Totally OT. Does anyone have a link to fee download very easy to use software that helps you draw or design house floor plans (like the plans house builders put on their details).

Possibly a bit like the software kitchen designers use so you can play about with door / window positions, where to place furniture etc.

Cheers, Darren


Cheers,
Darren.

If you have access to viso at work it has everything in you need for doing simple 2d floor plans

You probably wont get anything 3d for free...

David

Visio pro or good old pencil and rule...

For easy to use free (none CAD) software try Sketchup here

Dave

sketchup - a 3d building planner thing. Was pretty good, swmbo was looking at it a while back. There used to be a fully functional trial, but they were bought out by google a while back - www.sketchup.com

HTH,


Vince

You might find a copy of Chief Architect , on a torrent search engine .

Obviously I cannot condone such activities!

Sketchup is free from Google and is a pretty good 3d system for square blocky things like houses. You could take a look at e-plans for basic ideas and knock them up in sketch up until you are happy

Caber

Ive just tried this Fast plans demo which is about spot on but only allows 4 rooms max. Need to buy full copy to unlock it. It draws 11" cavity walls and 4" internals automatically and has beds, baths, WC etc ready to drag and drop.

2D is fine for what i want. Im into small scale property development at the moment and its good to be able to move walls / furniture / rooms / doors / windows around to try new layouts.

Pencil and ruler is my normal method but it gets tedious when you try loads of layouts, plus i cant keep the kids off my squared paper / ruler / pencil!

Just tried Sketchup - not quite what i need.

I recall an old version of Visio was good but i dont have it now. Would probs be ok as well.

Ill have to keep looking unless anyone can recommend something else.
Ive heard of torrent but no idea how to use. i might get into bother downloading onto my laptop as well as it is a works machine.

[Edited on 15/2/07 by DarrenW]

Plan3D is very good and much easier to use than Chief Architect, managed to create this 3D drawing of my extension with it with very little practice:


Extension

The app has to be connected to the internet to function and they use an odd subscription based payment scheme where you pay per month / year to use the app. Only worked out ~ £20 for the year though, and you can trial it for free initially.

You can get it to just display the floor plans and elevations as well as the 3D view, but I wasn't sure they were good / standardised enough to be submissible for a planning application so I drew mine by hand in the end.

Chris

Sketchup is very versatile!

Click on the linkys, the pictures are very large

House

Concept

cheers

Chris

Darren

I spent 3 years as an architectural technician and 3 as an interior designer before moving across to Project Management.

I'd be happy to draw up the plans for you if you want. If not I have a full copy of AutoCAD that I can let you have.

Cheers

Mike