Help — using the pilot workspace

1. Supported files and limits
2. Preparing a drawing set
3. What happens after upload
4. Reading a draft or released visual
5. Sharing with a client or contractor
6. When access stops working
7. Deleting a project
8. Still stuck?

Accepted types

PDF, PNG and JPEG. Nothing else is accepted. A DWG, RVT, SKP, ZIP or HEIC file is refused before it is stored, so there is no point renaming one — the check reads the file's own leading bytes, not its extension.

Size limit

200 MiB per file. The limit is written into the upload authorization itself, with an exact byte count, so an oversized or altered file is turned away by storage rather than merely by the page.

What a plan set is

One submitted drawing file plus the record around it: who submitted it, when, its checksum, the validation result, and the storage version the workspace promoted. Every model, view and render points back to one plan set, so there is always an answer to “which drawings is this from?”

Why a revision is a new plan set

A plan set is never edited and never replaced in place. When the drawings change, submit the revised file as a new plan set. The earlier one stays exactly as it was, and any release already made from it keeps pointing at the bytes it was actually built from. Overwriting would quietly change the meaning of work that has already been reviewed and shared.

One file at a time

Each submission creates its own plan set, so a set split across several PDFs becomes several plan sets. That is workable but harder to review — see preparing a drawing set.

Terms acceptance first

Submitting requires the current version of the pilot terms to have been accepted by the person uploading. If the terms text changes, the workspace asks again before the next submission; the version accepted is recorded on your membership and in the activity log.

Naming

Your browser never chooses where the file lands. The workspace generates the storage location and binds the authorization to it, along with the declared type, size and checksum.

A sheet index

Put the index first, listing every sheet by number and title. It is what the plan review is written against, and it makes a missing sheet obvious before anyone starts modelling.

A legible scale

A graphic scale bar on each plan sheet, or a stated scale in the title block. Prefer the bar: if a sheet is printed or exported at a reduced size, a stated scale becomes wrong while a bar stays true.

A north arrow

On every floor plan and the roof plan. It fixes the orientation used for the four isometric views, so that “the north-east corner” means the same thing in the drawings, the model and the conversation.

A revision date on the sheet

In the title block, not only in the file name. The date printed on the sheet is what gets recorded and what a release refers back to. File names get renamed; title blocks do not.

Heights, documented

Sections or elevations that fix floor-to-floor heights, parapet and soffit heights, and roof pitch. Anything not drawn becomes an assumption, and every assumption is written into the log that travels with the draft.

One combined PDF

A single vector PDF for the whole set is easiest to review and keeps the sheets in one plan set. A folder of single sheets works but becomes several plan sets. Scans and photographs of sheets can be read, but cost accuracy at every step after that.

Only what you may share

Submit drawings your firm produced or holds the right to share. Remove anything that does not belong in a visualization brief — a client's personal details, unrelated consultants' proprietary sheets — before uploading.

1. 01

   The upload is authorized, not open.

   Workspace

   Before the file leaves your browser, the workspace issues a one-time authorization bound to a storage location it chose, the content type you declared, an exact content-length range, and the SHA-256 you declared. A file that does not match the authorization is refused by storage itself.

2. 02

   The stored file is read back and checked.

   Workspace

   Four checks, against the stored object rather than against what the browser said: the exact byte size, the content type, the checksum storage itself computed, and the file's leading signature bytes. The last one is why a DWG renamed to .pdf fails here even if everything else lines up.

3. 03

   The file is scanned for malware.

   Before anything is kept

   Your upload sits in a quarantine area and is scanned there. Nothing moves out of quarantine until the scan comes back clean, so a file that is still being scanned simply shows “Scanning…” for a few seconds. A file that is flagged is refused and deleted, and you are told.

   Scanning happens inside our own AWS account. Your drawings are not sent to an outside scanning service.

   One honest limit: on a PDF that uses compressed object streams — most modern CAD exports do — the structural check above cannot see inside every object, and the workspace marks that coverage partial rather than pretending otherwise. The malware scan is unaffected.

4. 04

   Ready, or rejected with a reason.

   Workspace

   On success the exact stored version — that version, not the location — is promoted to the source store and recorded. A later write to the same location cannot substitute different bytes for a plan set that has already been promoted.

   On a mismatch the set is marked rejected with a plain reason: wrong type, wrong size, checksum mismatch, or signature mismatch. Nothing is promoted and nothing is half-created. Fix the file and submit it again as a new plan set.

Said plainly: validation confirms that the file we stored is exactly the file you meant to send. It does not confirm that the file is safe. Malware scanning is a documented gate the pilot has not passed yet, and it is listed as missing on the security page.

Draft versus release

A draft is for you and your team: it can change, and it is not visible to anyone you invite. A release is a specific version you approved — dated, fixed, and the only thing an invitation can point at. Approving is what turns one into the other.

