Collaborative computer-aided design with a trace space

A system comprising:

• one or more processors;
• and
• a computer-readable medium storing instructions that cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:
• receiving, by a drawing application that has locked a drawing for editing by a first user, a request from a second user to check out one or more original objects of the drawing;
• locking the one or more original objects for editing by the second user;
• generating a trace space comprising a copy of the one or more original objects;
• applying one or more modifications by the second user to the copy of the one or more original objects in the trace space to generate one or more modified objects;
• receiving a request by the second user to check in the one or more modified objects having the one or more applied modifications back into the drawing;
• receiving an indication of approval from the first user to check in the one or more modified objects;
• and
• replacing, in the drawing, the one or more original objects by the one or more modified objects.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium tangibly encoding instructions that, when executed, cause one or more processors to perform method operations comprising:

• receiving, by a drawing application that has locked a drawing for editing by a first user, a request from a second user to check out one or more original objects of the drawing;
• locking the one or more original objects for editing by the second user;
• generating a trace space comprising a copy of the one or more original objects;
• applying one or more modifications by the second user to the copy of the one or more original objects in the trace space to generate one or more modified objects;
• receiving a request by the second user to check in the one or more modified objects having the one or more applied modifications back into the drawing;
• receiving an indication of approval from the first user to check in the one or more modified objects;
• and
• replacing, in the drawing, the one or more original objects by the one or more modified objects.