This following technique was not developed by me. The idea is to insert a background guiding mask at some Plane-Maker editing screens to help fine place those annoying plane's section nodes (vertex).

Attention: Before attempting to do what is explained below you MUST first backup some files from your X-Plane installation folders, because these files will be overwritten. It will be your only way to get everything restored to its original form after finishing the plane modeling. Do not will tell that I did not warned you.

The files that you need to backup (copying to anywhere in the HD or even disks) are, from inside yours X-Plane folder:

X-System Resources\bitmaps\PlaneMkr\A_body.bmp
X-System Resources\bitmaps\PlaneMkr\A_fair.bmp
X-System Resources\bitmaps\PlaneMkr\A_fuse.bmp
X-System Resources\bitmaps\PlaneMkr\A_misc.bmp
X-System Resources\bitmaps\PlaneMkr\A_nace.bmp

The mechanics:

Whenever you access any Plane-Maker part editing it opens a editing window that is by itself a bitmap image. For example, the editing of the fuselage sections (ribs) is done over the "A_fuse.bmp" bitmap file. Then if you replace that bitmap file for one customized by yourself, it is this new one that you will get in the editing window of Plane-Maker.

The intention here is to draw, using a graphic editing software, the contours of all the part's sections (ribs) over those grid patterns to use it as a guiding to help to position the nodes of each part section.

For each part there is a different bitmap file as follows:

A_fair.bmp = wheel fairing
A_fuse.bmp = fuselage
A_misc.bmp = float/tanks
A_nace.bmp = engine nacelle (*)

(*) Once the engines nacelles can be different shaped each one and you just have a bitmap file that is used as a grid mask for editing any nacelle, in the case that you desire to shape them differently you will need to do one by time, exchanging the "A_nace.bmp" file after finishing one nacelle shaping and before beginning to shape the other one.

How-to steps:
(as an example I will consider the fuselage part)

1. Backup your original "A_fuse.bmp" file !!
   
   
2. Edit the "A_fuse.bmp" file in a graphic editor, drawing each section contour over the respective section grid. As you can see in the image below I choose a blue color to avoid confusion of seeing lines when editing in Plane-Maker. Also I got these contours from the plane's blueprint;
   
   
3. Save it in "X-System Resources\bitmaps\PlaneMkr" folder and open Plane-Maker -» standard -» fuselage menu option;

You can use this same technique to help in placing the nodes at the standard -» top/side/bottom editing window, but in this case you better draw the silhouette of the plane. The following image shows this technique applied while I was modeling the CBA-123 Vector.

Note: You must understand that there is only one bitmap file used for the "top/side/bottom" editing of all parts in Plane-Maker. This file is the one named "A_body.bmp" and when you desire to apply this technique for each part, as fuselage, nacelle, et all, you will need to do one by time, exchanging the "A_body.bmp" file after finishing one part shaping and before beginning to shape the other one.

Almost everything here done by me: Marcelo M. Marques - codename 31 M.M.M
mmarques@frontier.com.br