One of the ways to reduce the time it takes to place furniture (including fixtures and structural components) would be to introduce the idea of model repetition, auto-duplicated models (furniture) from a source component.
For example, let's say you had beams you wanted to array across the ceiling. A user would be able to place a single beam at the first of the series, then open the "Modify Furniture" dialog. Along with the standard existing functions, there would be an extra section called Repetition, such as this:
One could repeat the furniture model along the X, Y, and/or Z axis (but not independently), assign the spacing along those axes, and even turn each successive model by so many degrees.
Normally the repeated furniture models would not be editable, in that whatever the SOURCE model dictated in its Repetition attributes, determines the look and placement of the child models. If one wanted to create new , independent models and disengage them from the source model, they could check the "Create independent models" box.
The advantage to linking the child models to the parent model, is that you could change any attribute of the parent furniture model, and the rest would be changed as well, including texture, height and width, and initial orientation.
This feature would make it easy to create custom or unique stairs, ballistrades for balcony railing, beaming (support or decorative), and lighting arrays, to name a few.
