The loop generation engine in the underfloor heating module has been rebuilt from the ground up. Drawings now look like they came from a working design - and when a room's geometry cannot host a proper loop, you get an honest warning instead of a made-up drawing. Here is everything that changed.
New features
Plan-grade loop drawings. Every layout - spiral, classic meander and bifilar meander - is routed the way professional plans do it: the loop opens exactly at the supply connection and rotates with it, folds are symmetric, and spacing keeps one steady rhythm. A spiral connected mid-wall starts straight from the connection, a bifilar meander with the connection on a perpendicular wall gets an on-grid collector corridor, and L- and T-shaped meanders close the loop with a spine along the room boundary - never across the field.
Consistent rules for any shape. Slanted walls, L and T shapes, irregular outlines, even imprecisely traced rooms - every shape now follows the same rules: one spacing pitch, zero touching or crossing pipes, folds stepping along slanted edges, empty space instead of forced jogs. Geometry is computed on the real room outline, not an idealized rectangle. Shapes that cannot be covered by one loop still get an honest split recommendation.
Premade section shapes. Alongside vertex-by-vertex drawing, the section tool now offers ready-made shapes: rectangle, L-shape and T-shape. Two clicks on opposite corners insert a clean, grid-snapped orthogonal outline - exactly the geometry the reference pipe layouts are built for. Vertices stay fully editable after selecting.
Layout previews in the picker. The section panel shows thumbnails instead of a list of names: the actual pipe run for every layout (Auto, classic meander, bifilar meander, spiral) drawn on your section's shape, together with the pipe length. Layouts that need changes for a given shape are flagged right away.
Editable loop nodes. A generated drawing can be unlocked for manual editing: click "Edit nodes" in the section panel and the loop's points become draggable on the plan - with grid snapping and axis alignment to neighbouring segments. Double-click the pipe to add a node, double-click a node to remove it. Lengths recalculate after every change, and "Restore auto" returns to the generator.
Obstacles in sections (columns, stairs, chimneys). Right-click a section and choose "Cut an opening" - the drawn polygon becomes a cutout, and the pipes route around it automatically with full coverage control. Section area and pipe lengths account for the cutouts.
Edge zones. In the section panel you can enable denser spacing along the walls (100 or 150 mm, a 0.5 m band) - the same loop tightens its rows and coils in the band and returns to normal spacing deeper in, exactly the way it is laid on site. Works in every layout, including sections with obstacles.
Real supply routes to the manifold. Supply and return are now two parallel lines at their real separation, and every loop lands on its own manifold outlet - several routes to one manifold fan out instead of collapsing into a point. An unconnected section draws the same model layout, opened at a default connection point.
Automatic section splitting. When a loop comes out too long or a shape cannot be covered by one circuit, the section panel offers "Split into smaller loops". One click divides the section into balanced parts - each with its own valid loop below the recommended length.
Project updates under your control. Existing projects will not recalculate on their own. On first open you'll see a dialog: download a PDF with the current drawings and lengths, then switch to the new generation with one click. Until you decide, the project keeps its old numbers.
Improvements
- Refreshed side panel - the room list shows one key number per row with a discreet status dot, the flow-meter table folds under its header, and the section panel gets a clean stat grid with every setting in a single card.
- An honest connection band - the narrow strip along the connection wall may stay empty, exactly as installers leave it for the pipe pair's entry. The coverage check knows this rule and no longer reports it as a gap.
- Lengths from the geometry you lay - pipe meters are measured from the installer drawing with real bend-radius arcs, for every layout. For most projects this means lengths a few percent shorter (more accurate) than before.
Fixes
- Slanted and imprecisely traced rooms no longer break the drawing - a room a few centimetres off a rectangle draws the full bifilar ladder instead of reporting a coverage gap.
- Meanders never cross their pipes - the return no longer cuts through the row field; and if any layout would require a crossing, it gets an honest warning instead of a green status.
- A spiral on an L-shaped room honestly recommends splitting into two clean loops with one click, instead of drawing a broken thread.
- The supply route ends exactly at the manifold edge - also when drawing starts with a click inside the manifold.