Visual Build Generator

The Build tool opens the full-window visual building designer. Its lightweight preview updates while you edit. The existing building generator creates the CAD model after you choose Generate building, review the settings, and click Build now.

Review and build

Generate building opens a summary of the building size, framing, finishes, openings and dormers/extensions. Any problems are shown in red, with Fix links back to the relevant controls. For a gable roof using Truss, No truss selected also appears beside the Roof Structure dropdown until you choose a saved truss. The review stays available even when there are problems; resolve them to enable Build now, or choose Keep editing to return to your design.

If a model already exists, the review explains what will be replaced, including any manual edits, and offers Save project copy before building. Once you click Build now, the dialog shows an animated gable outline and Building… while the model is generated. Large designs with openings and dormers can take longer. If generation fails, the previous model is restored and the review reopens so you can edit or retry. Reduced-motion settings show a static progress symbol.

Textures starts enabled for new builds and the Default building preset. Use the Textures button in the header to turn it off. Saved designs and presets keep the texture choice you saved with them.

With Textures enabled, hip roofing and its flashing, gutters, hooks and downpipes keep the same grey finishes as the other roof types. Roof sheets use their sheet texture, while framing and fascia use wood. Foundation walls use concrete, including the pieces beside garage-door openings. The timber bottom plates on top of the foundation keep spruce, including plates cut around doors. These assignments survive project save/load. Regenerate an earlier affected build from its saved design to apply the corrected finishes.

Shape and dimensions

• Drag the side wall to change width and the end wall to change length.
• Drag a roof face to change wall height, keeping the roof pitch unchanged.
• Drag the ridge or high roof edge to change pitch; drag the eave handle for overhang. The overhang label sits to its right and can also be dragged.
• The corresponding Exact dimensions field highlights. Labels sit beside their inputs in compact rows. Type an exact value, or hold and drag a numeric label left/right. Shift makes finer adjustments.
• Focus a preview dimension and use arrow keys. Escape cancels a current drag.
• The bottom bar keeps Calculation Preview and the build actions; the general drag/arrow-key instruction has been removed from Building and Dormers.
• Exterior and Framing change the schematic view. The ridge beam appears in Framing only. Fit view restores the fitted preview.

Building width and length follow the selected CAD display unit (feet in imperial mode). Timber sizes and other millimetre-backed fields use millimetres or inches, matching the existing generator. Generated settings keep their established units.

Building options

Walls are on the left, roof controls at the top of the viewport, and floor controls at the bottom. The roof’s Advanced settings contains roof layers, edges and drainage, and soffits. The menu opens beneath its link and names the selected roof preset in its heading, such as Advanced settings - Vented roof. If you customize the settings so they no longer match a preset, the heading shows Custom roof. Compact summaries beside each section show its current settings even while it is closed—for example, OSB · Battens · Roof tiles or 16 mm · 3 boards · 5 mm gaps. These update as you change presets or individual settings. Empty sections show None, and disabled soffits show Off. Soffits are available for gable roofs. The roof bar now shows Vented roof, Sheathing only, and Framing only before Advanced settings. New designs and Default building start with Vented roof, which applies 18 mm OSB sheets (2400 × 1200 mm), roof tiles, counter battens and tile battens at 350 mm, fascia and 19 × 173 mm bargeboards, flashing and gutters. It also enables 16 mm soffits with three boards and 5 mm gaps, eave-end siding closures, and 22 × 98 mm eave supports where the roof and siding support them. You can adjust these values in Advanced settings. Sheathing only applies the same settings with roof covering, counter battens and tile battens turned off. OSB, sheet dimensions, trim, drainage and soffits remain the same. The 350 mm batten spacing is retained but inactive. The roof’s Framing only option also turns off sheathing, fascia, bargeboards, flashing, gutters and soffits. The roof structure stays in place; the disabled layers keep their dimensions for later edits. All three roof options remember their selection when you reopen a matching design. The Walls sidebar starts with Ready for insulation, Uninsulated, Framing only, and Advanced settings. New designs and Default building start with Ready for insulation, including siding and corner posts. Ready for insulation adds wind-barrier preparation and standard wall battens (23 × 48 mm, or nominal 1 × 2 in imperial), and enables siding and corner posts. It does not add insulation material. Uninsulated removes the wind-barrier preparation and battens, and also enables siding and corner posts. Framing only enables double top plates and turns off insulation preparation, battens, siding and corner posts, keeping your current stud dimensions and materials. Clicking an already selected option reapplies its settings. These shortcuts preserve your other wall settings. Advanced settings reveals the existing stud, material, plate, batten and siding controls, plus Wall options. Reopened drafts and presets keep their saved settings. The floor’s Ready for insulation switch is also enabled by default for new designs. It prepares the joist assembly without adding insulation material. Roof type, structure, rafter/beam dimensions, collar-tie distance and rafter material are edited in the roof bar. Pitch and overhang are in Exact dimensions and on the model handles. These controls are not repeated in the roof’s Advanced settings. When you switch from Gable to Skillion or Hip and back while editing, your previous gable structure (Beam, Collar tie or Truss) is restored, including the selected saved truss and its span-fitting choice. Skillion’s required truss does not replace your gable choice.

