Plandroid - Graphical Air Conditioning Design and Quoting Software
Plandroid Help Documentation
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The Design Canvas
The second page is the Design page. This is where you create the system design itself. On the right is the design canvas where you create your design. In the design canvas you can make selections with the left mouse button. Hold down the right mouse button and drag your mouse to drag the canvas (moving your view of it), and spin the middle mouse wheel*, if you have one, to zoom in or out. Dragging the middle mouse button will perform a zoom-to-box, and performing a single click with the middle mouse button will fit the image to the window. You can also use keyboard short cuts + or - to zoom and 0 to auto-fit to the window.
* Note: Using your middle mouse wheel to zoom requires a standard mouse configuration, and may not work for all mouse configurations.
Tool Tabs
On the left is the design toolbox, with four tabs of its own: Scale, Draw, Loads and Parts, each with its own set of tools. Each tab determines which type of object can be selected with the mouse, for example you must select the Loads tab in order to select load zones, and the Parts tab to select parts. (The exceptions are notes and their leader arrows, which, while created on the Draw tab, are selectable from any of the Draw, Loads, or Parts tabs.)
Tips on how to use whichever tool is selected are shown in the status bar, on the bottom of the window.
The Scale Tool Tab
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If you are in the Scale tab, then the only tool available is the Set Scale tool. This sets the scale of the underlying floor plan image - it has no effect on anything else (walls, zones, parts, etc.) drawn on the canvas. Be sure to scale the image before adding any other items to the plan. To set the scale, simply enter a known distance into the Distance field, and then drag the tool (holding down the left mouse button) along the corresponding length on your floor plan image that has that distance. Your floor plan is then scaled.
The Draw Tool Tab
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The Draw tab has simple tools to let you draw your own plan layout. These may be modifications to the plan image you need, such as a planned extension, or you could draw the entire plan yourself directly from your sketch notes.
Draw Tools
The Draw tab has tools for drawing rooms, walls, windows and doors. The Draw bulkhead tool draws a hatched area representing a bulkhead. The tool creates rectangular areas, but their corners can be dragged to any shape. The Show North button displays a compass image which you can rotate to indicate north on your plan. With the Add image tool you can also add your own custom images to your plan, which you can move, resize and rotate. These could be anything from images of your own custom components, to a title box for your design notes. The Add note tool allows you to add text notes directly onto the plan (double click on an existing note to edit it), or if you drag the tool, you can also add leader arrows to your notes (double click on a leader arrow to add a bend point). You can also add a note by copying text and pasting it directly into the canvas.
For most drawing tools, holding down the Control [Ctrl] key while you are drawing will override snap-to, holding the [Shift] key down will force the program to draw in multiples of 45° angles, and pressing the Escape [Esc] key will cancel the draw action (pressing [Esc] again will cancel the tool). Other keys can have other effects, for example pressing the [Alt] key while drawing a door will flip the side the door opens to. Hints on how to use each tool are shown in the status bar when you select or use the tool.
If you are using a tool that has parameters which can be set (for example the wall thickness), the appropriate settings panels beneath the toolbox will become active. You can also enter the coordinates of a wall or room manually in the Point fields to directly create walls at precise locations. You can likewise select an existing wall and edit its properties in these fields.
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Any item or group of items can be flipped with the toolbar button flip tools
(
).
This is useful when you want to mirror your design, reflect an image, or change the
way a door opens after you have drawn it, for example.
Add Image Tool
An image can be simply dragged and dropped into the canvas, or you can use the Add image tool to specify a location and then browse for the image file to add. The Add image tool can also be dragged to draw a box - the added image will then be scaled to fix within the box. You may wish to use an image with a transparent background - if so, create your image in a format which supports transparency, such as .gif or .png. Note that adding very large images can significantly reduce the responsiveness when manipulating the canvas, and it is usually best to add such images after first creating the rest of your design.
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A custom image (or the compass image, as shown above, which is also a type of custom image) can be rotated or resized by dragging any of the circular handles which appear when the image is selected. A selected image is drawn with a rotation handle above the image which, when dragged, lets you position the image at any angle you wish. The rotation will automatically snap-to a 90o angle, unless you hold down the Control key (Ctrl). To constrain the angle to a multiple of 45o, hold down the Shift key while rotating the image. The six smaller resize handles can be dragged to resize the image. Holding down the Control key (Ctrl) while resizing will resize symmetrically about the image centre. Double clicking the image will reset it back to its native size.
