About

Build and Measure, also known as BAM, is a user-friendly 2D drafting program that comes at no cost, aiming to provide a lightweight experience for users.
Build and Measure is created and maintained by a single developer, and if you find any issues or bugs please report them, it really helps!

Get started

Get started with Build and Measure by diving into the tutorials or by reading the comprehensive documentation.
Build and Measure is available to download for both Windows and Linux, although not yet for MacOS, because that would require a code signing certificate, and that would cost too much to keep this app free to use.

Creating and saving projects

To create a project, press the "create project" button in the left navbar when in the start page.
This will open the editor with an unsaved project which you can now save by pressing the save button. The first time you press the save button in a new project you will be required to specify a file location but after that the file location will be remembered.

You can also save a project with the save as button which will let you select a file and write the project to that file, although the file location won't be stored so the save button will still save in the same file.

Opening projects

To open an existing project from a file, press the "open project" button in the left navbar when in the start page, this will let you let you select a project in the file explorer which will then be opened in the editor, when you press the save button the changes will now be written to the opened file.
If you save a project, a project shortcut will appear in the start page. Each project shortcut has a name field, and a button to show a pop-up menu. The pop-up menu has options to open the project, rename the project, to open the location where the project file is stored and an option to delete the shortcut (please note this will not delete the project file just the shortcut). You can also press on the image of the shortcut to open the project and press on the name field to rename it.

Coordinate system

The editor has a horizontal x-axis, and a vertical y-axis, where the x-axis starts at the left edge and goes to the right edge, and the y-axis goes from the top edge to the bottom edge. This means that the coordinates: (0, 0) will be in the top left corner of the screen and (screen_width, screen_height) will be the bottom right corner of the screen. When using the command box, the distances specified will be relative, meaning they wont go from (0, 0) but instead where the object started moving, or where the last drawing click was when drawing.

Panning and zooming

In Build and Measure you can hold down the scroll wheel and move the mouse to pan around the canvas, and rotate/scroll the scroll wheel to zoom in and out. To change how sensitive the zoom is, you can change the "zoom speed" in the settings menu.
If you are using trackpad and don't have access to a scrollwheel, you can zoom by moving two fingers and pan by holding down shift + alt when moving the mouse.

Control panel

The control panel is positioned at the top of the screen, and has buttons to for example save/export and control the views and sheets of the project. It also displays the project's name and has buttons to the far right for quickly accessing the documentation (this page), and the report issue and request feature forms.

Export button

The export button toggles the "export menu", which is a dropdown with four options to export the view/sheet to either SVG, PDF, PNG or JPG. It also has some "export settings" to the right:

• Transparent background - if the exported image/document should have a transparent background
• Only selected objects - if only the currently selected objects should be featured in the export
• Font embed type - how fonts should be embedded in the export:
  • Do not embed - fonts are linked by name, which saves size, but does not gaurantee that the fonts will be displayed correctly
  • Embed font files - the font files are embedded in the export, which gaurantees the correct fonts, but takes up a lot of space (makes the file bigger)
  • Text to paths - all text is converted into paths, which preserves the correct fonts and uses little space, however this also removes the ability to select the text in for a example a PDF export.

Both views and sheets can be exported, a view will export everything inside of the crop region and a sheet will export everything inside of the title block.

View and sheet buttons

The control panel also has buttons for controlling the different views and sheets of the project.
First is the view-dropdown button, which is followed with a button to create a new view (has a plus icon). The dropdown button shows a list of the "views" that exist in the project. Press one of the views to switch to it, or press the delete button to remove it. Following the view-dropdown is the sheet-dropdown which works in the same way, although for the "sheets". The last button shows the currently active view/sheet. You can rename a view/sheet either by pressing that last button, or by pressing the active view/sheet in the dropdown lists.

Views and sheets

A project is divided up into multiple "views" and "sheets". Both function as a way to structure projects by dividing them up into different logical "tabs", although they have slightly different use cases. Views are generally used to create drawings of stuff in 1:1 scale, while sheets are used for creating exports with different papper sizes and title blocks. Views can be used to for example create drawings of a house, room layout or some icon, while sheets allow you to insert "viewports" (using the viewport tool) of different views and specify different types of papper sizes for exporting (usefull for PDF). Sheets can also be usefull when creating posters for printing on papper.

