Tips

General tips to speed up your work and improve accuracy.

Before you draw

Start with the cleanest source. A clean PDF or high-resolution image saves hours. Bad scans lead to mis-traced edges.
Crop aggressively. Only include the roof plan. Title blocks, notes, and margins make the canvas harder to navigate.
Set scale first. Don't trace without scale — you'll either redo work or ship with wrong measurements.

Zoom in for detail, zoom out for overview. Use the mouse wheel liberally.
Pan with left-mouse drag on empty canvas (or middle-mouse drag in Move point mode). Faster than constantly clicking away.
Use snap aggressively. Vertical/horizontal guides keep edges straight. Node snap closes polygons reliably.
Finish the outer outline first. Internal ridges and valleys come second.
Don't classify while drawing. Finish geometry, then classify. Switching back and forth between Draw and Edges wastes clicks.

Eaves first, then ridges. Easiest to spot. Everything else hangs off them.
Use hotkeys (1-8). Clicking panel buttons for every edge is slow.
Work by type, not by section. Classify all eaves in the project, then all ridges, then all hips — this is faster than walking from section to section.

Apply the main pitch first. Most residential roofs have one dominant pitch. Set it once, click all matching facets.
Then special cases. Dormers, porches, bay windows often differ.
Check slope arrows. If an arrow points the wrong way, classification is usually the cause — not slope direction.

Create on demand. Don't pre-create empty layers. Add them when you reach a part of the roof that's on a different level.
Remember the mapping. Layers are named sequentially (Level 1, Level 2, ...). Custom names aren't supported — keep track of which Level is which part of the roof.
Lock finished layers. Prevents fat-finger edits on work you've already completed.
Show All Layers to review the overall roof before generating the report.

Fill project info early. Name and address appear in the report header and project list.
Preview before emailing. Catch any missing classifications or wrong pitches.
Download locally before regenerating. Only the most recent report is stored — keep a backup.

After learning the basic shortcuts, you can trace a medium roof with very few mouse clicks:

D → Draw edge mode (opens the Draw panel automatically)
Click to place points
E click click → Eaves type active + classify eaves (opens the Edges panel automatically)
G click click → classify ridges
Click the Facets panel icon in the top-right
Pick a pitch preset, click facets

Use the Save button in the toolbar to save at any point (autosave also runs in the background).

Before moving to the report:

Zoom out and scan for missing edges or isolated nodes.
Toggle Show All Layers to see the full roof.
Check each facet — does it have pitch, a slope arrow, and a reasonable area?
Sum the totals — rough mental math: a 2000 sq ft house should have a 2000+ sq ft flat roof area (more if there are dormers).