Designing your own house is a dream for most. While factors like location, interior design, furnishings, etc., play an essential role, a home’s floor plan has the most impact on our daily lives. The floor plan dictates how open the house feels.
If there is sufficient natural light and ventilation, and if the house can perform all the functions adeptly. Hence it pays to put extra time and thought into the floor plan design. Hiring a professional designer or architect is the safest bet.
What is Floor Plan Software?
While decades ago, the only way to show the clients the proposed house plan was through hand-drawn 3D drawings, technology has come to our rescue. Countless software helps effortlessly draft as many floor plan options as required within minutes. They are used to create a computer-generated virtual model of a space or a whole house.
Floor plan software is a special computer-based tool that allows design professionals to create, edit, and share their floor plan designs.
This software highly augments this first step of the design process. As every home or commercial space that professionals are looking to design requires an accurate floor plan, it can certainly be tedious and time-consuming to start from scratch and work by hand each time.
Interior designers, homeowners, contractors, and real estate agents find floor plan software programs very helpful in accurately representing the proposal.
There are myriad advantages and reasons why interior designers turn to floor plan design software. When you set out to renovate a home, it’s beneficial to try out different layout variations and see what best satisfies the client’s requirements.
As an interior designer, you can use the software to pitch ideas to clients and demonstrate precisely how the proposal will look when complete. For real estate agents, it’s a great way to showcase the features and benefits of a house and make a sale.
Finally, with the help of accurate floor plans, it is now possible to calculate the FSI, material specification, and requirement beforehand without errors or wastage. Thus, it goes without saying that floor planning software has become an indispensable part of the designing and construction world.
What Can You Create with the Help of Floor Plan Software?
The innovations in floor planning software have changed how we interact with 3D design. They can generate multiple layouts and plans at the click of a button. The software program can be used to create a host of drawings like the ones given below:-
1. Floor plans
The primary objective of the software is to assist you in producing high-quality floor plans. After the concept finalization, floor plan building is the next step in the design process. They help you showcase the various room placement possible in the space and their exact built-up area.
2. Working drawing
Once you have zeroed in on an agreeable floor plan, it’s time to set the other functions of a home into motion. For this, it’s necessary to put the electric layouts, plumbing layouts, ceiling plans, flooring plans, etc. These different drawings can also easily be created on the floor planning software.
A kitchen design and plan probably require the most back and forth and discussions between the designer and a client. The kitchen must be good, not just on paper but also practical. This software help you draw various kitchen layout options to show the clients. The software explains the different positions of appliances, amount of storage available, part of the hob, sink, and fridge.
4. Bathroom layouts
Bathroom layouts will let the designer demonstrate the basic positions of the sink, shower, toilet, and other fixtures and finer details such as tile placement, tiling details, lighting, etc.
5. Apartment floor plans
Used mainly by real estate agents to make a sale. They are a graphical 3D representation of an entire apartment. Apartment floor plans also show the relative layout of the other flats on the same floor, the location of all the amenities in the building, the fire exits, parking, etc., all of which are important for a potential home buyer.
6. Commercial and office floor plans
Just like buyers need drawings of residential floor plans, commercial plans are also required when looking to buy a retail space or rent a property in the building.
7. Create floor plans in 2D and convert them into 3D
Most software can efficiently convert a 2D sketch of the floor plan to a 3D model. The bridge between 2D and 3D is a very vital one in terms of effective visualization. You can constantly switch between the two to see how your layout is shaping up to be in the actual settings of your space. The workflow of 2D to 3D ends in producing high-quality renders.
How To Choose the Perfect Floor Plan Software for you?
There are several things designers should consider before choosing a software program that works for them. We shall go through each parameter and toolset in-depth to help you arrive at the perfect pick.
Ease of use
Try to recognize the learning curve involved in a new software program. If you are looking for a quick fix, it doesn’t make sense to go for an advanced program like CAD software with detailed and complex modeling parameters. That would be a highly time-consuming journey, not to mention leaving you feeling apprehensive and confused.
