Software / service to create a floorplan

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timmmay

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#193631 18-Mar-2016 09:26

Can anyone recommend software to create a floor plan of my house, including the land - standard residential, detached garage. I need it for doing a building consent. Heaps of websites do it, so looking for personal experience.

Ideally I want something open, that I can give to any future owners that they can edit, or at least a PDF export. I don't want an app, doing anything productive on phones or tablets is pretty futile.

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#1515376 18-Mar-2016 09:31

Home By Me looks pretty good. Lets you export to scale, print, it's a downloadable app.

davidcole

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#1515448 18-Mar-2016 10:21

Magic plan? IOS app that uses the camera to do the internal floor plan. Found it fairly good when I was looking at houses.

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davidcole

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#1515457 18-Mar-2016 10:26

timmmay:

Home By Me looks pretty good. Lets you export to scale, print, it's a downloadable app.

Does this have an IOS/Android app? as they have imagery to suggest it runs on a tablet, but under download it only seems to push me to a windows download.

timmmay

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#1515463 18-Mar-2016 10:41

PC application best, or an online service. Mouse and keyboard essential IMHO.

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#1515478 18-Mar-2016 10:49

I've used SketchUp for the past few years. Got an old blueprint of our house from the council when we were buying this place, and built a full 3D plan from it. Also found it very handy when contemplating renovations.

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timmmay

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#1515480 18-Mar-2016 10:54

SketchUp is fairly labor intensive, with a steep learning curve. Dedicated floor plan software should make it easier. Sweet Home 3D worked ok and was easy, but not quite right for this. Thanks for the suggestion though.

mrdrifter

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#1515591 18-Mar-2016 12:52

Have you seen autodesk homestyler/designer?

http://www.homestyler.com/designer

Not sure if its quite what you're after.

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jjnz1

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#1515599 18-Mar-2016 12:55

Floorplanner.com

I have used this for years and I find it works well.

timmmay

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#1515646 18-Mar-2016 13:41

Home styler and floor planner are both reviewed well this review, but neither allow you to enter dimensions - it's all drag, so imprecise. I don't need perfect, but entering measurements worked well in sweet home 3d I'll look at them though, thanks.

Weatherbeaten

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#1515692 18-Mar-2016 14:26

Draftsight is a free download for personal use and is very similar in functionality to AutoCAD LT. It's what I use for any personal CAD stuff.

timmmay

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#1515700 18-Mar-2016 14:43

Weatherbeaten:

Draftsight is a free download for personal use and is very similar in functionality to AutoCAD LT. It's what I use for any personal CAD stuff.

Would it be easy for a non-designer to use to design a floor plan? Or should I just use one of the online floor planning tools?

davidcole

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#1515728 18-Mar-2016 15:16

timmmay:

PC application best, or an online service. Mouse and keyboard essential IMHO.

I'm just looking at your home by me importing a magic plan svg plan to see how it goes.

Disrespective

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#1515753 18-Mar-2016 15:33

Do you have a survey of the site? Or are you just going to use the council contours?

How big is your house? Is it a complicated form?

Do you want 3d, or just the 2d floor plan? What about elevations? If you want elevations too then you may as well make a 3D model.

If you only care about a 2D plan then software packages such as Revit or Archicad have 30 day trials. You can quickly bodge up basic floor plans out of linework from some hand sketches and measurements.

I do a lot of existing measure up work for my job so am pretty proficient at throwing these together, but 3D will take longer and perhaps Sketchup would be ideal for this. It's learning curve is not that steep, I promise.

I'd be happy helping get you started if you have some basic sketch plans and can tell me what the structure is so the walls are modeled correctly.

timmmay

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#1515769 18-Mar-2016 16:02

@Disrespective, this is to give to the council, to go with the retrospective approval for the bathroom we did a while back - my builder (who is LBP) didn't bother. The council have no house plans, and said they could be useful, those aren't essential. I'll do a before and after plan. The council know the rough shape of the house and where utilities run. Very old house - no-one even knows how old.

There's no specification for floor plans that I know of. All I plan do do is give shape, measurements, where key things are like doors, windows (maybe), sink, shower, etc.

House is simple, a box with an extra box off the side, and a box for the shed, really simple.

I'd ideally like to create a model that I can show section boundry, house, and key fittings - 2D only. I need to create a PDF output for the council, and I'd ideally like the model to be exported so myself or someone else can edit if required later.

The free online tools look fine, but there's quite a few, and they don't all let you print, export PDF, or export your work. That's why I'd rather have something on the PC.

Yabanize

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#1515772 18-Mar-2016 16:05

I hear theres a good one built into windows

Click start, type mspaint and press enter

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