle to move the pattern, the ring to turn it. Both follow the mouse as you drag, so the floor relays under the cursor rather than jumping when the button comes up. The handle snaps to corners and side-midpoints of the outline; Alt drags free, Ctrl to whole units. Turning, Shift steps in five degrees and the angle is written beside the ring. The same numbers as General › Offset X / Y and Rotation.
	Isolate (toggle)	The area in hand (the one the picked tiles are in, or else the open row) is the only one that can be picked or painted; the rest is faded. Off, or the area gone, and everything is back.
	Fit (F) / Zoom to selection (Z)	The whole plan in the window, or the picked tiles.
	Turn	The view a quarter turn. The floor stays where it is.
	Save	A menu: PNG picture, SVG drawing (a group per ID), DXF drawing (a layer per ID, closed polylines), CSV count and area by ID. The DXF is what a stone yard asks for; the CSV is the order.
	IDs (toggle)	Write the material ID on each tile that is big enough on screen.
	?	The guided tour again: the ribbon button by button, then the panel.
	Clean up lost edits	Edits made by hand belong to the tiles they were made on. Change the pattern and those tiles are gone; the edits stay stored until the pattern is back, and the status line says how many. This throws them away.

Clicks with a key

Shift+click a tile	Its whole row of the lattice, along the pattern.
Ctrl+Shift+click	Its column, across the pattern.
Alt+click	The pipette: the tile's ID into the Material spinner, setting nothing.
Double-click	Opens the tile's row in the panel.

Keys reach the window whenever it has the focus: F fit, Z zoom to selection, L lasso, B brush, 1–9 set that material ID on the selection, Delete clear, Esc deselect, Ctrl+A all, Ctrl+I invert, Ctrl+D none, Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y undo and redo. Max keeps its own shortcuts while the focus is anywhere else, so the two never fight over a key.

Area

The area the picked tiles are in, or the open row when nothing is picked.

Pattern	Changes the area's pattern. The row's rollouts reopen for it.
Each tab on its own	Volume Tiles and Tile every surface only. On by default: a surface's tab, when opened, gets its own copies of the shared rows, marked `#n` in the Areas list, so the panel changes that surface alone. Off, the tab edits the shared rows until Own settings is pressed.

Select

	Same material	Every tile of the floor with the picked tiles' IDs.
	At random + %	This share of the picked tiles, or of the whole floor when nothing is picked.
	All / Invert	The whole floor; the other half.
	Every / From + Rows / Columns / Checker	Every Nth row or column of the lattice, starting from the given one, out of the selection or the whole floor, or every other tile as a checkerboard. Rows follow the pattern's rotation.

Material

	ID spinner	The material ID of the picked tiles. Changing it sets them at once. Follows the selection when it agrees on one.
	Remove	Takes the picked tiles out of the floor, leaving a hole where a drain, a hearth or a column stands.
	Randomize + count	Every tile of the floor dealt an ID of its own at random, 1 to the count, as in the Material IDs rollout. The grout keeps its own ID.
	Set defaults	Puts the picked tiles back to what the pattern and the rollouts say, or the whole floor when nothing is picked.
	Palette	A swatch per ID on the floor. Click: the picked tiles get it. Right-click: every tile with it is picked.
	Distribute IDs	A range of IDs, say 1–12; every picked tile, or every tile of the floor, gets one of them at random. With twelve slots of the same stone and a different photo in each, no two neighbours look alike.

Properties and Borders

Properties: the Properties rollout of the row in hand, row for row, shown for its pattern: variation, sizes and their padlocks, rows and columns, the stagger, Grout, Rotation, Origin X / Y, Scale. Every change sets at once.

The panel is the rollout, not a version of it: Length, Width and Row Offset come with Min, Max and Spread under their padlock, and a padlock appears wherever the rollout has one. A locked field is greyed rather than hidden, so the plan and the panel read the same way. The spinners are Max's own, so the arrows drag as they do anywhere else in Max, a right-click resets a value, the step and the units are the ones that parameter has in its rollout, and one drag is one step to undo.

Borders: the Borders rollout of the row in hand: Enabled, Band width, Follow the outer border, Band inset, Lay along the outline, the corners, Trim, Starts; and Add border / Remove for the row.

On the plan a border's inner edge is drawn as a line to take hold of: drag it inwards and the band grows, outwards and it shrinks; the line follows and the Band Width is set when you let go, Ctrl for whole units. A row whose inset is typed rather than followed has its outer edge drawn the same way, in blue, and dragging it sets the Inset.

What is kept

Tiles set by hand are stored with the row, saved with the scene, and undone like anything else; they are not carried by a preset, since they belong to one floor's tiles. An edit is tied to the tile it was made on, by its place in the lattice, so the floor can be resized, the room reshaped and the seed left alone, and the edits stay where they were. Change the pattern and the tiles the edits were on no longer exist; the edits wait, and Clean up lost edits discards them.

← Tile every surface The origin handle →