Drawing objects

To draw an object, select which object to draw in the tool-bar and then press on the canvas to start drawing.
Each object requires a different amount of clicks:

• Line - polyline
• Rectangle - 2 clicks
• Circle - 2 clicks
• Ellipse - 2 clicks
• Arc - 3 clicks
• Spline - polyline
• Dimension - 3 clicks
• Textbox - 1 click
• Textbox With Leader - 2 clicks
• Image - 2 clicks (will keep it's aspect ratio unless the shift key is pressed)
• Viewport - 1 click (only available in sheets)

To change for example the line width and stroke color of the object that will be drawn, you can change the drawing properties in the properties panel.

Snapping

When drawing, moving or selecting objects, you are able to press on certain "snap points" that will snap the mouse to that point. When drawing a line for example, you can hover over a snap point and the end of the line will snap to that point.
There are five different snap points:

• End point - end points are red snap points that are on the edge of objects, like the four corners of a rectangle.
• Center point - center points are blue snap points that are positioned between two edge points, or in the middle of an object.
• Edge point - Edge points are green snap points, that allow you snap to the closest point on for example a line or the edge of a circle.
• Intersection point - intersection points, are purple snap points, that allow you to snap to the intersection between two objects (this doesn't work on all objects, like for example splines).
• Canvas point - canvas points, are orange snap points, that allow you to snap to the grid which you can toggle in the settings menu and also the corners of the crop region in a view and the title block in a sheet.

You can also snap to specific angles when drawing and moving objects by pressing the shift key to snap to 90 degrees (horizontally/vertically) and the alt key to snap to a smaller angle that is specified in the settings menu, the default is 22.5 degrees. You could for example use this to draw a completely horizontal/vertical line or a line that has a 45 degree angle. This also works when moving objects, or when specifying a flip angle. Shift also has some other uses like for example drawing a completely squared rectangle.

Selecting objects

To select an object you need to activate the select tool which is the top button in the tool-bar.
You can select an object by clicking on it or by clicking on a snap point on that object.
You can also drag the mouse (with the left mouse button down) to select the objects that are fully within the area that appears.
If you press the control key while clicking on an object or dragging the mouse, any object that was previously selected will remain selected, this allows you to select multiple objects by clicking on each one while holding control.

When an object is selected, the stroke color will change to the selected object color to indicate that it's selected. In addition, small circles will appear at the end points showing where you can snap to the object. These points can also be moved by clicking on them. Furthermore, small triangles will appear at the centers, which can also be snapped to and moved by clicking on them.

Tool-bar

The tool-bar which is located on the left side is used to select the current tool.

Here is a list of all the buttons:

• Select tool - to select objects
• Line tool
• Rectangle tool
• Circle tool
• Ellipse tool
• Arc tool
• Spline tool
• Dimension tool
• Angluar Dimension tool
• Textbox with Leader tool
• Textbox tool
• Image tool
• Viewport tool (only available in sheets)

Command-bar

The command-bar is similar to the tool-bar in many ways, but it is only available when you have one or more objects selected, and instead of selecting a tool it allows you to activate a command on the currently selected objects. At the top of the command-bar is also another button that is used to toggle the properties panel.

Here is a list of all the commands:

• Delete command - deletes the selected objects
• Move command - to move the selected objects with a distance
• Rotate command - to rotate the selected objects around a point
• Duplicate command - to duplicate and move the selected objects
• Scale command - to scale the selected objects with a scale factor
• Offset command - to offset the selected object with a certain distance factor
• Flip command - to flip the selected objects around a flip axis
• Split command - to split the selected object on multiple points (only for lines and rectangles)
• Trim command - to trim/extend the selected line segments to a target line segment
• Image clip command - to clip the selected image objects to all of the other selected objects
• Move to front command - to move the selected objects to the front of all other objects
• Move to back command - to move the selected objects to the back of all other objects
• Point move - is activated by pressing an end point on a selected object, and moves only that point
• Center move - is activated by pressing a center point on a selected object, and moves all points next to that center point

Properties panel

The properties panel is used to change different properties on objects like for example the line width, stroke color and font size. When a drawing tool is selected (like the line, rectangle or circle tools), it will let you specify the properties for any object that is about to be drawn. When some objects are selected though, it lets you change the already existing properties on those objects.

