Draw evacuation and forklift routes

A route is a path shape drawn as a chain of waypoints on the map. Reach for it when the thing you're drawing is a directional flow you want to show people — an evacuation route, a forklift lane, a pedestrian corridor, an emergency-vehicle path, a service loop. Routes are drawn, styled and saved like any other shape; they appear under "Routes / paths" in the toolbar's Layers menu and as Routes in the side panel's layer list. Typical routes are an Emergency evacuation path from the back rooms to the nearest exit, or an Accessible route from the main entrance to the lifts.

To open the tool: click the Draw button on the left toolbar and pick Add route, or press Y on the keyboard. There is no number-key alias for it.

Every route carries a Type that picks its default paint colour and identifies what kind of traffic the path is for. Pick a type before you start drawing (the Route type picker sits under the Placement section while the tool is active) or change it later on a selected route — the paint updates immediately.

Click by click. Each click adds a waypoint; a preview line trails from the last waypoint to the cursor; double-click or Enter commits. You need at least two waypoints.

1. 1
   Pick the type in the side panel

   The picker is a two-column grid of the six types with a colour swatch on each. Tap the one that matches your intent; the next route will use its paint. The tool remembers your last type and appearance settings in this browser.

2. 2
   Click to drop waypoints

   Each click adds a waypoint at the click point. The side-panel header keeps count: "1 waypoint — click again to add the next.", then "2 waypoints — double-click or Enter to commit." The Placement section shows "N waypoints placed".

3. 3
   Commit the path

   Double-click the map or press Enter. The route saves with a default name of "Route" and is auto-selected. The tool stays active so you can draw another right away; press Esc with no waypoints placed to leave it. The new route stays selected, so after the first route the side panel shows that route's settings and the Placement section (with Exit route tool) no longer appears.

When your next waypoint gets close to a waypoint of a visible saved route — or to the first waypoint of the route you are drawing, to close a loop — the Route tool snaps the new waypoint onto the exact same coordinate. That keeps connected routes joined precisely at shared points.

To bypass the snap, click a spot that isn't near an existing waypoint. There's no modifier key to disable it — the snap only fires when a target is actually close.

The Route side panel is intentionally compact. When one route is selected these sections are all you see.

A route's intent is directional — you want the viewer to know which way to walk, drive, or evacuate. Direction arrows are on by default: chevron glyphs paint along the path pointing from the first waypoint to the last. Toggle them off in Appearance if the arrows crowd the plan.

Routes have no bulk-edit panel today. Select a route by clicking it with the Select tool (Shift-click doesn't add routes to a selection), and edit each one from its own panel. Routes whose colour you never changed follow their type colour, so keeping to the type colours keeps a set of routes consistent.