For gable and skillion roofs, Roof layers uses sheathing and covering dropdowns, paired thickness/covering fields, and blue batten switches. Roof tiles selects the existing simplified covering; Roof tiles · Advanced selects individual tiles. Selecting either covering enables OSB and both batten layers, as before; you can then change the sheathing or turn battens off. Open Sheet size for sheet length/width, Batten material for its shared material name, and Tile settings for advanced tile style, dimensions, spacing and texture settings.

Edges & drainage uses the same flat layout and blue switches for fascia boards, bargeboards, and the combined flashing/gutters assembly. The outer bargeboard size and shared trim material remain available. Enabling flashing/gutters reveals the existing material-name editors for flashing, gutters, gutter hooks and downpipes.

Open Roof Structure, then hover over Truss › to browse saved trusses. Hovering does not change the roof. Click a saved definition to use it, or click/tap Truss to select the structure and open its submenu. It retains span fitting, loft-floor options and Build custom truss. Arrow keys navigate the menu; Right opens the Truss submenu, and Escape returns to the parent menu or closes it. You can also click outside or use its X to close. The submenu moves below the menu on narrow screens. It stays closed when returning to Gable until you open it. The separate rafter inputs are hidden in Truss mode. Only one options panel opens at a time; the pre-flight Fix link opens the same Truss submenu.

The header includes spacing, Timeline, Textures and existing account presets. Changing a timber size in the compact controls immediately commits that size. The Wall options panel retains its Set button for custom stud sizes; floor sizes are edited directly in the bar below the preview. Material names follow the existing shared-by-dimension BOM behaviour.

Saved gable trusses retain control of their pitch, overhang and framing dimensions. Choose the saved truss from the roof bar. The visual controls show the inherited values and cannot override them. A gable truss matched to its saved span also locks the building width. The amber note below the viewport width label offers Unlock to allow dragging or typing a different width. Lock to span restores the saved span and locks width again. For A-frame trusses, unlocking uses the existing auto-adjust behavior. Choosing Keep width and auto-adjust while selecting a truss already leaves width unlocked. Older saved designs whose width differs from the truss span keep their dimensions; the amber note shows the saved span and offers to lock to it. Other roof structures do not have this width lock. Built-in definitions are marked (Example truss). Click Build custom truss beside Saved truss to open Truss Builder. Your building settings, placed openings and dormers are kept. Save the custom truss, then use Build to return to the designer and select it from the list. The truss opens in the same fitted, parallel Front view as the toolbar’s Truss button.

Cancel and Exit close the designer without generating CAD objects. As in the previous generator, edited form preferences remain available next time it opens. An active drag can be cancelled with Escape before exiting.

First release scope

Building, Openings and Dormers modes share the same building design. Their tabs use larger, bold labels without step numbers.

Select Place openings, choose a wall and opening type or an Opening Framer preset. Drag the purple preview into position, resize it using the lower-right handle, then click its check mark. The preview moves beside the placed opening so you can place another. An unchecked preview is never generated.

The height guide starts at 2100 mm above the interior floor. Its padlock keeps opening tops on the line and allows horizontal dragging. Unlock it for sill-height changes. Select a placed opening to edit its dimensions or grilles; Use these settings copies it into the next preview. Remove deletes only that draft item. Widths and heights are rough openings; the fitting gap follows Opening Framer. Front/Back are the long walls, and Left/Right the end walls, matching the live tool.

The Openings elevation highlights top plates with translucent yellow bands. Their thickness follows the wall timber size; double plates have a darker dividing line. Ordinary dormers show their single top plate. Building extensions inherit the main wall’s plate count, and raised extensions show both the retained lower stack and upper stack. The guides remain behind opening previews so you can select and drag windows as before. They are visual references and do not change opening positions or placement validation.

With Foundation, opening heights are measured from the ground floor, below the top of the foundation wall. A door or garage door with a sill height of zero starts at that floor, and window sills use the same reference. Timber-joist builds use the finished floor. Regenerate an older affected build to correct openings that were placed too high; existing geometry is not moved automatically.

