2D Drawing
A line is not just a mark on a screen. It is the beginning of a conversation between everyone who will touch the building. Corvus approaches drawing like a hand approaches a pencil: with as little as possible between thought and stroke. Draw quickly when an idea is forming, precisely when every dimension matters, and beautifully when the drawing itself needs to communicate. Whether 2D is the beginning of a model, part of a drawing set, or the work itself, Corvus treats drawing as a first-class way of working.
There is no substitute for paper.
Nor should there be. Drawing by hand is an organic part of design, and for many people it remains indispensable. Stroke follows stroke with nothing between the mind and the hand. Corvus does not set out to replace that freedom. It asks what digital drawing can learn from it: immediacy, directness, fluency, and the feeling that if you can think it, you are free to express it.
Get into the drawing immediately.
You should never have to set up before you can think. Open a project and start drawing, without navigating layers of menus, configuring a workspace, or troubleshooting the software first. Corvus keeps the path from first thought to first stroke as short as possible. The tools should always disappear into the background while you are thinking about the building.
Work as fast as you can think.
The tools you use hundreds of times a day should become second nature. Draw from the command line, work through keyboard shortcuts, repeat actions, enter dimensions directly, and move from one operation to the next without breaking your concentration. Corvus is built for professional speed. As your work becomes more sophisticated, fluency compounds rather than topping out.
Snap exactly where you mean to.
Precision should feel immediate, not laborious. Snap to endpoints, midpoints, centers, intersections, tangents, extensions, grids, angles, distances, and other meaningful relationships as you draw. Intelligent guides surface the references that matter in context, helping you align and construct geometry quickly without drowning the drawing in visual noise.
Draw with precision and total control.
Architecture depends on exact relationships. Set dimensions, angles, radii, distances, alignments, and coordinates directly, then measure and verify them as the drawing develops. Corvus gives you the rigor expected from professional drafting software without making simple operations feel complicated. Simple should never mean simplistic.
Why draw four lines when you need a rectangle?
A rectangle should know it is a rectangle, not become four coincidentally joined lines the moment you draw it. Object-based drafting gives geometry an identity from the beginning, making it faster to create and easier to modify later. A simple shape can remain simple or accumulate parameters, relationships, and information as the project develops.
Draw anything from a straight line to a complex curve.
Create points, lines, arcs, polylines, splines, Bézier curves, circles, ellipses, polygons, freehand forms, and complex compound geometry with the same fluidity. Corvus combines the exactness of professional CAD with the direct manipulation expected from world-class illustration tools. Expressive geometry should never come at the expense of precision.
Change your mind without starting over.
Design develops through revision. Move, rotate, scale, mirror, offset, trim, extend, join, split, reshape, simplify, fillet, chamfer, and combine geometry without rebuilding what you have already drawn. Modify a single element or many at once. Corvus makes change a natural part of drawing rather than a penalty for having made an earlier decision.
Make every line communicate exactly what you mean.
Line weight, type, color, opacity, endpoints, and graphic treatment carry meaning. They establish hierarchy, distinguish what is cut from what is beyond, and help a drawing communicate without explanation. Corvus gives you precise control over how lines appear on screen and on the page, including true line weights and color-coded workflows, so technical accuracy and visual clarity reinforce one another.
Draw beautifully without leaving the drawing.
A construction document and a presentation drawing may begin with the same geometry but need to communicate very differently. Add hatches, fills, gradients, patterns, images, transparency, and graphic effects directly to your work. Layer treatments when you want richness, then simplify them when you need a traditional technical drawing. Stop rebuilding good drawings in another application just to make them beautiful.
Apply any pattern to any surface, at any scale.
Create repeatable patterns for tile, brick, stone, flooring, wallpaper, textiles, landscape, graphics, and anything else that repeats. Control scale, orientation, spacing, color, and variation, then apply the same pattern across 2D drawings and 3D surfaces. Patterns become reusable project assets rather than graphics recreated from drawing to drawing. Learn how the library works.
Create a graphic language once. Use it everywhere.
Define styles for the attributes your studio uses repeatedly, then apply them consistently across drawings, objects, and projects. Change the parent style and let the work follow, while retaining the freedom to override individual attributes when a special condition demands it. Consistency should save time without taking control away from the designer. Learn more about this in the library.
Draw for the scale of the idea.
Scale is more than zoom. A site plan, floor plan, wall section, and construction detail each require a different level of information, graphic hierarchy, and precision. Corvus understands architectural scale, so drawings can become richer as you move closer and simpler as you move farther away. Line weights, patterns, symbols, annotations, and detail can respond to the scale of the drawing, helping you communicate exactly what matters at every level.
Let relationships do the repetitive work.
Real-world objects have inherent relationships with one another. Their geometric representations should too. Constrain geometry to remain parallel, perpendicular, concentric, tangent, equal, symmetrical, aligned, or fixed at a particular dimension. When something changes, the relationships you intended remain intact instead of forcing you to reconstruct them manually. Learn more about this in objects.
Change one object and let every instance follow.
Draw something once, turn it into a reusable object, and place it wherever you need it. Doors, windows, fixtures, symbols, details, and other repeated elements can share geometry, attributes, parameters, and information. Update the source and every connected instance stays consistent, reducing repetitive work and preventing small differences from accumulating across a drawing set.
Keep drawings organized without constantly organizing them.
Organization should happen as part of drawing, not become a second job. Corvus helps place objects where they belong, makes layers and groups easy to understand, and lets you isolate, reveal, reorder, and reorganize work without losing your place. Spend less time policing files and more time solving the design problems inside them.
Draw in 2D. Model in 3D. Stay within the same project.
Not every line needs to become a model, and not every idea should begin in three dimensions. Corvus lets 2D and 3D geometry live together so you can use the representation that makes sense for the work in front of you. Draw when drawing is fastest. Model when volume and space matter. Move between them without exporting, translating, or rebuilding your work.
Carry intelligence forward instead of starting over.
A drawing can begin simply without remaining dumb. Geometry can accumulate dimensions, relationships, materials, metadata, classifications, and other useful information as the project develops. What begins as a quick 2D object can contribute to a model, a worksheet, a schedule, a detail, or a complete drawing set. The work gets richer instead of getting replaced.
Draw for everyone who needs to understand the building.
Architects, designers, engineers, consultants, code officials, contractors, trades, fabricators, and clients all depend on drawings to understand what is intended and what must happen next. Corvus gives you the precision to document exactly what you intend and the graphic control to make that information immediately legible. A good drawing does more than describe a building. It helps everyone involved make it real.
Everything you expect. And everything you've been missing.
Join our waitlist.
You’ve already waited 49 years. What’s another two? AEC professionals have spent decades jumping through hoops and creating workarounds for convoluted software. No one dares to build something that will challenge the status quo. It's time for something fundamentally different and unapologetically human. Join the waitlist.
What's In It
Why Use It
Revit Alternative
AutoCAD Alternative
Archicad Alternative
Vectorworks Alternative