docs(mcp): document plan↔world coordinate convention (#356)

Adds a Coordinate conventions section to packages/mcp/README.md and a 71-node MCP demo scene that exercises every claim it makes. Closes #337.

Covers: right-handed scene with X/Z ground plane and Y up; metres for lengths and radians for rotations as Euler [x, y, z]; the [x, z] → (x, y, z) plan-to-world mapping with no sign flip in the stored contract; level/building-local framing (world only under identity transform); rotation-not-reflection caveat for the 2-D plan panel and the iso-default top-down azimuth offset; a worked 30° rotated slab example; and the wall-local-metres trap for door/window/place_item coordinates.

Companion: examples/coordinate-conventions-demo.{json,md} with a reference compass at the origin and Demos A/B/C/D illustrating axis-aligned baseline, the rotated example, and the page-intent vs world-result L pair.

Co-authored-by: Marcel Gruber <marcel@grubertech.com>
This commit is contained in:
Marcel Gruber
2026-06-03 13:41:52 -04:00
committed by GitHub
co-authored by Marcel Gruber
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See [`examples/embed-in-agent.ts`](./examples/embed-in-agent.ts) for a
compilable version.
## Coordinate conventions
Pascal is a **right-handed** scene where **X and Z form the ground plane and Y
is up**. Lengths are in **metres**; rotations are **radians**, stored as Euler
`[x, y, z]` tuples.
**Plan → world.** Every 2-D point you pass is a level/building-local
ground-plane coordinate
`[x, z]` — this includes `wall.start` / `wall.end` and the `polygon` / `holes`
arrays of `slab`, `zone`, and `ceiling`. With the default identity building
transform, it appears in world space as:
```
[x, z] → (x, y, z) // the 2nd component is world Z (depth), not "up"
```
There is no sign flip in the stored convention: tooling consumes the second
component as world Z directly. The vertical `y` starts from the owning level's
stacked height as computed by the level system from accumulated level heights,
plus the element's own height; slabs additionally carry an absolute
`elevation`.
**Heads-up when you compute coordinates outside the editor.** Pascal's
viewports apply their own rotations on top of the world axes: the 2-D plan
panel wraps its content in a 90° rotation (`FLOORPLAN_VIEW_ROTATION_DEG`), and
the 3-D "top-down" snap preserves the camera's current azimuth, so when invoked
from the iso default position, world and screen axes are offset by ~45° until
you orbit to an axis-aligned view. So a layout authored as if
*"Y = north, viewed top-down"* — common in land surveys, north-up site plans,
and 2-D plotting libraries — will arrive **rotated** relative to its source
when viewed in Pascal (and possibly further reflected, depending on which
viewport and camera state you're in). The editor's own 2-D and 3-D tools are
internally consistent with their stored coordinates, so this only affects
geometry authored programmatically. To verify orientation before trusting
externally-computed coordinates, place a scaled guide image at known anchor
points and check alignment; apply whatever rotation (or reflection) your
authoring side needs to match.
A worked demonstration of all of this — axis-aligned baseline, the rotated
30° example below, and a paired "page-intent vs world-result" L for the
external-coordinate gotcha — lives in
[`examples/coordinate-conventions-demo.md`](./examples/coordinate-conventions-demo.md)
and [`examples/coordinate-conventions-demo.json`](./examples/coordinate-conventions-demo.json).
Load the JSON with
`pascal-mcp --stdio --scene examples/coordinate-conventions-demo.json`.
**Example — a 6 × 4 m slab rotated 30° about its first corner** (coordinates
rounded to 3 dp; sides ≈ 6 m / 4 m; not axis-aligned, so the mapping is
actually exercised):
```json
{
"op": "create",
"parentId": "<levelId>",
"node": {
"type": "slab",
"elevation": 0.0,
"polygon": [[0, 0], [5.196, 3.0], [3.196, 6.464], [-2.0, 3.464]]
}
}
```
This lands flat on the ground (Y = 0), about 6 m along a heading 30° off the +X
axis and 4 m along its perpendicular — i.e. occupying world (x, z) directly.
One separate gotcha: wall-attached coordinates are wall-local, not plan
coordinates. Stored door/window `position[0]`, and `place_item` `position[0]`
when the target is a wall, are metres along the wall; wall-attached rotations
are wall-local too.
