Press X for the Pattern tool, choose Row, Grid, Ring or Path in its panel, and click the furniture item you want repeated. Then point where the copies go: the far end of the run, the opposite corner of the field, the centre of the ring, or the points of a path. The copies come from a rule, not from the clipboard: edit or move the original and every copy follows, change the count or the spacing in the panel and they re-lay themselves.
The four gestures
The gesture always starts with the item. Switching tools clears the selection, so select-then-press-X does not exist: press X, then click the item. Shift-click adds more items, and the whole set repeats together as one module — a table with its chairs, a bed with two side tables.
| Mode | Then click |
|---|---|
| Row | The far end of the run. The copies spread from the item to that point. |
| Grid | The opposite corner of the field. Which way you drag decides which way both axes run. |
| Ring | The centre. The ring is a full circle at first; the panel’s Sweep and Count refine it, and its radius is the distance from the centre to the item. |
| Path | The points of the route, one after another. Enter or a double-click places the row; Esc steps back one point. Clicking a drawn line adopts it as the path instead. |
The preview is the same calculation as the committed pattern, so what you see is what you get. Placing it is one undo step, and the new pattern is left selected.
Pointing at a room, a wall or a line
After picking the item, a click on geometry hosts the pattern on it, and a click on open ground draws a free pattern exactly as above. A grid finds a room, a ceiling, a terrace, a surface, a pool or a split level; a row finds a wall; a path finds a drawn line. The host lights up under the cursor before you commit, so the difference is visible. A ring has no host, because a circle has a centre rather than a frame.
A hosted pattern belongs to its host:
- The host owns position, direction and extent. Move or reshape the room and the lights follow; press R and it is the room that turns. The pattern itself refuses to be nudged, dragged or rotated on its own.
- Margin insets the layout from every edge of the host by the same amount, and the copies spread evenly across what is left.
- Copies outside the outline are left out. An L-shaped room keeps its notch empty, which is what makes a hosted grid read as a ceiling rather than a bounding box.
- The original keeps a slot. It sits on the nearest slot of the layout and stays on it as the margin or spacing changes; drag it and it moves to another slot, leaving the layout complete.
A hosted layout starts with a Max spacing of three item widths, never under 1500 mm, and a margin of about one item width, never more than a fifth of the host’s shorter side. Both are starting points to edit, not recommendations.
The panel
Select the pattern by clicking any of its copies. Clicking the original selects that item as furniture: it is the first member of the pattern and stays reachable, so “edit the original and they all follow” has a handle.
- Count, Spacing or Max spacing decide how the copies are distributed. Count fixes how many; Spacing fixes the pitch; Max spacing fits as many as the run allows at no more than that pitch. With a fixed spacing, Slack says where the leftover goes: Split both ends, At the start, At the end or Stretch spacing to fit.
- A free row has Length and Direction; a free grid has Width, Height and Direction. A hosted grid has Angle, and a row on a wall has Offset from wall. A ring has Sweep and Radius; editing the radius moves the original item out along its bearing, since the radius is measured from it. Turn items with the ring and Turn items along the path decide whether each copy rotates to face its place.
- Repeats names the item, or says how many items travel together, and Items counts the original plus every copy.
- Explode pattern turns the copies into ordinary furniture and removes the rule.
Changing one copy without breaking the rule
⌘-click (Ctrl-click on Windows) a generated copy to address just that one. The panel gains a Copy row:
- Backspace drops the copy. Its slot stays in the rule and places nothing, so it is not regenerated when the spacing changes.
- The arrow keys, or a drag, move the copy off its slot. The offset is remembered as an exception.
- Reset returns the copy to where the rule puts it.
The Status row reads Live while every copy comes from the rule, or counts the exceptions; Reset all exceptions drops them all. An exception whose slot no longer exists (the count was reduced past it) is kept, not deleted, and Reset orphans drops only those.
Where the copies appear
Everywhere the original does: the plan, the PDF, DXF and PNG exports, the 3D view and the elevations. Clicking a copy in 3D selects the pattern. Copies stay linked to the original’s layer, so hiding the original’s layer hides them too. Copy and paste carry the original with the pattern, since a rule without its item cannot be pasted. Deleting the original, or the host, deletes the pattern.
What this doesn’t do
- Copies are not snapped to and not checked. The plan check, snapping, schedules and the quantity takeoff see the original item only. Explode the pattern when you need the copies counted or checked.
- Only furniture repeats. A row of windows along a wall is its own mode — see placing a row of windows along a wall — and walls, rooms and stairs do not repeat.
- A pattern is one layout. It holds up to 2000 copies; a bigger field is two patterns.
- A hosted pattern has one margin, the same on every side.