You already know the basics: draw panel field or double-click for complete coverage. But in practice, you often need more control and flexibility to optimally use every roof area.

Typical challenges:

In this article you will learn:

In this video from our Video Training Center, you'll see all techniques in action:

Before we get to the advanced techniques, a quick refresher of the basics:

After drawing, you can specify which side the panels should be aligned flush to:

Why is this relevant? You decide where you want a clean edge (e.g., toward the gutter) and where protruding areas are acceptable.

Manually drawn panel areas often contain protruding edges that are not covered with panels. You can elegantly remove these.

Advantage: Trimmed panel fields are particularly easy to copy, move, and place next to other panel fields, since no unnecessary overhangs are in the way.

This function is ideal for symmetrical or multiply covered roof areas – for example, on flat roofs with maintenance corridors between panel rows.

Practical use cases:

Sometimes you need to split an existing panel field into two separate areas – for example, to create a maintenance corridor or arrange panels differently.

What happens to the original panel field? It keeps the remaining panels and may have protruding edges. Use the trim tool to remove them.

Practical applications:

The offset determines whether the panel rows of a panel field are exactly aligned or staggered relative to one another. This is especially important for triangular or irregular roof areas.

The offset indicates by what fraction of a column each panel row is shifted relative to the previous one: 0, 33, 50 or 66%. At 0%, the rows are exactly aligned.

Example: Optimally use triangular roof area

Why does this work? With triangular areas, each row is shorter than the previous one. If the rows are offset from each other, their ends follow the sloping edge more closely, and less space remains unused.

If you want to enlarge or reduce an existing panel field subsequently, use the Select & Move tool.

In the new designer, you enlarge or reduce a panel field using the purple corner handles; you can also enlarge it there via the ghost panels or with the Extend panel field icon. The steps below apply to the previous interface; the new designer is described in the section "Placing Panels in the New Designer".

The same process works in the other direction:

When expanding/reducing, the edge snaps to certain grid points. If this bothers you:

Practical use cases:

After you expand or adjust a panel field, Eturnity Expert automatically fills it again. If a strip without panels still remains along one edge, rearrange the panels along that edge.

Why does this help? Eturnity Expert arranges the panels starting from the edge they are aligned to. If the empty strip is along this edge, the panels move there.

Probably the most used function.

When is this method particularly valuable?

Combination with other techniques: Often the double-click coverage is the perfect starting point. Then you use other techniques for optimization:

If New designer is switched on at the top left, you do not draw panel fields. You place panels individually, let a panel field grow and align it using handles. To do this, set the switch from Building to Panels. This selects the Place panels tool; in the Pro drawing mode, it is also shown in the tool selection.

To cancel, press Esc or click Add panel a second time. As before, you cover a whole roof by double-clicking or with Fill with panels in the roof's sidebar.

If the Enter manually toggle is switched on under Number of panels, there are no ghost panels, and Extend panel field is disabled.

Panels that would lie outside the roof, on an obstacle or on another panel field after rotating or moving are removed by Eturnity Expert when you release the mouse button. You can bring them back with Undo in the toolbar.

Commercial roofs are often flat and carry panels on tilted frames, facing south or as an east-west system. This is how you proceed:

For maintenance corridors, place panel fields side by side with a gap between them, most easily as copies of a fully set-up panel field (Technique 2). Alternatively, draw the corridor as an obstacle in Pro Mode and cover the roof afterwards. Eturnity Expert keeps a distance of 200 mm around every obstacle by default, so the drawn corridor becomes 200 mm wider on each side. To keep the drawn width, set the obstacle's margin to 0 with Safety margins (previous interface: icon with the tooltip Margin tool), for all edges via Equal margins (previous interface: Same).

In the new designer, you place individual panels with Add panel, let a panel field grow via the ghost panels, with Extend panel field or at the corner handles, and rotate or move it using its handles. Copying, offset and double-click work there as described above.

The complete Video Training Center – Module 3 shows all techniques visually and with practical examples.