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Sweet Home 3D is a free interior design application

sweethome3d.com

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Re: Sweet Home 3D is a free interior design application

#101

Post by edwcross »

CSDude wrote: post #100

Not same, a bit harder but this is also free: https://pcon-planner.com/ and also has catalogs for actual furniture firms with actual items (where you need to register but most approve) I've learnt this because the furniture firm designed a wardrobe for us with wrong dimensions and the designer lady was surprised that I showed them why they made wrong - they put the dimensions for outside of the wall, without taking i…

Unfortunately pCon.planner is Windows-only. I wonder if the file format is standard and compatible with other software?

Re: Sweet Home 3D is a free interior design application

#102

Post by userbinator »

As someone with a moderate amount of CAD experience, and working with graphics applications in general such as Photoshop, I'm surprised by the mandatory modifier keys for all the keyboard shortcuts. Ctrl+Shift+anything is a horrible combination to hit with one hand while the other hand is on the mouse, which is the usual way one of these applications is operated.

That said, the compatibility is impressive --- which is not too surprising, given that it's Java:

Sweet Home 3D may be run under Windows 98 to Windows 11, Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) to macOS 13 (Ventura), various Linux systems and Solaris.

Re: Sweet Home 3D is a free interior design application

#103

Post by djhn »

jasonjamerson wrote: post #68
dddddaviddddd wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can, but when I last looked, you needed the paid version to have similar features.

I recommend modeling in Blender and importing to Unreal, which has a library of furnishings and real time rendering.

But only if you budget the time for learning those. Blender might take several hours of tutorials just to be able to create an empty room in the shape of a regular, rectangular box.

Also Blender lacks support for exact measurements AFAIK.

I tried this approach but gave up after barely achieving a rough floor plan after a day's of work.

Re: Sweet Home 3D is a free interior design application

#104

Post by echelon »

jraph wrote: post #65

A bit hidden (in the FAQ and in the SourceForge repository) but not only free: open source under the GPL :-)

I'm shocked SourceForge is still around. How are they making any money, and how can they employ half a dozen people?

I'm also surprised that Slashdot still owns SourceForge. Haven't both of these companies split ways and been through several different hands? ThinkGeek, etc.

Re: Sweet Home 3D is a free interior design application

#105

Post by shaunkoh »

ebspelman wrote: post #41
voisin wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if there is a good answer for quick mapping using an iPhone’s LiDAR Scanner?

I work on an app called Polycam, and we have an automated Room / floorplan capture mode. We actually announced some updates to it earlier this week: https://twitter.com/Polycam3D/status/1623730477637959680

I love the app! The interior designer and property agent who saw me using it were pretty blown away.

One thing I struggle with though is making sure that the capture is robust enough before I move on. I usually only really know that something is off when the capture is done already. Can I “touch up” an existing capture by doing another local scan of a problematic area?

Re: Sweet Home 3D is a free interior design application

#106

Post by patates »

styx31 wrote: post #55
guidoism wrote: post #6

I tried hard to make Sweet Home work for me. It solves the quick and dirty use case but I really wanted something where I could measure out every dimension in the house with a laser measurer, describe the shape and the relationships between the objects and let the computer do the rest. In a program like Sweet Home, and every other floor plan program out there if you make one change (like updating the measurement of t…

I shared the same frustration, but I finally gave up, and guess what, I was able to fulfill my projects and have a good insight about what my layout will be even with ~5cm difference. I learned to relax about absolute measures and think more about feeling and subjective dimensions.

Described in programming terms: You try to type the weird dynamic object you have to deal with in Typescript but after spending too much time, you learn to relax about types and just write it in JS and it feels like it's working most of the time.

Re: Sweet Home 3D is a free interior design application

#107

Post by patates »

IshKebab wrote: post #51
mgdlbp wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parametric modelling - OpenSCAD (which you mention) is commonly used for that style of handwritten arithmetic and has a few python-based alternatives like CadQuery. In GUIs, FreeCAD has an architecture module that aims to be fully featured (never used it), but for just parametric drawings, SolveSpace is lightweight and probably more pleasant to use.

OpenSCAD is completely the wrong tool for the job. You want a graphical parametric modeller. The only vaguely decent FOSS one is SolveSpace. It's a bit lacking for actual CAD (no fillets!) but it works fine for 2D layout. I have actually used it for that (actually I did full 3D modelling of part of my house) and it worked ok, however I would say that measuring things with a laser and copying them into CAD is not a ve…

> and most houses are not as square as you think they are

I'd say most houses don't even have straight walls, so you should be very happy if what you got is vaguely a trapezoid.

Re: Sweet Home 3D is a free interior design application

#108

Post by jnrk »

alanbernstein wrote: post #4

I had a need for this kind of tool a while ago, and this was the ONLY decent option I found. I'm just wondering what alternatives are even available. I figured there must be some professional software for this, but if so, I don't know what it is. I was pretty happy with this for whatever project I was doing at the time. I recently started using inkscape, for a general purpose drawing of my house. I can also include l…

> I figured there must be some professional software for this, but if so, I don't know what it is.

As an architect I can confirm that there's indeed a lot of professional software for this. The ones I usually work in are Revit and ArchiCAD, which are tailored for architects. Our interior architects also use Sketchup a lot. There's also more general-purpose CAD software like AutoCAD and Vectorworks available.

Re: Sweet Home 3D is a free interior design application

#109

Post by sethd »

guidoism wrote: post #6

I tried hard to make Sweet Home work for me. It solves the quick and dirty use case but I really wanted something where I could measure out every dimension in the house with a laser measurer, describe the shape and the relationships between the objects and let the computer do the rest. In a program like Sweet Home, and every other floor plan program out there if you make one change (like updating the measurement of t…

It’s been awhile since I’ve used this, but IIRC you need this plugin to be able to easily update dimensions without manually moving everything around: https://www.sweethome3d.com/support/forum/viewthread_thread,...

Re: Sweet Home 3D is a free interior design application

#110

Post by teknopaul »

aaplok wrote: post #15
guidoism wrote: post #6

I tried hard to make Sweet Home work for me. It solves the quick and dirty use case but I really wanted something where I could measure out every dimension in the house with a laser measurer, describe the shape and the relationships between the objects and let the computer do the rest. In a program like Sweet Home, and every other floor plan program out there if you make one change (like updating the measurement of t…

What I ended up doing when I was in a similar situation is manually edit the XML(sh3d files are XML) with proper measurements and coordinates after first doing a rough sketch on the GUI. I haven't used that tool for a while, but I think that it includes a table with all the items (walls, etc.) where you can enter the measurements. Ultimately I think of sweethome3d as a sweet spot between paint and a full-blown CAD pr…

+1 on the sweetspot. I never mastered a proper CAD tool. Sweet home 3D was amazing at helping plan the furniture build and layout of an empty 40m2 living space. I have been living in that space and benefiting from the simplicity SH3D for ten years now with no need for a change.
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