You can also directly set the physical size of an image (that is, the size it will appear on the plan) with the context menu item Set Image Size.
Snap-To For Tools
Tools have snap-to behaviour - that is, they will automatically connect with (snap-to) each other when you draw them, and walls will snap-to 90o angles, making drawing easier. To draw without snap-to, hold down the Control key (Ctrl). To draw a wall at exactly 45o, or to draw a square room or load zone, for example, hold down the Shift key while you are drawing.
The Select Tool
The first tool in any toolbox is the Select tool, which is used to select objects in the canvas. You can also get the Select tool by cancelling any other tool with the Escape (Esc) key, or by selecting (left-clicking) the background in the toolbox. To select more than one object at a time in the canvas, hold down the Control (Ctrl) key while making your selection. Clicking and dragging the Select tool on the canvas background will draw a selection box, and will select everything inside that box. To delete objects, simply select them and press the Delete key.
You can switch from the Select tool to the last used draw tool and back again by briefly tapping the Ctrl key, the Shift key, or the Spacebar.
Context Menu
While the Select tool is active, you can open a context menu on any selection by pressing the right mouse button. The context menu will give you a list of actions that are appropriate for the current selection, as well as extra information about the selected objects.
The Loads Tool Tab
The Loads tools tab
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The Loads tab allows you to very quickly specify heat load zones from the plan, either as rectangles or polygons. By setting the heat load in kilowatts per square metre, for example, you have then instantly calculated the heat load for that zone. You can also specify the ceiling height, the name of the zone (or room), and whether it should be continuously serviced or switchable. Again, you can set the parameters for each tool in the panel beneath the toolbox. These fields can also be used to edit the properties of any objects, or group of objects, that you have selected. Also, if you select an object and then immediately switch to a tool, the tool will inherit the settings of that object. This provides a quick way to match a tool's settings to an object you have already created.
Switchable zones can be turned on or off using the On checkbox. Zones that are off are drawn in greyscale instead of the normal colour, and are not supplied with air when you analyse your design for the resultant air flows.
You can also set the total resultant load for a zone directly by using the zone's context menu item Set Zone Load. This option will scale the heat load for the zone such that you get the total load you specify.
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The total loads for all the zones you have created are shown in the bottom right corner of the status bar. Depending on the options you have selected, this can be displayed as a heat load or as a required air flow rate, or both. If you select one or more zones, then the total load of your selection is displayed. The x and y coordinates of the cursor in the design canvas are also shown here.
You can select an option to label the zone directly with its name and properties you've chosen to display. You can also drag and drop the zone's label into a position of your choosing.
Discontinuous load zones can be made by creating separate zones, selecting them,
and pressing the Join Zones toolbar button (
). This tool
will connect all of the selected zones with corridors of zero width, resulting in a single zone.
Load zones should not overlap. Note that although it is possible to overlap the load zones, this will give invalid results. Also, you cannot create crossed polygons with the Set polygon load zone tool. If you draw a crossed polygon, no load zone will be created.
You Can Analyse Loads and Airflows
The Toggle Zones Table toolbar button (
) can be used to
analyse your design by solving for the resultant air flow, and then displaying a
table of all the load zones in
your design. The table also displays the results of the flow analysis of your design, comparing the required air with the actual
supplied air in each zone. This lets you see immediately if your design is adequate for the given loads.
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You can turn any Switchable zones on of off with the checkbox in the On column. Zones which are switched off do not receive any supplied air.
The supplied air values are colour coded to give immediate feedback on the cooling air levels. Full green indicates the requirements are met with at least a 12% buffer margin, pale green means the supply is adequate, yellow means the supply is within 12% of being adequate, and red indicates the air supply is inadequate.
The program provides two different solution methods: A fully analytical solution which takes into account flow pressure losses which is more accurate but slow, or a simplified solution which does not take pressure losses into account, but which is significantly faster.
If you change your design or change which zones are switched on, you'll need to manually update the table by pressing the Solve button. You can copy the table to the clipboard with the Copy Table button if you wish to paste it into another document such as MS Word or Excel, for example.
You can click on any column header to sort the table by that property.
Use the toolbar button Solve Air Flows (
)
if you want to run the same air flow calculations without first opening the Zones Table. This can be useful
when you wish to investigate flows through parts and see their outlet face velocities. You can view the results by
clicking on the parts and noting the values in the status bar, or by opening the context menu item Properties.
Air flows will only be reported after an air flow calculation has been done. If you then modify your design and
want to see the new airflow results, you will need to manually recalculate the flows using this button again.
