Alpha 3D Editor Overview
The 3D design view of the project editor
3D Editor Overview
The 3D editor is the Design view of the project editor. It renders the whole project site (blocks, houses, plots) in an interactive 3D scene where you lay out and edit the development.
The project editor also has Models, Sales, Financials, and Project views, switched from the bar at the top of the editor. This section covers the Design view.
Layout
| Area | Function |
|---|---|
| Left sidebar | Scenario tree: the active scenario's blocks and houses |
| Viewport | Interactive 3D scene with a floating toolbar |
| Right sidebar | Context panel: project overview, or details for the selected block/house (design, configurations, options, statistics) |
When multiple houses are selected, a selection bar appears over the viewport with the count and bulk actions.
Viewport
The 3D scene renders with WebGPU where available, with a WebGL fallback (a renderer toggle is available in the top bar of the Design view). It supports:
- Orbit, walk, and fly camera modes
- Perspective/orthographic projection toggle, with an optional top-down lock
- Selection of blocks and houses, including multi-select
- A sky/sun simulation with configurable time of day and month
See Editor Navigation for camera controls and shortcuts.
Toolbar
The floating toolbar over the viewport contains:
| Group | Tools |
|---|---|
| Camera | Reset camera, orbit/walk/fly mode, perspective/orthographic, top-down lock |
| History | Undo / redo |
| Scene | Settings, time controls (hour and month), clipping planes, DXF underlay |
| Visibility | Toggle models, interiors, block/house labels, insertion points, plots, and plot labels |
| Drawing | Draw project plot, draw block plot, draw gallery, draw blocks |
| Content | Place assets, tools (measure), artist impression |
Plot and gallery drawing works point-by-point: click to place points, Enter to finish, Backspace to remove the last point. Esc cancels any drawing tool.
Artist impressions
Open Impressie, frame the camera, and choose a style and prompt. Selecting a house in Woning is optional: it adds house information to the prompt. You can also use the current view of the whole project.
Choose Open in ChatGPT or select Gemini and choose Open in Gemini. Alpha opens the chat with the prepared prompt and copies the camera image to your clipboard. Paste the image with Ctrl+V / Cmd+V, then send the prompt. If copying fails, Alpha displays an error so you can allow clipboard access and retry.
This flow uses the external chat instead of Alpha's server-side image generation. External results are not automatically saved to Alpha; existing house impressions remain available in the history.
Display modes
Houses render in one of three display modes, switched from the Visibility popover: Mass (fast schematic volumes), Facade (mass volumes with stamped facades), and Static (the full Revit-exported 3D models).
A selected block shows a move/rotate gizmo in every display mode: drag the cross to reposition the block (snapping to DXF entities and neighbouring blocks) and drag the ring to rotate it (hold Shift for 15° steps). In Static and Facade modes a footprint outline previews the new placement while dragging.
When a house is selected, the other houses turn translucent so the selection stands out. This can be turned off with Dim unselected houses in the Visibility popover.
Scenarios
A project's design lives in scenarios: alternative layouts of blocks and houses. The left sidebar shows the active scenario's tree; selecting a block or house there (or in the viewport) opens its details in the right sidebar.