Illustrative, not measured

Massing, materials, lighting and landscape are illustrative. Do not scale a dimension off an isometric view or a render, and do not treat a finish in an image as a specification. Where a package includes rendered visualizations, they come from the same reviewed model as the isometrics, so they agree with each other — not with a tape measure.

Assumptions travel with the release

Anything the drawings did not fix — an unlabeled parapet height, an unmarked roof pitch, a ceiling not shown in section — is written into an assumption log attached to the draft, and that log stays attached when the draft becomes a release. Read it first. It is the shortest description of where the model is interpreting rather than reporting.

The architect's drawings govern

The architect's issued drawings govern construction. Nothing in the workspace is a construction document, a code review or an accessibility check, and no view produced here replaces a sheet from the issued set.

Which plan set it came from

Every release names the plan set it was built from. If the drawings have moved on, that is visible rather than implied — submit the revised set as a new plan set and a new release follows from it.

Corrections

Resolve assumptions and request corrections during review, before approving. One consolidated correction round is included with each production package.

One invitation, one person

Each invitation is bound to one recipient email address, one project and one release version. Accepting it requires that email — entering a different one is refused. To add a second person, issue a second invitation.

Capabilities

View is always included. Comment and download are chosen per invitation, and download is off unless you turn it on. A client and a contractor on the same project can have different capabilities on the same release.

Expiry

Between 1 and 90 days, 14 by default. The date is part of the grant, so access ends whether or not anyone remembers to revoke it.

The link is shown once

The invitation link is returned once, when you create it, and is not stored anywhere we can read it back — only a digest of it is kept. Copy it then. In the pilot you send it yourself, by whatever channel you already use with that person; the workspace does not yet email guests.

What the guest sees

The project title, stage and location, the one release their invitation names, its assets, and comments marked visible to guests. They do not see drafts, other plan sets, your other projects, your team, or anything to do with billing. There is no project list for a guest to browse.

How long their session lasts

Eight hours from accepting, and never longer than the invitation's own expiry. After that they open the same link and enter the same email again.

Revoking

Revoke an invitation at any time. The grant's status is re-read on the guest's every request, so their access ends on their next click — not at the end of a cached session.

What revoking cannot do

It cannot recall a copy. If you granted download and the recipient downloaded a file, that copy is theirs and is outside the workspace. Revocation stops further access; it does not reach into someone's laptop or their email.

Source downloads, for architects

Members of your firm can download the promoted source file for a plan set. That link is valid for five minutes and is generated fresh each time, so it is not a URL worth forwarding.

“This invitation is no longer available. Contact the person who shared it.”

The exact wording a guest sees when an invitation will not open.

Why it is always the same message

An expired invitation, a revoked one, the wrong email address and a token that never existed all produce that one response. If the wording differed, anyone holding a guessed link could learn whether a project exists and who is on it. Nothing about your projects is discoverable by trial.

Expired

The invitation reached its expiry date. Ask the person who shared it to issue a new one; a new invitation is a new link with a new expiry. The old link cannot be extended.

Revoked

Someone at the firm revoked it. The next request fails, including one from a page that was already open. If this is unexpected, ask the firm — support cannot reinstate a grant the firm withdrew.

Signed out after 8 hours

A guest session lasts 8 hours. Nothing is wrong: open the original invitation link again and enter the same email address. If the invitation is still live you are straight back in; if it has expired or been revoked in the meantime, you get the message above instead.

Wrong email address

Acceptance checks the address you type against the address the invitation was issued to. A different address — a personal one instead of a work one, say — gets the same message. Use the address the invitation was sent to, or ask for a new invitation to the address you prefer.

For architects: your own sign-in

Architect sessions also end 8 hours after signing in, and end immediately if your membership is removed from the firm. Sign in again at the workspace. Accounts are created by invitation from your firm's owner; there is no public sign-up to retry.

1. 01

   Only the firm's owner can start it.

   Owner

   Architects and operators cannot delete a project, and support does not delete one on request without the owner. The owner's identity and the time are recorded.

2. 02

   Every invitation for the project is revoked.

   Workspace

   All grants on the project are revoked as part of the same action, so every client and contractor loses access on their next request. You do not have to revoke them one by one first.

3. 03

   Stored versions are purged.

   Workspace

   Every stored version under the project — uploaded files, promoted sources, and generated models and images — is deleted, not just the current one. Its plan sets are marked deleted and lose their storage references. Any download link issued before the deletion stops working, because the version it pointed at is gone.

4. 04

   A record remains, the project does not.

   Workspace

   The project stops appearing in listings. What remains is a short record: who requested the deletion, when, how many invitations were revoked and how many stored objects were purged. The drawings, models and images are not recoverable from it, and this is not reversible — export anything you want to keep before you delete.

   One honest limit: backup copies are outside this purge, and the pilot has not yet rehearsed a restore or evidenced end-to-end deletion across them. That gap is listed on the security page.