Welcome to World Builder Studio. Whether you are creating a community airport for the Laminar Scenery Gateway or designing a massive regional VFR scenery, this guide will walk you through the core principles of the workspace.

1. The Four-Pane Unified Interface

Unlike older flight simulation utilities that spread tools across floating windows and separate dialogs, World Builder organizes everything into an integrated four-pane layout:

• Header Bar: Displays your active project name, current coordinate reference, and real-time build pipeline state.
• Left Toolbar (Primitives, Tools, Operators): Always accessible on the left. Pick overlay primitives (objects, facades, forests, lines, strings, autogen, polygons), tools (select, move, rotate, scale, edit contour), and operators (repeaters, cloners).
• Central Viewport: The interactive canvas supporting seamless transitions between 2D Map, Satellite aerial context, and the full 3D Viewport.
• Right Sidebar (Scene Tree & Inspector): The top section houses the Scene Tree (Imagery, Terrain, Overlays, Landmarks, Airports) while the bottom displays contextual properties for the active selection.

2. Projection and Look Modes

In the top-right corner of the viewport, quick-toggle buttons give you instant control over how your world is displayed:

• Map View: Clean vector map mode ideal for high-level airport perimeter alignment and boundary checks.
• Satellite View: High-resolution aerial photographic context for accurate placement against real-world geography.
• 3D View: The primary interactive creation space. Walk or fly through your scenery with realistic physics and camera controls.
• Render Look: Simulates X-Plane’s native lighting engine, atmospheric scattering, and sun angles.
• Clay Look: Strips textures to reveal raw 3D geometry—perfect for checking facade alignments and mesh slopes.
• Wireframe Look: Visualizes underlying polygon tessellation and vertex density.

3. Transform Gizmos & Snapping

Manipulating assets in World Builder uses industry-standard 3D gizmos. Selecting any asset reveals translation, rotation, and scale rings. Toggle grid snapping, heading quantization (15°, 45°, 90°), and terrain ground-clamping to position buildings and ramp equipment with millimeter precision.

Next Steps

Now that you are familiar with the interface, explore our guides on importing existing WED XML files or building custom 3D landmarks.