Types of usage
Are you looking for a floor plan creator to renovate your existing home? Or are you a designer looking to impress your clients with cutting-edge photorealistic visualization of your ideas? The type of output you seek should also be factored in while choosing a floor plan software.
Rendering and visualization features
The better the rendering quality, the easier you will find it to visualize the proposed design in the space. But you may not need such a high-quality rendering engine for your basic needs. Again, your requirements will play a pivotal role in deciding the 3D rendering quality required.
System & Hardware requirements
Note down the features and limits of the operating system on which you plan to run the software. High-end rendering software requires advanced processors, high graphic card and RAM, extensive internal memory, and other upgrades. All this is expensive and requires a very explicit physical setup. Hence, choose floor planning software according to your device if you plan to completely update your system.
Pricing
Finally, pick software that best fits your budget. However, it’s always better to shell out a few extra bucks to buy software that better fits your needs than invest in a mediocre one that will need to be updated before long.
Interior designers and professionals in the same field use different programs and software that cater to their unique needs. However, two main programs, Foyr Neo and SketchUp, the leading pioneers in the area, are widely used.
Professionals are attracted by their advanced features and ease of use. While the render quality is gratifyingly high, the hardware requirements are low compared to most other software. Only advanced works such as bim modeling are undertaken by software like AutoCAD Architecture and Revit from Autodesk.
On that note, let’s take a closer look at the ten best floor plan software in the market right now:-
If you are looking for premium software to help you visualize your design creations in the most realistic way possible, head to Foyr Neo. It doesn’t matter if you are an architect, an interior designer, or a homeowner; this design tool’s interface is super beginner-friendly and easy to understand.
The learning curve is practically zero when producing realistic renders using the powerful rendering engine. There is also a vast 3D model library of furniture, home décor, light fixtures, etc., available at your disposal.
One of the most impressive features of this software is its ability to create a striking 3D walkthrough with just one click. A free 14 days trial is available when you sign up for the Foyr Neo experience. Subscription plans start at $49/month.
Trimble SketchUp is a widely used application across all fields of architectural design. SketchUp is made for those looking to create detailed models and perhaps make a career as a 3D artist. One of the most significant advantages is that it has the most extensive model and symbol library available freely on SketchUp Warehouse.
The free desktop version has an interface that can only work with a valid network connection. SketchUp is great if you are part of a team looking for seamless collaboration across various platforms like iPad, mobile devices, and even operating systems such as IOS and Linux.
The flip side to SketchUp is that even in its premium version, several extensions and tools have to be downloaded or bought for undertaking complex modeling. There is also a steep learning curve when learning the various tools and attachments. You will need to follow a host of tutorials to even get started. While the basic version of SketchUp is free, for advanced users, the pricing is as high as $119 to $699 per year.
As the name suggests, Floor Planner is software worth its salt regarding floor plan design. It makes excellent eye-catching floor plans that will visualize, advertise or market your ideas. You can use their exhaustive library of blocks of daily items like cabinetry, accessories, and furniture to make detailed visualization.
The software also allows users to precisely place the plans’ walls, windows, and doors. However, the disadvantage of using a floor planner is that you are limited to drafting 2D plans and blueprints for 3D models. With this software, one can neither create 3D views nor high-resolution renders of scenes.
The pricing starts at $5/month and goes up to $599/month, depending on the usage and requirements.
Planner 5D is arguably one of the most intuitive and user-friendly floor planning software. This software’s main advantage is that it can generate AI, AR, and VR-aided images with shadows and lighting.
Its 5000-plus item catalog has made the architectural and interior design visualizing process super-fast across different platforms. A unique feature is its Augmented Reality technology, allowing users to recreate tangible products virtually. While the subscription is free, some parts require separate payment.
The pricing starts at $99 (Decor Package) to update or redecorate any room in your house and $179 (Overhaul Package) to design or renovate a space from scratch.
