If you’re thinking about re-decorating, moving or are renting a property you might find a 3D model of your property extremely helpful.
With a great program called Google Sketchup this process is easy and free.
How It’s Done
1. Use graph paper to make a floor plan. It need not be to scale, but include the dimensions of each room. Using consistent proportions will make modeling your layout much easier. Knowing basic blueprints will help you here, if you’re completely new look up a few floor plans on the internet to familiarize yourself with simple notation.
2. Scan the image into your computer and save as an image file. Any reasonably accurate image format will do.
3. Open Sketchup and click on the rectangle tool (r) to select it. Click anywhere on the Grey surface then enter the dimensions of any rectanglar room on your floor plan. As soon as you start typing, the Dimenons box on the bottom right of the screen will be automatically selected. Use ‘ and ” to notate feet and inches, and seperate width and height using a comma (e.g. 10’5″, 11′ ). This will serve as a guide to determine the correct scale of the floor plan you created.
4. Now its time to paste your floorplan in. go to file > import and locate your image file. Click to paste the image. You will probably notice the size needs some adjustment!
5. Now you will want to repoisition your rectangle and floor plan, then scale (s) the floorplan with your box of known dimensions until it is scaled appropriately. Use the Move (m) , Scale (s) , Zoom (mouse wheel), and pan (h) tools to adjust until you have reached the appropiate scale. When you’ve got it just right, the box whose dimension you know will fit the room whose dimensions you set the box for. Delete the block, being sure to select then delete the face and the edges.
6. Now its time to use the line tool to trace each wall. Remember each wall has depth and will need to be a complete polygon. I suggest starting with the opening for the front door and continue to follow the walls throughout the plan. Take your time and use the zoom tool judiciously to stay moderately precise.
7. Use the push pull tool (p) to select each wall. Click and hold down your left mouse button, then pull the cursor toward you and/or push away to create height. You can again set a precise height by typing numbers which will be automatically transferred to the Distance box.
8. Go to File > Warehouse > Get Models to search for models to add to represent your furniture, doors and windows.
Continue to experiment and check out some of the great tutorials and guides on the internet. Eventually, you will be able to walk around your house and really explore your space!