Building and Dormers 3D previews use the same foundation floor level as Openings mode. Garage doors and regular doors extend to the bottom of the foundation at zero sill height, and windows keep their height above that same floor. This is a preview correction; saved opening positions and generated models are unchanged.

Opening gaps appear above the roof with dashed guides to the rough opening edges. Click a measurement to enter a distance, then press Enter or Move opening. For a gap between openings, choose which neighbor to move. Green outlines show which openings will change; Escape cancels. Moves that overlap or leave too little room for framing are rejected. Dormer and extension fronts use their own wall edges.

Match side gaps starts enabled, keeping the left and right outer margins equal when placing or editing end openings. Turn it off to move them independently. Existing layouts stay as saved until edited; use Match now to correct unequal margins. Show right gap hides or shows the right measurement.

The building centreline stays visible, with an additional local centreline when working on a dormer or extension. Drag an opening near it to snap the opening’s centre. Hold Shift to bypass snapping; Escape restores the positions from before the drag.

All floor settings are in the bar below the preview; there is no separate Floor options popup. For Timber joists, edit joist sizes and material, subfloor type, sheet sizes/thickness, custom material name and Ready for insulation directly. For Foundation (garages), set the foundation height. Switch between the two using the floor tabs.

The floor tab is labelled Foundation (garages) and uses a concrete-grey active style. All visible foundation faces and outlines are grey in the Building and Dormers 3D previews, with slightly darker shading on the side face.

Foundation always turns off the floor’s Ready for insulation setting, including when loading an older preset or draft. The floor preparation control is unavailable in this mode. Switching back to Timber joists restores your previous choice. The wall’s Ready for insulation setting is independent and stays as set.

Build now in the review creates the building first, then its placed openings using Opening Framer. When dormers are present, they are generated after the building and before its openings. Rectangular openings can be placed in main walls, including the upper gable ends, dormer front walls and extension front walls. To add an upper gable window, unlock the height guide, then drag it above the eaves or enter its sill height. The whole opening must fit below the slopes with room for framing. Ground-floor doors keep their positions. Normal dormer fronts support windows; extension fronts also support doors. Leave room for framing at wall ends, above openings and between adjacent openings. The designer highlights invalid placements and prevents generation until fixed.

The standalone Opening Framer continues to place openings directly in the 3D model. You can use it after designer generation, including its existing presets, grille editing and opening history/removal tools.

Drafts and named variants

Open Drafts & variants to save a design. Each saved draft keeps building settings and placed openings, including sizes, positions and grilles. Enter an optional name, then choose Save draft. Save as new variant creates a named alternative, useful for different garage or customer configurations.

Select a draft to reopen it. Editing an older draft and saving adds a new revision; the original remains available. Switching away from unsaved changes preserves them as another draft. Successful generation also saves a revision. These are small settings records, not complete model copies. Account building presets still save building settings only.

Exit keeps your working design in the open project. Save the .strek project to keep drafts after closing the workspace. Save project copy downloads a separate project with the current model and all drafts, even before first generation.

Editing an existing design

Choose Build again to reopen its saved design. The current model stays intact while you edit the preview. Regeneration replaces the entire current model after the building and openings succeed; if generation fails, the previous model is restored. Restore previous model in the draft panel recovers one previous successful model during this session. It is not retained after closing the project.

Moving, duplicating, deleting or changing model parts shows Modified in 3D. Direct Opening Framer operations also count. Those edits are not imported into the saved designer settings and will not survive regeneration. You can inspect drafts freely; the review explains replacement and offers Save project copy before you confirm with Build now. Orbiting, selection, hiding and model color changes do not trigger the badge.

Older projects may contain their original building settings but no saved opening layout. The designer clearly labels that limitation. Add the openings again before replacing such a model, or keep working directly in 3D. Files without original creation inputs cannot reconstruct a designer recipe.

The visual builder saves .strek V5 files, including designer drafts, openings and dormers. The current CAD app opens V1-V4 projects through its migration path. Older CAD/Viewer releases cannot open V5 files. Keep a copy of your original project and export GLB when sharing geometry with an older Viewer. The builder preview is schematic; generated framing and finishes use the existing engines.

Design dormers before generating

Open Dormers, choose a roof side and add a Gable dormer, Shed dormer or Building extension. In Elevation or Roof plan, drag it into position, or enter the centre distance from the outside-view left edge. Drag upward to increase the setback from the wall. The roof plan shows the horizontal footprint, with the main ridge at the top and wall/eave at the bottom. Elevation shows the front wall and roof outline. Shift gives finer adjustment; Escape cancels a drag. Labels beside number fields can be dragged too.

