Visual Space manual, Live Apps, Draw And Export A Layout

You will create or open an unpublished layout, draw a small measured plan, review it, and export the visible canvas as a PNG. This guide is designed for a single focused editing session because the current drawing does not reopen after you leave, reload, or switch sessions.

Before You Start

Make sure the layout can stay open until you have finished drawing and confirmed the export. The layout file and the canvas geometry are not the same thing: the file can remain in the area while its rooms, walls, openings, labels, measurements, and rectangles disappear when the editing session ends.

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Check your space access - Sign in, join the space, and open an area you are allowed to use. A layout in a private area is available only to people who can enter that area.

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Check your Layouts access - Creating and editing requires Layouts access. Read access to the area alone may let you open a layout without showing the drawing tools.

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Choose an unpublished layout - Use a new draft or an existing unpublished, non-archived layout. A published layout is read-only and cannot be used for this walkthrough.

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Plan for one editor - Only one person can hold the active editing session. If another person is editing, wait until their session is released or expires; there is no force-takeover action.

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Prefer a comfortable canvas - A larger screen makes measured drawing, selection handles, and inspection easier. Narrow screens provide compact controls, but precise placement can take more care.

Layouts is a lightweight 2D planning workspace. This guide does not produce a 3D model, a construction document, a meeting-stage app, or a live shared drawing. For the wider feature boundaries, read the Layouts overview.

Open an Active Editing Session

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Open Layouts - From the current space area, open Apps, choose Layouts, and stay in the area where the layout file belongs.

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Create or open the draft - Choose New layout for a clean canvas, or open an unpublished layout you intend to use. Creating a layout adds its file entry to the selected area and opens the workspace.

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Confirm editing - Wait for the workspace to settle, then look for Editing lease active. The drawing tools should be available. If the layout opens read-only, do not begin the walkthrough: check your Layouts access, confirm it is unpublished, or retry after the current editor releases the session.

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Read the save status - Find Local edits; save not connected. This is the reminder that the geometry exists only in the current open editor. Keep this tab and page open until export is complete.

An existing draft may open with an empty canvas even though its layout file is still listed. That is expected after an earlier editing session has ended; the previous geometry is not recovered from the file entry.

Before drawing, confirm the active lease and the session-local save warning around the empty measured canvas.

Prepare the View

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Return to a known view - Choose Fit planning area to frame the reference area. Use Reset view if previous panning or zooming has left the canvas in an awkward position.

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Start in Select - Choose Select before navigating. In this mode you can pan around empty canvas space, inspect existing elements, and avoid adding geometry by accident.

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Set a useful zoom - Use the zoom controls, slider, or pointer-wheel zoom until several meter-grid lines are easy to distinguish. Zoom changes only the view; it does not change measured values.

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Choose a simple outcome - For a first plan, aim for one rectangular room, one or more wall segments, an opening hosted on a wall, and one useful markup item. Keeping the first composition compact makes snap cues and export framing easier to verify.

The grid is measured in meters. As you draw, watch the live dimension labels rather than estimating only by how large an object looks on screen.

Draw the Main Plan

Drawing modes are mutually exclusive. Select a tool, complete its gesture, then choose the next tool. Press Escape whenever you want to cancel the current drawing mode and return safely to Select.

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Add the room - Choose Room, then drag diagonally across the grid to create a rectangle. Watch the live width, height, and area while dragging, and release when the dimensions suit the plan. A valid room appears selected with its measured information.

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Draw a wall - Choose Wall, then drag from one grid point to another. The preview shows its live length. Release to add the segment.

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Connect another wall if useful - Start near the first wall's endpoint and drag in the new direction. Look for the endpoint snap cue before releasing so the walls share a clean corner. Direction snapping can also settle a segment onto a horizontal, vertical, or other 45-degree direction.

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Place a door or window - Choose Door or Window, then point at a wall and click or tap where the opening belongs. The opening must snap to a usable wall. It is kept within the wall's available length, even when you point near an end.

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Check the opening - Confirm that the opening symbol appears on the wall. If nothing is added, move closer to a visible wall and try again; clicking away from a valid host wall does not change the drawing.

Rooms and walls are separate drawing elements. A room gives you a quick measured rectangular area, while walls give doors and windows a host and let you sketch connected boundaries or dividers.

Add a Measurement or Visual Note

Choose the markup that best explains the plan. You can add more than one, but a single clear item is often enough for a first export. Snapping can make a quick plan cleaner, but it does not provide engineering guarantees; use the visible snap marker and measurement labels as feedback rather than treating the image as construction-ready documentation.

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Measure a span - Choose Measurement, then drag between two points. The line displays its live distance while you draw and keeps the measured label after release. Grid and nearby endpoint snapping can help the measurement meet existing geometry cleanly.

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Mark a footprint - Choose Rectangle, then drag a box for a furniture footprint, reserved zone, or other simple visual note. This shape is a markup element, not another room.

