My research has thus far not shown me an example of a layout in process. Most artists who illustrate St. Joseph at his bench or Noah building the arc favor a later stage in the process, showing the active generation of wood chips or shavings. So saws, hammers, chisels, and assorted other cutting or banging tools get shown. Layout, the process by which shapes are scribed on raw or nearly raw wood, is shorted.
I surmise that the layout of components in the middle ages was done using a stylus or other scratch tool. The production of timber was too costly in terms of time and labor to risk a good piece of oak on ink, and to my knowledge, graphite pencils had yet to be invented. There is also some likelihood that medieval layouts were done in chalk, and I have had some minimal success using it, but I've found that it lends itself to lines that are generally quite a bit thicker than the kerf that most of my cutting tools leave, so it lacks the precision of a scratch stylus. The scratch stylus has an advantage over ink in that ink can soak into wood, staining it quite deeply, wheras a stylus scratch can be removed from the surface quite easily with a scraper.
Modern woodworkers frequently perform the layout task with assorted types of tracing paper and carbon paper. Still others use ruler, pencil, compass and calipers to perform layouts manually. Some others even do layouts in freehand. In this case, as Lord Richard is draftsman and CAD operator by training, we used a computer drafting program and the over-sized plotter at his office, allowing us to print-out full size drawings. Once the drawings were plotted out, we used photographer's spray-mount to place them on the wood.
Where possible, we made the rip cuts in the rough layout step before planing to avoid any unnecessary labor in planing wood that would soon be cut away. Any rip cuts that were not practical at that point were made here. The pieces were also cut for length and width after planing to avoid any snipe on the final surface. The next step was to cut the mortise joints to fit and performed a dry-assembly. We bored out the mass of wood in each mortise, and then finished the cut with hand-chisels. Once we had confirmed the basic fit of all of the parts, we disassembled the piece and completed the curved cuts on the legs. After the curved cuts were complete, all that remained was the inlay and final finishing work.