Summary
This article goes over the user Interface in Skema. This article will cover different sections of the user interface such as editing masses, multi-selection, snap settings, and 3D controls.
This KB Article includes the following:
Editing Masses
After drawing your initial mass, you can edit the massing by selecting the block. Once selected, the mass will be outlined by a thick blue line, and the control points of the building along the corners will be visible. To edit the shape of the mass, hover over the desired edge or point, then left-click and drag to the desired shape.
Alternatively, you can hover over an edge, left click on it, and input the desired length you would like to add to the existing mass.
Multi-Selection
Skema offers two ways to allow you to multi-select masses or units.
The first way is through holding down ctrl key on windows or command key on mac, and selecting the desired mass or units.
The second way is through a selection box, by holding down the shift key and holding down left click, you create a selection box.
Selecting from left to right enables box selection, which will select all units fully covered by the box.
Selecting from right to left enables fence selection, which will select all units the selection box touches.
Snaping Overview
Snaps in Skema appear as pink highlighted points or lines in the modeling space and can be relative to the site boundary, existing building, or modeled building and its components. Snaps will appear at the corners, midpoints, and edges of these; for snaps to appear, hover over these locations. Snapping has an integrated sensitivity multiplier as well, as you zoom in, snapping gets more sensitive, allowing you to be more specific with your point placement.
Hovering over edges for snaps will prompt a loading bar to appear next to your cursor. Once loaded, the edge that was hovered over will turn pink, indicating that it is now able to be snapped to.
In some cases, two or more snaps may be located nearby to each other, such as the midpoint for a mass and the endpoint for a unit; to toggle between these, press the tab key on your keyboard.
There are also instances where you may want to decrease the sensitivity of the snaps or turn certain snaps off, depending on what your task may be. To do this, open the settings wheel and go to the snapping tab.
Snapping Objects
Starting at the very top of this tab, you will see a bolded title 'Snapping Objects'. To toggle these on and off, just select the checkbox to the left of the title for each one.
New Development: This toggles the snap to new massing made in the workspace of Skema. This allows snaps to connect to newly made elements.
Hover around the edges and corners to find snaps in new masses.
Existing Buildings: This toggles the snapping to context buildings surrounding or on your site. Use these snaps to line up your massing with the surrounding context.
Construction Site: This toggles snapping to the building plot. This can be used for making massing, streets, and offsets.
These snaps are often used to create streets and offsets on the site. Refer to the Building Plot | Streets and Offsets article for more information.
Snaps
Lower in the tab, there is a title for 'Snaps'. These are all various snap commands that Skema has within its workspace.
You can toggle each type of snap on and off by selecting the icon on the left side. When the icon is grey, it is off, and when it is blue, it is on.
The numbers to the right of each icon represent the sensitivity level of the snap. The larger the value, the more rigid the snap command will be, which can be a good thing when dealing with a large space or massing. When the snap value is smaller, you will need to get your pointer closer to the element in order for it to snap to them, which can be a good thing when working in smaller spaces or in a unit layout.
Starting from top to bottom of snaps:
Point to Point snap: This snap at the top of the list controls point to point snaps. For instance, when you make a massing each vertex represents a point, so if you wanted to snap to a point, or vertex, of a mass, then this snap would control that.
Center Point snap: The second snap in the list represents a center point snap. If you are modeling and want to snap to the center of a side, whether it be a mass or the site, this snap controls that. In the workspace, the center line will appear as a triangle in your 2D view and will do a hard snap in 3D view.
Line Extension snap: This snap occurs when you want to model in line with an existing or modeled element, without having to be attached to it. You will find the snap on one side of a mass or site, then extend it beyond the mass and stay in line with the edge.
Parallel Snap: This snap lets you find an element that you want a massing to be parallel with, and when you model, it will keep the element parallel. You can snap to the site, an existing building and a modeled mass.
Intersection snap: This snap lets you find the intersection of two elements. For example, if you have two separate buildings on a site and want to start a model at the intersection between two sides of the mass, this snap will control that. Find a snap on the first edge, and a snap on the second edge then hover out in the space where the intersection would be, and the snap will appear.
Perpendicular snap: This snap controls perpendicular points when modeling. If this snap is on, when you model, you will easily be able to find the perpendicular angle of the mass, if you want to keep an orthogonal geometry. These snaps also occur off the site as well, when you are making streets and offsets.
Grid snap: This snap pertains to corner points on the work plane grid. Anywhere within the modeling space, the snaps will be activated on the grid itself. The snap will align the elevation to that of the work plane grid.
Note: The Grid snap option is off by default.
3D Controls
In the 3D controls section of the Settings tab, there is an option to change your 3D navigation controls from Skema settings to Revit, Rhino, and SketchUp.
When you do this, your 3D controls will match those of whatever program you choose it to.