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Drawing Mesh

A Drawing Mesh object is a flat mesh where every edge represents a drawn line. It is the MaStro way to produce 2D technical drawings — floor plans, sections, elevations — without leaving the 3D viewport.

Created with: Add → MaStro → Drawing (Mesh)
Edit Mode geometry: edges — extrude vertices to add new lines
Typical use: architectural drawings, line-work overlays, technical annotations.

How it works

Each edge carries a set of named attributes that describe its appearance: which layer it belongs to, its thickness, its dash pattern, its colour, and whether it should be rendered in black. A Geometry Nodes modifier reads these attributes and converts the mesh to a Grease Pencil object at render time.

Because the drawing is a mesh, all standard Blender mesh tools work on it: snapping, mirroring, array modifiers, and so on. The drawing can also coexist in the same file as Mass, Block, and Street objects.

Layers, pens and line styles

Every edge belongs to exactly one layer, identified by an integer ID stored as an edge attribute. The layer references a pen (which controls line weight and colour) and a line style (which controls the dash pattern). Changing any of these in the properties panel propagates immediately to all edges on that layer across all drawing objects in the scene.

See Layers, Pens and Line Styles for the full panel reference.

Drawing scale

Every drawing is associated with a scale denominator (e.g. 200 for 1:200). The scale multiplies all line thicknesses in the viewport so that lines appear at the correct visual weight for the intended print scale — a 0.25 mm line at 1:200 looks different from the same line at 1:50.

The scale is stored per camera: each camera remembers its own scale and applies it automatically when that camera becomes the active view. When the viewport is not locked to any camera (free perspective or orthographic view), a separate viewport scale is used instead.

Where to set the scale

Location What it controls
Properties → Camera → Viewport Display → Scale 1: Scale for that specific camera
Viewport sidebar (N) → View → Scale 1: Active scale — shows camera scale in camera view, viewport scale otherwise
Status bar (bottom of Blender) Read-only display of the current active scale

How it works

The scale value is written to an internal node inside the MaStro Drawing Geometry Nodes group. Switching cameras updates this node automatically; no manual action is required.

Drawing workflow

  1. Use Add → MaStro → Drawing (Mesh) to add a new drawing object. A single edge is created at the 3D cursor position, already tagged with the active layer's attributes.
  2. Enter Edit Mode. Select the endpoint vertex and use Extrude Vertex (E or Alt+D) to extend the line. Each new edge is automatically assigned the currently active layer.
  3. To change which layer a group of edges belongs to, select the edges and use Assign Layer to Selected Edges from the layer header popover.
  4. To draw across multiple objects simultaneously, enter Edit Mode on several drawing meshes at once. The layer assignment operator acts on all of them.

Note

The active layer is tracked by the MaStro Layers panel in the Properties editor. Switch layers there before extruding to assign the correct attributes.