Draw 3D stairs with the stairs & lifts tool

A stair is a parametric 3D staircase drawn between two or three anchor points on the map. Every step is a real extruded solid, so you can see the run from any camera angle. Reach for the tool whenever the facility connects two levels — mezzanine access, loading-dock stairs, plant catwalks, retail floor changes.

To open the tool: open the Draw flyout on the left toolbar and pick Add stairs & lifts, or press S on the keyboard. The `-` (minus) key also opens it when nothing is selected.

Escalators and elevators are drawn with the same tool — see Lifts & escalators. The Retail Mart Store demo uses it for the escalators in the middle of the store. With one selected, the side panel is the same one a stair gets, with Escalator picked under Lifts instead of a shape under Stairs.

Screenshot · An escalator selected in the Retail Mart Store

The Geometry section starts with the type picker. A one-line hint under it describes the click flow, and the number of clicks depends on the type.

1. 1
   Pick a type and set the basics

   Open the tool; the side panel shows the Placement hint plus the Geometry and Appearance sections. Change any of these before you click on the map — the preview uses whatever you set.

2. 2
   Click the first anchor (the bottom)

   After the first click, a preview of the whole staircase follows your cursor.

3. 3
   Click the remaining anchor(s)

   For Straight or U, one more click at the top commits the stair. For L, click the corner first, then the top of the second flight.

4. 4
   Camera lands on the new stair

   After the final click the tool switches to Select, the camera flies to the centre of the stair at zoom ≥ 19 and pitch ≥ 45°, and the side panel opens on the new stair so you can tweak it. Every new stair is named "Stairs" (click the name in the panel header to rename it, for example to "Stair 1") and is pinned to the Default floor plan if one is set. While placing, the Placement section has an Exit stair tool button; Enter and Backspace do nothing for stairs.

When one stair is selected, the side panel shows Actions on top, then Transform, Geometry and Appearance. Click the name in the header to rename it.

The Tread depth row has a two-button mode picker:

At the bottom of the Geometry section a coloured badge updates live. It shows the Blondel comfort number — "2R + T = … cm (target 60–63 cm)" — and lists any rule the current riser and tread break. With the default riser (0.178 m) and tread (0.279 m), 2R + T is 63.5 cm, so the badge shows a Comfort warning with the default settings until you adjust one of them.

Stairs have Move and Rotate. There is no on-map Scale — resize by editing Steps, Width, Riser height and Tread depth instead. Every edit re-renders the stair live.

Indoor routing works one floor at a time: the route search runs on the current floor's walkable areas, walls and doors. Stairs, escalators and lifts are drawn and labelled, but they are not part of the route search — there is no automatic cross-floor routing. For a multi-floor trip, route to the stair or lift, then route again on the next floor. See Wayfinding.

Shift-click (or ⌘/Ctrl-click) stairs to build a multi-selection. The panel switches to "N stairs selected" with Fit and Delete all (two-click confirm). Unlike most other kinds, stair bulk mode exposes several geometry fields — facilities often standardise every stair to the same proportions.