Here is a list of all of the properties:

• Stroke color - the color of the stroke/edges and text
• Stroke opacity - the opacity of the stroke/edges and text
• Line width - the width of the stroke/edges
• Line dash - the dash of the stroke/edges
• Line cap - how lines should look at the ends
• Line join - how lines should look where they join
• Font size - the size of the text
• Font - which font family and font style to use on text
• Show measurements - whether to show the measurements of an object
• Scale text by line width - whether to scale the text size by the line width (multiplied by 20) instead of the font size
• Fill color - the color inside of an object
• Fill active - if the fill should be visible
• Fill opacity - the opacity of fill and images
• Selected image - the selected image of the object (only image objects)
• Insulation active - whether to activate insulation (only on lines)
• Insulation height - the height of the insulation (only on lines)
• Insulation radius - the radius of the insulation (only on lines)
• Visible angle - the amount of visible degrees
• Angle shift - how many degrees the visible angle should rotate/shift
• Border radius - the radius of the corners on the object
• Text align - the horizontal text alignment
• Text baseline - the vertical text alignment
• Text align on leader - similar to the "text align" property, but is for the "textbox with leader" object
• Line ending type - which type of line ending to use, the default is "none". You can choose between different arrows, circles and other shapes
• Line ending size - the size of the line ending that is choosen
• Text - the text in textboxes (only available when objects are selected "object properties")

Not every property is available for every object, when you select a tool you can see which drawing properties that are available for that kind of object. When you select objects, only the properties that are available for all of those objects will be visible.

Differing

Multiple objects can have different property values. When this happens, the property inputs can look a bit different, this is called "differing". The inputs will change in the following way:

• Checkbox/button - the background will turn purple and the icon will turn into a ≠ sign.
• Text and number inputs - the background will turn purple and the text: "DIFF" will appear.
• Color inputs - the background will turn purple and the text: "DIFF" will appear. In addition, the color box will turn into purple/white.
• Dropdown input - the background will turn purple and the text: "DIFF" will appear. In addition, the icon will turn into a ≠ sign.
• Pop-up button - the background will turn purple.

Filter menu

The filter menu lets you filter through the selected objects and toggle which type of objects to select/deselect. This can be useful if you for example only want to select line and rectangle objects or if you want to deselect all textbox objects.

When the filter menu is opened by pressing the filter icon in the bottom left hand corner next to the command box, you will be able to toggle a checkbox on each object category to specify if it should remain selected or not. You can then press the select button to apply the changes made in the filter menu. There are also two buttons to help check/uncheck all of the categories.

Command box

The command box lets you specify precise distances when drawing and moving objects. The command box can either take a single value representing a distance or two values representing a distance in the x-axis and y-axis

One cool feature that you can use with the command box is to leave one section empty (a section is basically a measurement or distance). You can for example type ",100cm" or "100m," (note the ",") now you're still using two sections because of the "," but one of the sections is empty, when a section is empty it will default to the mouse position, so you could for example draw a line where the x coordinate is calculated based on the number you provided in the command box and the y coordinate is calculated based on the mouse position.

Here are some examples of how to use the command box:

• "100cm, 20mm" when drawing a rectangle - will create a rectangle with the width 100cm and the height 20mm
• "100" when drawing a line - will draw a line that's 100mm long (here we are assuming that the default unit is mm)
• "100cm, 5m" when drawing an ellipse - will create an ellipse with the radiusX of 100cm and the radiusY of 5m
• "10dm, 100" when moving an object - will move the selected objects 10dm in the x-axis and 100mm in the y-axis (here we are assuming that the default unit is mm)
• "10cm," when drawing a rectangle - will create a rectangle with the width 10cm and a height that will go to the mouse position is
• ",5dm" when moving an object - will move the selected objects so that the x-axis will go to the mouse position and the y-axis 5dm

When using a command the distance you enter will go in the direction of the mouse position, but you can also enter negative numbers that will go the other way.

