Snap Grid & Snapping¶
CAD-grade snapping so the cursor always tells the truth: a faint, rotatable grid in real ground units, plus object snaps on everything you've drawn. Controls live in the Settings tab (the left rail — under Symbols and Layers), in its Snap grid section.
The Settings tab: snap grid (spacing, angle, Align to road, Set origin), measurement units, and project properties.
The grid¶
- Ground units, not pixels — grid spacing is constant real distance (default 10 ft). Presets: 1 / 2 / 5 / 10 / 25 / 50 / 100 ft, or any custom value.
- Rotate to match the road — click Align to road, then click two points along the roadway; the grid adopts that bearing (also sets the origin to your first click). Or type a bearing into Rotation directly.
- Origin — Set origin anchors the lattice at your next map click, so a grid line runs exactly where you need it.
- Toggle — press G anywhere, or use the checkbox. First enable anchors the origin at the view center if you haven't set one.
- Opacity — keep it faint; it's a drafting aid, not linework. If you zoom out far enough that the grid would be a smear, it hides automatically until you zoom back in.
Object snaps¶
While placing, dimensioning, or dragging, the cursor snaps to (in priority order):
| Marker | Snap | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| red | Symbol point | a placed sign's post / device's snap point |
| blue | Vertex | a work-area corner or dimension endpoint |
| green | Midpoint | the midpoint of a work-area edge |
| gray | Grid | the nearest grid intersection |
Object snaps engage within a screen-distance tolerance; the grid catches everything else when enabled. A placed symbol's snap point is exactly where its position is stored — a sign's post sits on the ground point you clicked.
Modifiers¶
- Hold Shift while setting a dimension's second point or a work-area vertex: the segment is constrained ortho to the grid rotation (or its perpendicular) — device runs land dead-parallel to the road.
- New sign placements default their rotation to the grid rotation, so signs face the road the grid is aligned to; tap R to rotate in 15° steps (Shift+R rotates the other way).