In 3D, push or pull the dormer surfaces to resize it. A side wall changes width equally on both sides. The roof changes wall height while keeping pitch fixed. Pull a regular dormer’s front wall outward to deepen it while retaining the rear roof junction. For an extension, this changes its length. Use Elevation or Roof plan to move the whole dormer. Arrow keys adjust the focused face; Shift gives 10 mm steps. Escape, a cancelled pointer gesture or leaving the browser window restores the dimensions at the start of the drag.

Use Layout for one dormer or a pair. Gable dormers can sit on the roof or at the wall with a closed eave or flush wall. A flush-wall gable can extend outward as a building extension. The main roof pitch can stay linked or be adjusted separately. Framing & overhang contains rafter dimensions, overhang and opening framing.

For a Pair, drag either member sideways in Roof plan to adjust spacing symmetrically around the pair midpoint. Regular pairs move up/down together. In Elevation, wall pairs can move along the wall together. Width and height adjustments apply to both members. In the 3D previews, the nearer dormer appears in front wherever the pair overlaps on screen. This does not change their actual spacing or placement. The preview also shows a closed exterior when switching to Roof side B, with the openings belonging to the walls on that side. This corrects the inside-out appearance in Dormers’ 3D view, including designs with a dormer on each side. Existing generated models do not need to be regenerated.

Use the Roof form and Layout icons to change the selected dormer. The Placement menu combines roof, closed-eave wall, flush-wall and extension placement. Shed dormers currently support roof placement only.

The compact dimension labels can still be dragged. Hover or focus a ? button for help. Framing & overhang contains rafter sizes, opening framing, overhang and roof-side reassignment; Use main roof size copies the building’s rafter dimensions. Align eaves resets an extension’s extra wall height to zero.

Below the preview, click the padlock beside Match main roof pitch to link or unlock the dormer pitch. An unlocked pitch can also be adjusted with the labelled ridge handle. Scale resizes the dormer proportionally while keeping its position, pair spacing, angles, framing stock and openings unchanged. It stops when the roof or an opening would no longer fit. Another edit resets the scale reference to 100%; Escape cancels a slider drag.

In Openings, all four elevations show dormers and extensions in context, including their side silhouettes when viewing an end wall. The full building stays visible when selecting a dormer or extension. Click a front wall to select it, or drag the purple opening onto it; the designer detects the wall automatically. Each member of a pair is a separate target. You can still use the wall selector. Place windows using the purple preview and check mark. Extension fronts can also have doors, and take priority over the main wall behind them. Side walls are shown for context; designer opening placement currently supports front walls only.

The opening inspector uses compact rows for width, height, position, sill height and fitting gap. Type a value or drag its label to adjust it; Shift gives finer control. Hover or focus the ? before Opening preview for help with rough opening dimensions and the fitting gap applied to each edge. The ? before Add an opening explains how to position and place its preview. The compact opening-type list keeps each icon and label in one clickable row.

The designer includes a small building navigator at the top right of Openings. It shows your roof shape, dormers, extensions and opening positions. The wall you are working on is highlighted and named. Click a wall or dormer front in the miniature to select it; paired dormers can be selected separately. Placed openings have small markers, and the current opening preview is purple.

Use the two rotation arrows to turn the miniature in 90-degree steps. This changes only its viewing angle. Selecting a wall through the tabs or selector turns the miniature just enough to reveal it when needed. A Front marker keeps the orientation clear. On small screens it sits above the elevation so it does not cover your placement controls. Keyboard users can Tab to a wall/front and press Enter or Space to select it.

Offsets and sill heights are measured from the selected wall’s own left edge and base. A locked height guide adapts to that wall. Moving an existing opening between walls keeps its dimensions; if it does not fit, adjust it before placing or generating. Escape cancels a drag and restores its original wall and position. Removing a dormer removes its attached designer openings. These settings are saved in drafts and project files, so later regeneration recreates the whole design.

Dormers currently require roof sheathing and a gable main roof. Hip and skillion main roofs are not supported by this integration. Saved trusses must use an A-frame. Fit or overlap messages explain what needs changing before generation. The standalone Dormer Framer and Opening Framer still work directly on an existing 3D model.

Collar-tie roofs keep the cut main-roof rafters around dormer openings on both roof sides. If you generated a model in an earlier preview where these rafters were missing, reopen its saved design in Build and generate it again with the updated preview. Loading the old model alone does not restore missing parts.

Choosing Roof tiles also keeps the coverings visible on generated dormers, including pairs and collar-tie roofs with no windows or doors. The coverings follow the build timeline and are saved with the project. If an earlier generated model shows bare dormer sheathing despite this setting, reopen its saved design in Build and generate it again.