Online Tools meant for Planning A Space in 3D

Break out the 3D glasses! Okay, not truly. Put them away. This journal will not be coming to you in any additional dimensions today.

As you saw in our latest kitchen planning post yesterday, I at last bit the bullet and learned me some Google Sketch-Up (as many of you recommended) to assist us plan our kitchen renovation. But having been a loyal user of Floorplanner.com in the past and having lately become acquainted with Ikea’s Kitchen Planner, I thought I’d give you my take on how these three 3D modeling tools stack up against each other… because there is in fact not a clear winner in my book. Each have pros, cons, and a distinct scenario where they might take the win.

Floorplanner.com is what we have used to create simply about every digital floor plan you’ve seen on our site (like this one), so we have a soft spot for it. But when I gave it spin last week to render our new kitchen plans, here is what I observed:

PROS:

• No software to download. It simply loads in your browser.
• Straightforward & fast to use. I find the interface quite user-friendly, so if you’ve got your room measurements handy you can have a plain whole house plan done in a matter of minutes.
• Good finish options. They have a lot of standard finishes, like flooring, with adjustable colors so you can bring more life to your drawing.
• Pleasant library of furniture. Floorplanner comes stocked with dozens of furniture options (chairs, tables, rugs, plants, appliances, etc) to assist decorate your spaces. You will not find ideal matches to your real life items, but you can typically find something similar.
• 2D or 3D: It lets you easily toggle between a 2D and 3D view.

CONS:

• Only kinda free. You can create one plan for free, but after that you may have to fork over some dough.
• Limited kitchen designs. Kitchens are likely one of the toughest rooms to design, so Floorplanner is swift to fall short when it comes to trying to precisely layout a kitchen (I could only find one type of base cabinet, for example).
• So-so 3D rendering. I like the look of their 3D rendering, but it is a bit clunky to navigate around and I had issues with things not showing properly (see below how my counter got wonky and my rug disappeared from the kitchen). Also, I found the only thing I could change in the 3D version were my wall colors, so I ended up working in 2D most of the time.

BEST USE: In my quite humble inexpert opinion, Floorplanner is best if you are short on time or technical skill and need to create a 2D floor plan (of one room or even your whole house). It is also strong for testing out furniture arrangements thanks to their library of stock furniture and the ease at which you can move things around in your virtual space.

On to the next one…

Ikea’s Kitchen Planner popped up on my radar when we were considering their cabinetry for our wall-to-wall office desk. Having had a good experience with that, it was in fact the first place that I turned to when deciding to plan our kitchen’s new layout in 3D.

PROS:

• It is free. There is some software to download, but once you do that you can access it anytime on their website using your free log-in.
• Allows multiple designs. I have saved three or four distinct files (aka distinct kitchen layout options) and so far I have not hit any “max projects limit” like I did on Floorplanner.
• Works with real life products. Ikea lets you design using real products from the catalog (and not simply cabinets and counters, but chairs, tables, etc) so you know there is some “reality” to your design when it comes to size/layout/planning. It even offers to print out a shopping list when you are done. Convenient, but only if you are getting everything at Ikea.
• Works with real life finishes too. Like above, you can pick from a range of cabinet sizes, front styles, drawer & shelf configurations, finishes, colors, hardware, etc to get a quite customized look. Obviously it is limited to Ikea’s real life finish options, but they are fairly plentiful.
• A real-ish 3D rendering. Continuing the “real” theme, I thought Ikea’s 3D view was the most life-like of all of the three tools.
• 2D and 3D. Like Floorplanner, you can swiftly toggle between these two views. However, Ikea’s version gives you equal editing capabilities in both options, so I found myself working mostly in 3D, which was pleasant.

CONS:

• It is simply kitchens. Unless I am missing something, Ikea’s software only lets me create one room in my plan (which makes sense since it is supposed to be simply for planning your kitchen) but as someone who needed to see how things would look in the kitchen from the dining room (through a doorway) it fell short.
• It is simply Ikea. Since the cabinets and furnishings are only Ikea, you may have trouble finding pieces that suit you if Ikea-style is not your thing.
• Limited decorating options: I’d understand simply being limited to Ikea furniture, but it is also limited to only kitchen-appropriate Ikea items. So I was not able to render a rug or an armchair to create a seating area near the fireplace. And why are “decorative items” limited to simply plants? Cannot a brother get a fruit bowl?

BEST USE: Designing a kitchen (surprise!) especially if you plan to use Ikea products. But even if you do not, a lot of their sizes are standard sufficient that you can get a good idea of what you might also be able to find elsewhere. Simply do not expect to “decorate” your virtual kitchen quite much.

Google Sketch-Up is new to me as of a couple of weeks ago. I turned to it after being frustrated by Ikea thwarting my multi-room design (and after a bunch of you sang its praises). I am still fairly new to it and feel like I have not unlocked all of what it can do (like apparently I can turn off the guides that you see in my screenshots below). Nevertheless, we are becoming fast friends.

PROS:

• It is free. Like plenty of products in the Google-verse, it costs $0 to download.
• It is offline. While some may see having to download software a “con,” I liked that I did not need to be connected to the Internet to use it or to access my files. You know, in case we have another Hurricane Irene.
• It is precise. Google’s software feels much more “technical” than the other two, so I feel more confident that we can in fact make cuts into our wall based on Sketch-Up measurements (with the assist of a pro, permit, & architect of course).
• The possibilities seem endless. If you’ve got the time, skill, and patience it seems like you could render simply about anything in Sketch-Up – rooms, furniture, buildings, cars, chihuahuas – so you will not find yourself limited like the other two sites.
• Most functional 3D. Navigating through Google’s 3D rendering is the most intuitive and flexible, it seems. You can look above, below, through, and around every inch of your design swiftly and easily. The rendering looks quite much like a rendering, but that is okay.

CONS:

• Talk about a learning curve. Being the most technical of the three, Sketch-Up has the steepest learning curve by far. I spent about 15 minutes watching Google’s walkthroughs before starting and still found myself struggling to hit my groove.
• No 2D: I find 3D hard to work in sometimes, so not being able to toggle to a plain 2D floor plan was something that I personally missed. The closest I have found in Sketch Up is the “Parallel Projection” camera viewed from the top.
• No built-in furniture library. Unlike the other two which have furniture options built into the software, with Google you have to download it separately from their warehouse (I did not know this until a few helpful commenters enlightened me on yesterday’s post, which is why every cabinet, fireplace, chair, and table was “drawn” by me for that sketch – which certainly did not assist my rendering look any more lifelike). Oh well, live and learn.
• Somewhat inflexible. I found it difficult to make changes or tweaks along the way. If I hoped to shift my chair a bit, it took making sure all of the right edges and surfaces were selected (and none of the wrong ones) first. This took time and also gave me a lot of accidentally skewed walls and floors along the way. Did I mention I am still learning? Update: simply figured out how to group things/make components. So helpful.

BEST USE: Anything 3D… as long as you are willing to put in some time to learn it. It ended up being ideal for planning our doorway because I have the most flexibility to render the room AND I can trust the precision of the measurements. Now if only it did not take me so long to make changes…

So that is how Sue John sees it. I have not spent more than a few hours with each program, so my comments are not based on weeks of research or anything. If you folks have had your own similar (or distinct!) experiences with these three tools (or others that I have not heard of yet) I’d enjoy to hear your thoughts – and pointers if you’ve got any.

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