Settings menu

The settings menu allows you to change different settings that affect the entire project.

Here is a list of all the settings:

• Appearance
  • Canvas background color - background color
  • Selected object color - the stroke color for selected objects
  • Polyline - if polylines should be active
  • Render movement info - if there should be information rendered when drawing
  • Fixed line width - if all objects will have the same line width no matter the zoom
  • Show title block frame corners - if the frame corners of the title block should be visible (also when exporting)
• Snapping
  • Snap distance - how far away the mouse has to be to snap to a point
  • Angular snap interval - which angles to snap to when pressing the alt key
  • Snap to point - if the mouse can snap to end points (red)
  • Snap to center - if the mouse can snap to center points (blue)
  • Snap to edge - if the mouse can snap to the nearest point on for example a line or the edge of a circle.
  • Snap to intersection - if the mouse can snap to the intersection points between two objects (purple)
  • Snap to grid, crop region and title block - if the mouse can snap to the points on a grid, the corners of the crop region and the corners of the title block (orange)
• Grid
  • Grid active - if the grid should be active
  • Grid snap interval - the spacing between grid lines
• Crop region
  • Crop region fit margin - an extra bit of space (margin) that is applied around the crop region when it fits to the selected objects
  • Fit crop region to grid - wether the crop region should snap to the grid when it fits to the selected objects
  • Show crop region on export - wether the crop region should turn visible when the export menu is opened
• Units and precision
  • Default unit - the default unit of the project: mm, cm, dm or m
  • Decimal precision - how many decimals each measurement should be rounded to when being displayed (this does not influence how precise calculations are, it is just applies when displaying measurements)
  • Display unit on measurements - whether units (like "mm", "cm" and so on) should be displayed on measurements
  • Add space between number and unit - if there should be a space between the number and unit on a measurement
• Zoom
  • Zoom speed - the factor to multiply the screen size with every time you scroll/zoom (in other words: zoom sensitivity)
• Danger zone
  • Reset settings - if this setting is checked when you save the settings, all of the settings will be reset
  • ? - activate at your own risk!

Keyboard shortcuts

• ? - takes you right back where you belong, this page!
• escape - escaped out of the current action
• shift - used to draw or move completely horizontally or vertically
• alt - used to snap to a certain amount of degrees when drawing and using a command. It can be changed with the angluar snap interval setting and defaults to 22.5 degrees
• control - used to select multiple objects and to duplicate the objects when using a command
• shift + alt - used to pan around the screen with the mouse (same as pressing the scroll wheel)
• shift + d - toggles the properties panel
• control + e - opens the text editor for selected text objects
• control + , - opens the settings menu
• control + s - saves the project (same as pressing the save button)
• control + c - copy the selected objects to the clipboard
• control + x - copy the selected objects to the clipboard and then delete them (cut)
• control + v - paste any copied objects, images or text from the clipboard
• control + z - undoes the latest action
• control + y or control + shift + z - redoes the latest action
• control + a - selects all objects
• p - toggles the polyline setting
• x + s - selects the objects partially (or fully) inside the crop region
• x + f - fits the crop region to the selected objects
• c + r - toggles the crop region visibility
• z - zooms to the crop region in a view or the title block in a sheet
• spacebar - activates the select tool
• l - activates the line tool
• r - activates the rectangle tool
• c + i - activates the circle tool
• e - activates the ellipse tool
• a - activates the arc tool
• d - activates the dimension tool
• v - activates the angle tool
• w - activates the textbox with leader tool
• t - activates the textbox tool
• s + p - activates the spline tool
• i + m - activates the image tool
• v + p - activates the viewport tool
• delete or backspace - deletes the selected objects
• c - activates the duplicate command
• m - activates the move command
• q - activates the rotate command
• s - activates the scale command
• o - activates the offset command
• f - activates the flip command
• b - activates the split command
• k - activates the trim command