Doors open — seeing the kitchen as it will be

A closed 3D view is only pretty boxes. What burns money is found when a door hits a wall, two doors swing into each other, or a drawer catches on a handle. So the doors open.

Which click

The bar above the 3D view has four modes: Plain, Doors open, Exploded, Assembly.

• Press Doors open: every door and drawer stands open.
• In that mode, clicking one front opens or shuts that one alone — the selection is not touched, so you can check them one at a time.
• The “How far doors open” slider moves all of them together (and resets whatever single clicks had said).

Why the default is not all the way

The catalogue’s hinge opens to 110°, but at 110° a door seen from the front is edge-on and reads as if it had vanished. The default is 0.6 of that angle — about 66° — where the door stands at a clear diagonal, the inside is visible, and the door is still plainly there.

The slider reaches 1, the hinge’s real angle. Ask “does this door hit the wall?” there, not at the default.

What opens, and how

• A door on its own hinge, from the side it is hinged.
• A drawer by the travel of its own runner.
• A sliding door slides instead of swinging; where two pass, they overlap.
• False front and open have nothing to open and do not move.

The assistant says what the eye sees

Whatever shows in 3D is also written in the Assistant panel, and the other way round: the hinge angle in a corner, a handle that collides with its neighbour, a push-to-open door next to a soft-close drawer, the weight of a lift-up door — each is a rule, and its Why? leads to the assistant rules.

Notes

• How far things stand open is not saved in the project and is not part of undo: it is how you are looking at the drawing, not a fact about the kitchen.
• Exploded is a different mode: the parts move apart so the build of a unit can be seen. Assembly walks through putting it together step by step (Workshop).
• The Display menu in the same bar: wall obstacles; hob, hood and sink; under-cabinet light; walls and floor; shadows.
• Section cut slices a plane through the kitchen to see inside, and two clicks on parts measures the distance between them.