If you browse blogs for architecture, design or interior decorating, often times you’ll see nicely rendered three-dimensional drawings of rooms or houses. These detailed mockups are part and parcel of the realm of architects and professional home decorators, but a few companies have made steps to make the process easier for the average homeowner (and professionals as well).
With the goal of getting your design displayed as quickly as possible on your screen, the Mark On Call app is an easy to use space planner that’s ideal for quick ideas or simple projects. While not suited for more sophisticated designs, if you wanted to setup a stand-in for your bathroom and see what it’d look like with Bisazza stone tiles instead of wallpaper, that’s easily within the grasp of this program. Mark On Call setup their software to allow you to get fast results without needing to learn a narrow set of skills. The only caveat is that it’s an iPhone app. This does allow it to be portable, and you can import photos you take with the camera phone to apply to your designs. Check out this video of it:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAmojGwf0o8]
Floorplanner.com takes a futuristic twist on designing spaces- it hosts your rooms online, rather than forcing you to download special software in order to visualize your spaces. Both paid and free, and compatible with any computer, it also comes with a large set of prepared surfaces, textures and pieces to add to your design. No need here to draw a square with the word “sink” on it to represent a porcelain pedestal model- instead you can drag and drop an actual drawing of one and then scale it to proper size, whether it’s 12 or 24 inches across. This greatly cuts down on the time spent finalizing little details by allowing the user to essentially gloss over those devilish things.
Google has supported software called Sketchup for a few years now, and it is quickly gaining ground as a professional and hobbyist platform. While it requires a download, it’s free. Compatible with both Mac and Windows, it’s a robust set of tools to get you designing rooms, houses and buildings quickly. While daunting at first, it comes with a set of tutorials to help walk you through basic and intermediate level designs. Want to copy the blueprints of a house exactly? You can either scan them or set the exact measurements in, getting an exact fit to the dimensions of your house. If you’re curious to see how a certain fixture might work in your home, like a giant Herbeau cast iron tub or a baby grand piano, these are easy to draw in the software, and can be resized at the press of a button.
Take a peek at all of these links and then post on our Facebook any creations you make. We love to see the creative depth of our readers. Until then, see you at PlumbTile.com!