A shape is just a shape until you tell Giraffe what it represents. The drawing toolbar is where you turn a sketch into a building with FSR and dwelling counts, a parcel with zoning targets, or a road built to the right width, instead of a generic line on a map.
Tools on the drawing toolbar
The toolbar shows its tools in this order. Each tool's shortcut is in brackets.
Select (
Esc): icon looks like a hollow arrow cursor. Select and move whole geometries.Vertex Edit (
V): icon looks like an arrow cursor pointing at a node. Drag a shape's individual points. Vertex Edit is hidden when Classic draw mode is on.Base point (
B): icon looks like an arrow moving away from a pivot dot. Move, rotate, scale, orient, mirror, or flip a shape around a fixed base point.Modify (
Shift+Gfor Push / pull): icon looks like a face being pushed outward. Push/pull a face, offset it, align an edge or a geometry, or extend a line.Split (
X): icon looks like scissors. Cut a shape along a picked line, split it with an offset, trim it, or combine shapes with Union, Intersection, Difference, or Shape builder.Eyedropper (
Y): icon looks like a pipette. Sample an existing geometry's style and apply it to your brush.Buildings: icon looks like a building. Draw building usages.
Landscape: icon looks like two trees. Draw landscape and tree usages.
Paving: icon looks like a car. Draw roads and parking.
Land Use: icon looks like a truncated pyramid. Draw land use usages.
Insert Block: icon looks like a 3D cube outline. Place an existing block.
Flows: icon looks like a lightning bolt. Draw with a flow already in your project.
Rectangle (
R): draw a 4-sided shape with 90 degree angles.Polygon (
P): draw a closed, multi-sided shape.Polyline (
L): draw an open line with any number of points.Shapes: a picker that starts on Circle. Draw a shape with no usage applied: Point, Line, Curve with radius, Catmull-Rom Spline, Circle, Patch, Box, Sphere, Cylinder, Cone, Pyramid, or Wedge.
Annotations: icon looks like a flag. Add text or icon markers, filled regions, leaders, arrows, or uploaded images and 3D models.
Measures (
Shift+Lfor Tape measure): icon looks like a tape measure. Measure length or area, or place a permanent linear or area dimension.••• (All actions): search every action with
Cmd/Ctrl+K, or open the Select, Clipboard, Move, Edit, Group, Block, and Snap & Grid submenus. It also has Edit Project Boundary, Open Content Library, Undo, Redo, and the toolbar position and visibility controls. You can learn what each submenu does.
Base point, Modify, Split, Shapes, Annotations, and Measures each hold several tools. Click the arrow on one of these buttons to pick a different tool. The button then shows the last tool you used.
These shortcuts are for the default Single-key shortcuts mode. If you change your shortcut mode in Preferences, Giraffe uses different keys.
A read-only project only shows Select and Measures. Measures only has Tape measure and Tape measure (area) there, and the ••• menu is hidden.
A Space shows a different toolbar. It has an address search, a New Project button, and the measure tools.
Toolbar Preferences
Move the toolbar
The drawing toolbar sits at the top of the screen by default. Dock it to the top, left, right, or bottom edge so it sits where you work.
Click ••• on the drawing toolbar.
Choose Draw bar position.
Choose Top, Left, Right, or Bottom.
OR
Open the Edit menu, choose Preferences…, and pick a position under Draw bar position.
Hide or show the toolbar
Open the Map menu and choose Show Draw Bar to hide the drawing toolbar. Choose it again to bring the toolbar back.
Giraffe saves this with your current layout, so each layout can show or hide the toolbar on its own.
Drawing preferences
Change how the drawing tools behave from the Drawing section of Preferences. Open the Edit menu and choose Preferences….