(Note that if you use the Auto-size Ducts toolbar tool (
), the duct flows will instead be set to whatever flow is required to supply the specified zones regardless
of the output of your selected unit - and the ducting will be sized to handle that flow.)
The air flow calculations necessitate some simplifications, and are indicative results. You should perform your own detailed calculations if you require higher levels of accuracy.
The Parts Tool Tab
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The Parts tab shows you a catalog of the parts you can put into the design canvas. You can select parts at three levels, the part type (such as Diffuser), the part sub-type (such as Metal Louvre Face), and lastly the actual sized part itself. Parts can only be dragged into the canvas from the sized parts window (the bottom of the three windows). The bottom window has a white background to remind you of this. Hovering over an item in the catalog with the mouse will display more information about that part. Double left-clicking a part in the catalog will auto-insert it into the canvas without the need to drag it. Holding down the Control (Ctrl) key while dropping a part will put you in repeat-drop mode, where you can drop copies of that same part repeatedly.
Although you cannot modify the contents of the Catalog file itself, you can customise many aspects of how the Catalog is displayed.
Bring to Front, Send to Back
You can change the draw order of parts - that is, parts can be moved to be in front of or behind other parts
- by selecting them and using the Bring to front (
) or the Send to back (
) toolbar buttons. (The same
buttons can also be used to reorder images). Note that ducting is always drawn underneath any other parts to keep the presentation clear.
You Can Edit Parts
Rotating a rigid part
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All parts can be selected and repositioned in the design canvas by clicking and dragging them. Most parts are rigid, and when selected are drawn with a rotation handle (the red dot above the part), just as for a custom image. By dragging the rotation handle you can position the part at any angle you wish. The rotation will automatically snap-to a 90o angle, unless you hold down the Control key (Ctrl). To constrain the angle to a multiple of 45o, hold down the Shift key while rotating the part.
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Any item, including a rigid part, can also be flipped either horizontally (about a vertical axis) or vertically
(about a horizontal axis) with the menu bar flip tools (),
which is useful when placing parts that aren't symmetrical.
You Can Edit Labels
You have complete control over how part labels are shown. You can reposition a part's label the same way you would a rigid part - by clicking and dragging it. Hovering the mouse over a label will make the label glow, and it will show which part the label refers to with a leader line.
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You can edit the text, font, or colour of any part's label in the design canvas either by double clicking on the label, or by selecting Edit Label from the part's context menu. The Design Options give you fine control over which labels are shown (e.g. only for drawn parts such as ducting, for all rigid parts, or only outlets). If you require even finer control you can also set the display of each label individually with the context menu option Show Labels. You can choose to always show a label, to show it according to the Options settings you have specified (the default), or to hide it unless the part is selected (a part's label will always be shown when it is selected).
A part's label text can also be customised by editing them directly in the Catalog, which will affect all instances of that part added to the design canvas.
You Draw Some Parts Yourself
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Some parts, such as ducting, pipes, line grilles and wires can be drawn by the user and have arbitrary shapes and lengths. They can be dragged into the canvas as a unit length, or, more conveniently, you can use their draw tools to lay them out wherever you like. Note that the duct is drawn with a red line indicating the end of a length, where a joiner is required. Pipes (and pipe fittings) can be drawn wider than their actual diameter to make them more easily visible (5 times wider by default). Rigid ducting is drawn with one sheet metal cross fold between each handle - to add more sections, simply double click to add more handles (see below).
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A user-drawn part that has a draw tool is indicated by drawing its part icon with a pencil overlay, as shown. By single clicking on this part without dragging it, you will select the draw tool which can be used in the design canvas to draw the part where you wish. To draw a flexible or rigid duct, simply left-click and drag the mouse. To draw a line grille, wire or piping, perform a series of left-clicks with or without dragging. To finish, click on the end of the segment again. Any tool can be cancelled at any time by hitting the Escape (Esc) key. As with most tools, you can toggle between the current drawing tool and the Select tool by briefly tapping either the Ctrl or the Shift key. Help for each tool is shown in the status bar when you change to that tool.
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User-drawn parts have handles defining their shape which are visible when the part is selected. You can drag a handle to adjust the shape or length of the user-drawn part, as shown. Double left-clicking on a handle will delete it, as will hitting the Delete key while the handle is active. Double clicking on a selected user-drawn part where there is no handle will add a new handle at that point. Handle points can also be added and deleted using context menu items, available by right clicking on a drawn part. The context menu item Delete All Handles will remove all the extra handles in a drawn part, which is a quick and easy way to make all your ducting perfectly smooth.