## Tools
All tools validate their inputs and outputs with Zod. Mutation tools are
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# Coordinate-conventions demo
Companion scene for the **Coordinate conventions** section of
[`../README.md`](../README.md). Stress-tests every claim that section
makes against real Pascal-generated geometry, built entirely through the
MCP API.
## Load it
```bash
pascal-mcp --stdio --scene examples/coordinate-conventions-demo.json
```
The scene fits in a 50 m × 50 m ground-plane footprint at `level: 0`.
## What's in the scene
A flat ground level with four demos, plus a labelled compass at the
origin so the world axes are unambiguous regardless of which viewport
you're in.
| Section | What | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Reference compass at the origin | 12 m `+X` and `+Z` axis bars with arrowhead tips, short `-X` / `-Z` stubs, an origin marker, plus zone labels naming each component of `[x, z]`. | Establishes which way `+X` and `+Z` actually point in world space, independent of viewport rotation. |
| **Demo A** at world `(18, 0)` | Axis-aligned 6 m × 4 m rectangle. | Baseline that matches the only example currently in `examples/generate-apartment.md` style (`[0,0] → [10,0]`). |
| **Demo B** at world `(18, 10)` | The proposed README example, **verbatim**: `polygon: [[0,0],[5.196,3.0],[3.196,6.464],[-2.0,3.464]]` at this offset. | Programmatically verified to be a 6 m × 4 m rectangle whose first edge is heading 30° CCW from `+X` (side lengths 6/4/6/4 m to 4 dp, `AB · AD = 0`, heading = 30.0007°). Confirms the README's worked example produces the geometry it claims. |
| **Demo C** at world `(0, 22)` and `(10, 22)` | An **L** authored on a north-up page (page-+x right, page-+y up) drawn at half scale and faded; alongside it, the same L pasted into `[x, z]` **uncorrected**, drawn at full scale and vivid. | Makes the external-coordinate gotcha visual: the author's page-+y direction lands on world +Z, which does not correspond to "screen-up" in any of Pascal's viewports. |
| **Demo D** at world `(22, 22)` and `(32, 22)` | Same pairing for the L with its second coordinate reflected (`z → 5 z`) before paste. | Makes plain that z-reflection only "corrects" a true mirror; Pascal's viewports apply a *rotation*, so the reflection produces a mirror-image of Demo C rather than a page-correct L. |
| Takeaway band on the south edge | Short labels summarising the convention. | Self-documenting; readable in any viewport without an external README. |
## What it confirms
Open the scene in Pascal (or render it from the JSON) and you can read
each claim directly off the geometry:
1. **`[x, z] → world (x, 0, z)` is exact, no sign flip.** Demo A and
Demo B both sit flat on the floor at Y = 0; their polygon vertices
round-trip through `save_scene` / `get_scene` byte-identical to what
was authored (graph hash matches, see `validate_scene` output).
2. **Demo B is the rectangle the README says it is.** A simple analytic
check on its 4 vertices yields side lengths 6, 4, 6, 4 m (to 4 dp)
with the first edge at 30.0007° from +X and perpendicular adjacent
edges. No rendering required.
3. **External page coordinates *rotate* (not mirror) when pasted as
`[x, z]` and viewed in Pascal.** Inspecting Demo C in the 2-D plan
panel: the page-up L lands rotated 90° clockwise, so the author's
"stem-up, foot-bottom-right" reads as "stem-on-right, foot-along-top"
on screen. Inspecting Demo D right next to it: the z-reflected
variant lands as the *mirror* of Demo C — neither matches a
page-correct L. That demonstrates why "reflect across the axis" is
the wrong corrective for an issue that is, in this viewport, a
rotation.
4. **The 3-D "top-down" snap is offset 45° from world axes by default.**
Viewing the scene in 3-D and snapping to top-down from the default
iso camera shows the rectangular site polygon as a *diamond* (its
long edges are diagonals on screen, not axis-aligned). That's the
camera's "up" vector being inherited from the iso start; once you
orbit to a true axis-aligned top-down it goes away. The label
inviting reviewers to "verify against a guide image" exists for this
reason.
## Reproducibility
The canonical demo is the JSON file in this directory; load that file to compare
the geometry against the notes above.
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},
"files": [
"dist",
"examples",
"README.md",
"CHANGELOG.md"
],