Like Floorplanner, Homebyme aims to create a virtual 3D model of your home for you to play around with. It allows you to create a more detailed floor plan and shop for unique furniture styles and accessories. Homebyme will enable you to develop a one-floor plan free of charge as a trial.
One of the most significant disadvantages of this software is that the interface is prone to lagging and subsequently crashing. The can be a colossal loss of files and data while working on big projects. The pricing is quite reasonable, from $29 to $63 per month.
One of the most attractive features of Roomle is the ability to process 4k rendering in real-time. Mainly used for high-end photorealistic renders of products, Roomle is a very detailed-oriented software.
It is the perfect software for AR product design since it can display products from every angle with vivid details and annotations. You get to view and analyze finer details of furniture, like its color, texture, material, dimensions, etc., in great depth.
The only disadvantage is its inability to effectively produce entire floor plans or 3D models of the whole house. Hence it’s more suited for AR and product designers and sales channels. It is available from $156 to $1256 per month.
The name explains it all when it comes to Roomsketcher. You can use them for creating floor plans and 3D visualization of the room you are designing.
They have a unique feature that allows you to create 2D or 3D floor plans and realistic 3D renders in 360-degree panorama format with one click. It is precious for marketing. You can also try hiring professionals at Roomsketcher to build on your uploaded blueprints or sketches.
If you are new to designing software, you might want to skip this one since the UI is not user-friendly for beginners. There have been reports of several glitches in the app on both Android and Mac versions. The subscriptions start from $38/month to $99/month. They also have a price-on-request model available for clients who require more than 100-floor plans per month.
If you are looking for software with a short learning period, then Sweet Home 3D could be the solution to your problems. Sweet Home 3D is pretty straightforward when building a basic home design and room layouts. And you can easily include doors and windows into your plan with a simple drag-and-drop action.
Later you can add furniture models from their vast catalog to give impressive finishing touches to your design visualization. A significant flaw noticed by many is that the upgraded version can only run when a variety of extra plug-ins are installed separately. It’s open-source software that can be used freely by all.
UI development and features of many software remain stagnant after their initial release and hype. However, SmartDraw is one program that has continued to evolve across different versions. It has now become a powerful drawing tool that can effortlessly design a home tailor-made to your liking. Additionally, the program can also assist you in creating different types of flowcharts, graphs, and schematics.
It also offers a massive library with tons of furniture and daily objects that you can use as templates. Moreover, you can also create custom materials for your design. The only con is the pricing. The billing starts at $9.95/month for an individual user and goes up to $2995/ month for a team.
Planningwiz is a steal if you are looking for some quick and easy visualization solutions for your design. It helps you with making rooms, adding materials, windows, doors, etc. One of the key features is its ability to upload a sketch or a blueprint of a floor plan and make it interactive.
You can also add décor and furniture into the plan to help craft a better space. It’s a fuss-free way for real-estate agents to convey simple designs to your contractor or workers. The software provides pricing on contact but offers a free version with essential tools readily.
The pricing plans are Grow – $10.90 per month and Pro $15.90 per month.
Having looked at all the leading floor plan designing software, we know that as a designer, they are essential for conveying your vision to clients, working effectively and communicating with the builders remotely, and keeping a record of the progress in the project. Keeping all these factors in mind, Foyr Neo aims to make 3D modeling and rendering extremely user-friendly so that designers and homeowners alike can seamlessly collaborate on any project.
With a catalog that boasts over 60000 detailed 3D models that you can freely use, you can generate a 1 click walkthrough to impress your clients.
Foyr Neo’s most striking feature is its powerful render engine that delivers up to 15 High-resolution PNG images in 5 minutes, making your work compelling in the shortest possible time. You even get unlimited render previews before you settle on that perfect photorealistic image that will adorn your portfolio! Give Foyr Neo’s 14-day free trial a go by signing up today!
Using Foyr Neo is as easy as 1, 2, 3. First, upload a floor plan or create one from scratch. Then drag and drop from over 60K 3D models to fill your rooms. Lastly, just set the shot and let the AI create stunning 4K renders for you in less than 10 minutes.