User-drawn parts can also be drawn in colour. The colours may be defined in the parts catalog, but you can also define your own colours by customising your catalog.
Some Parts are Not Printed
Catalog parts with a not-drawn symbol
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Some parts are not drawn in the final report diagram because they would make the design less clear. Any part which is
drawn on the design canvas but is not drawn in the final diagram is shown with the small red not-drawn
symbol (
) in the catalog.
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Those parts that are not drawn to the report diagram are shown shaded red on the design canvas.
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Some parts must always be supplied with certain other parts that always go with them. Adding such a
part will automatically add all other parts that must go with it. Parts that come with other parts are shown
with the small blue has added parts symbol (
) in the catalog. You can override this and drop a part without
adding any other parts by holding down the Alt key while dropping it.
Double clicking on a rigid part in the design canvas will take you directly to that part in the catalog list box. You can do the same for any part - rigid or user-drawn - by selecting the context menu item Find in Catalog.
You Can Set Your Own Auto-Added Parts
You can customise your catalogs by specifying yourself which additional parts should be automatically added with each part. By selecting a group of parts and choosing the context menu item Add Parts in Catalog you can attach the selected parts to a master part. The master part can be any other unselected part in your design, and when you next add this part, the selected items will also be added. The added parts will keep their same relative positions to the master part, and also the same depth order (on top or behind the master part).
Note that user-defined added parts are added in addition to any added parts which are defined in the catalog. Also, you cannot undo adding parts from within the program, although you can manually edit the resulting changes in the Catalog Edits file.
Parts Can Snap-Together
Many parts that you add to your design also have the ability to snap-to (connect with) other parts. Connections are shown in green if the part or tool that is being manipulated can connect to it, or red if it cannot. Connections that glow green indicate that those parts have locked onto each other, and if you complete your action at that point, the parts will snap together.
To be a compatible connection, both connectors must have the same size and shape - although a single connection can be made to match multiple sizes. A connection's shape can be either circular or rectangular. A part may have connections that are angled perpendicular to the canvas, or they may lie in the plane of the canvas, and this may affect which other parts it can connect to. A flexible duct, for example, can bend to connect to either.
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At any point hold down the Control key (Ctrl) to move a part without snap-to. Connections that have already been made can be broken by holding down the Control key while you drag a part away. Otherwise moving a part will likewise move all the parts that are connected to it. Opening the context menu on a part with connections will also display an option to break all existing connections.
Selecting a part in the catalog will highlight all of the compatible part connections in your design. The colour of a connector indicates if it can connect to the part you have selected, as shown:
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Checking Your Design
All connections that are not yet joined can be made to light up in red by pressing the Check design toolbar button (
, or by pressing C), showing where your design may be unfinished. Zones are also highlighted to indicate if their air flow is adequate. Zones outlined in green have sufficient air, those outlined in yellow have almost sufficient air, and those outlined in red have insufficient air. If you want to re-check a modified design and are using the analytical
airflow solution (which takes a significant length of time to solve), you have to manually
use the Solve Air Flows tool
() to recalculate the airflows. The results shown will be those
from last air flow solution performed, even if your design has since changed. If you are using the (faster) simplified airflow solution,
the airflows will be recalculated every time you check your design.
The air flow calculations performed by Plandroid are simplified and you should perform your own analysis if you require a more detailed solution.
Hotkeys
In addition to the hotkeys for the menu controls, the following hotkeys can be used in the Design page:
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| + | Zoom in |
| - | Zoom out |
| 0 | Zoom to fit |
| Arrow key | Pan canvas in arrow direction |
| Space bar | 1) Pan canvas by dragging left mouse button; 2) Tap to toggle between the Select tool and the last used draw tool |
| C | Check design (hold down to highlight loose connections and show zone air supply) |
| Esc | Cancel tool, cancel draw action, or cancel selection |
| Delete / Backspace | Delete selection |
| Ctrl | 1) Toggle select; 2) Multi-drop mode on part drop; 3) Override snap-to on draw or edit; 4) Break connections on part drag; 5) Tap to toggle between the Select tool and the last used draw tool |
| Alt | 1) No adding other parts on part drop; 2) Toggle door opening side on draw door |
| Shift | 1) Constrain tools or part rotations to multiples of 45o; 2) Tap to toggle between the Select tool and the last used draw tool |
| Ctrl + Alt + F12 | Reset all application settings |
The next page is the Costing page.