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Place a basic label - Choose Label, then click or tap a grid position. The current tool places the default text Label; Inspector and Settings do not provide text editing, so use this only when a generic marker is useful.

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Return to Select - Choose Select or press Escape before reviewing the result. This prevents an inspection gesture from starting another measurement, rectangle, or label.

Adjust Without Losing Good Work

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Select one element - In Select, click or tap a room, wall, opening, measurement, label, or rectangle. A selection outline appears; supported elements also show resize handles.

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Move carefully - Drag the selected element to reposition it. One continuous move is treated as one history change, so finish the gesture before deciding whether to undo it.

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Resize only when handles appear - Drag a visible handle to adjust supported geometry. If an item has no useful handle, leave it in place or undo and redraw it rather than forcing the gesture.

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Clear the selection - Click or tap empty canvas space before panning or checking the whole composition. This reduces the chance of moving an element when you meant to move the view.

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Undo a mistake - Use the Undo command, or press Cmd+Z on macOS and Ctrl+Z on other desktop systems. Confirm that the expected last drawing, move, resize, duplicate, or delete is reversed.

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Redo when needed - Use the Redo command, or press Cmd+Shift+Z or Ctrl+Shift+Z, when the undone change was correct after all.

Undo and redo are bounded to this editing session. They are useful while the canvas stays open, but they cannot recover geometry after a reload, opening another page, or switching sessions.

Inspect the Finished Composition

The export captures the visible canvas, so framing is part of the result. Content outside the current view is not automatically gathered into a separate full-document image.

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Frame the content - Pan and zoom until the room, walls, opening, and markup all sit comfortably inside the visible canvas. Choose Fit planning area for a broad reference view, or use the zoom controls for a tighter export composition.

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Inspect a key element - Select an object and open Inspector. Check the available type, geometry, dimensions, or other selection details to confirm you chose the intended element.

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Review the layout state - Open Settings to check the current units, grid, snapping, zoom, active tool, editing state, and save status.

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Treat panels as read-only - Use Inspector and Settings to understand the canvas. Their current rows describe values; edit the drawing through canvas tools and selection gestures instead.

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Make a final visual pass - Close or move away from details that obscure your view, clear any accidental selection so the geometry is easier to review, and verify that no important element is outside the visible canvas.

Export the Visible Canvas

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Confirm the final frame - Check the zoom and position one last time. Make sure every element you want in the image is visible and readable.

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Choose Export - Select Export from the document commands. While capture is running, the control may show Exporting and temporarily prevent another export.

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Complete the platform save - In a browser, allow the PNG download if downloads are restricted. On a platform that asks for a save location, choose a folder and complete the save dialog.

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Find the file - Open your browser downloads or the folder you selected. The filename is based on the layout title and ends in .png; if the title cannot produce a usable filename, look for layout.png.

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Verify the image - Open the PNG outside Visual Space. Confirm that it is not empty or cropped unexpectedly and that the room, walls, opening, measurements, and notes you intended to capture are visible.

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Re-export if necessary - If framing or readability is poor, return to the still-open layout, adjust the view, and choose Export again. Verify the replacement before doing anything that leaves the workspace.

The PNG is a flat image. It records how the visible canvas looked, but it cannot be reopened as editable Layouts geometry. Keep the verified file wherever your team normally stores or shares finished reference images.

Finish the Session Deliberately

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Keep editing if geometry still matters - As long as the current editor remains open, you can continue adjusting the plan and make another export. Do not reload or navigate away while relying on Undo, Redo, or the canvas itself.

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Do not publish as part of this guide - Publishing changes the layout entry to a one-way read-only state and still does not save the drawn geometry. If you are considering that action, first read Publish a Layout Safely.

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Accept the leave boundary - Leave the workspace only after the PNG has been opened and verified, and only after accepting that the current geometry will not appear when the layout is reopened.

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Return to the app library - Once the flat export is enough for your purpose, you can leave the workspace. Expect the layout file entry to remain even though a later canvas opens without this session's drawing.

If Something Does Not Work

The drawing tools are missing.

Check for a read-only or access state. The layout may be published, another person may hold the active editing session, your access may need to reconnect, or your account may not include Layouts editing.

A door or window does not appear.

The opening must snap to a visible, usable wall. Move the pointer onto the wall and try again. A room edge by itself is not a hosted wall.

A short drag adds nothing.

Rooms, walls, measurements, and rectangles need a usable size. Drag farther across the measured grid and release after the live preview shows a meaningful span.

Undo is unavailable.

There may be no recorded change to undo, the layout may be read-only, or the editing session may no longer be active. Undo history does not survive leaving or reloading.

Export returns to Export but no file is visible.

Check the browser download list, download permission, and the selected save folder. Keep the layout open while you resolve the download, then export again and verify the new PNG.

The reopened canvas is empty.

Current geometry is session-only. Reopening the layout file does not restore the previous drawing, and the PNG cannot reconstruct it as editable elements.

For other creative and collaborative workspaces, return to the Live Apps overview.