From floor plan to 3D tour.

Start

Open the walkthrough. The Start panel on the left has three ways in: upload a floor plan, start a blank home or shop, or open a sample (a three-bedroom house, a two-bedroom apartment with a balcony, a fashion boutique and a cafe). The samples are the quickest way to see what the finished result looks like.

The tabs at the top switch between Plan (the editor), 3D (a dollhouse you can orbit) and Walk (eye height). The inspector on the right shows the project when nothing is selected, and the selected room, wall, door, window or piece of furniture otherwise. On a phone the two panels open from the Tools and Inspector buttons at the bottom.

Upload and AI reading

Click Upload a floor plan (or drop a file on it) and choose a PNG, JPG, WebP or PDF up to 25 MB. A PDF with several pages asks which page holds the plan. The drawing appears in the editor as a traced layer.

Click Read this plan with AI. If you know the overall width of the building, type it in: it fixes the scale exactly. The AI looks for every wall, door, sliding door, window and opening, the room names, built-in fixtures such as toilets, baths, kitchen benches and wardrobes, and the dimension strings that give the scale. It takes 30 to 120 seconds. The result is an ordinary editable plan laid over your drawing, furnished if you left that box ticked.

Plans that read well: a single storey per file; walls drawn as solid or hatched bands; door swings and window symbols; room names; at least one overall dimension. Crop away title blocks, site plans and elevations if they share the page. Brochure plans with furniture drawn in are fine. Hand sketches and photos taken at an angle read less reliably: trace those yourself instead (below).

AI plan reading needs a Pro account (the same Build Design Solutions account as the designer, with Pro switched on; ask for it from the walkthrough). Without one you can still set the scale and trace the drawing by hand.

Check and fix the plan

Turn the drawing's opacity up in the Draw panel and compare. With the Select tool:

• Click a wall and drag its round end handles; walls joined at that corner move with it. Drag the middle of a wall to slide the whole wall sideways.
• Drag a door or window to slide it along its wall; change its type, width, height, sill, swing side and hinge end in the inspector.
• Click a room to rename it and set its type (the type decides how it is furnished and which floor it gets).
• If the size is off, choose Set scale, click both ends of a dimension you know on the drawing and type its real length. Tick the box to resize what is already drawn.
• Move drawing drags the traced layer to line it up with your walls.

Rooms are found from the walls, so a room only exists when walls enclose it. If a room is missing, look for a small gap where two walls should meet and drag one end onto the other: ends snap together.

Draw from scratch

Choose Blank home or Blank shop, then the Room tool and drag rectangles. The first room gets outside walls; rooms drawn against it share the walls they touch. The Wall tool draws walls point by point (double-click or press Esc to finish; hold Shift for angles other than 45 and 90 degrees). Then pick Door, Window, Slider, Double, Opening or Garage and click on a wall. Outside walls show their lengths, a selected wall shows its own, and rooms show their areas. Measure reads any distance.

Furniture

Furnish every room (in the inspector with nothing selected) fills each room for its type and size: beds against the best wall with bedside tables, wardrobes away from windows, sofas facing the TV over a rug, kitchen runs with an island when there is room, bathroom fixtures, desks under windows, and for shops a counter, wall shelving and aisles of shelving or racks. Door swings are always kept clear. Furnish this room redoes one room.

The Furniture panel has 71 pieces in categories with search. Drag a piece onto the plan, or click it and click the plan; near a wall it turns its back to the wall. Select a piece to move it, turn it with the orange handle or R, resize it with the white handle where that makes sense (benches, wardrobes, shelving, rugs), change its colour, duplicate or delete it. In the 3D view you can also drag the selected piece across the floor.

Decorating

Pick a style in the inspector: eight for homes (Scandinavian, Coastal Hamptons, Urban industrial, Mid-century modern, Japandi, Modern luxe, Modern farmhouse, Minimal white) and four for shops (Boutique retail, Neighbourhood cafe, Clean and clinical, Warehouse store). A style sets the paint, floors for each room type, upholstery, timber, joinery, metal and rugs together.

Then select any room for its own wall colour (28 paints or any colour), a feature wall in an accent colour, one of 19 floors and the ceiling colour. Light and outside switches daytime and evening and sets the outside wall colour.

The floor finishes and the upholstery fabric are photo-scanned textures from Poly Haven and ambientCG, both released under CC0 (public domain). Thank you to both libraries.

Decorate with AI takes a plain description, for example "warm Japandi with lots of plants, a kids room in bedroom 3, a home office in the study and a dark green wall behind the master bed". Claude chooses the style, colours, feature walls, floors and furniture for each room and the layout engine places the pieces. One undo puts the previous look back. Needs a Pro account.

Walking and the 3D view

3D is a dollhouse with the ceilings off: drag to orbit, right-drag or Shift-drag to pan, scroll or pinch to zoom, double-click to centre on a spot. Cut walls lowers the walls to 1.2 m so you can see into every room. Doors open opens or closes every door.

Walk puts you at eye height just inside the front door. Drag to look around; W A S D or the arrow keys move you (Shift to hurry, Q and E to turn); clicking the floor walks you there. Walls and furniture stop you, and doors open as you reach them. On a phone or tablet, use the thumb stick at the bottom left and tap the floor to walk. The minimap shows where you are; click it to jump. Lens widens or narrows the view.

Tours and video

Walk to a good spot and press Add viewpoint; repeat for each stop. Play tour glides between them. Auto tour builds a route for you: in through the front door, then room to room through the doors, pausing just inside each room. Record video plays the tour and saves it as a video file (MP4 or WebM, depending on the browser). Keep the tab in front while it records.

Photoreal renders

In 3D or Walk, frame the view and press AI render, then choose daylight, golden hour, soft light or evening. A capture of the view is repainted as a photograph by OpenAI's image model, keeping the layout, furniture and camera angle; it takes 20 to 90 seconds. Treat it as a mood image: finishes, styling and small details are the model's interpretation. Renders need a Pro account and are limited to six an hour.

Sharing, saving and exports

• Saving: projects save automatically in your browser and are listed under Your projects. They stay on this device; use the project file to move one to another computer.
• Share: creates a link that opens a view-only copy of the walkthrough for anyone, for 90 days. The traced drawing is not included. Share again after changes. Needs a signed-in account.
• Export: a screenshot of the current view (PNG), the project file (.json, which also opens in the app with Export, Open a project file) and the room schedule (CSV).

Keyboard shortcuts

1 2 3	Plan, 3D, Walk
Ctrl + Z, Ctrl + Shift + Z	Undo, redo
V B W	Select, room rectangle, wall
D N M	Door, window, measure
R, arrow keys, Delete	Turn, nudge (Shift for bigger steps) and delete the selection
Esc	Finish a wall, cancel a tool, clear the selection
Walk: W A S D, arrows, Q E	Move, turn; hold Shift to hurry
?	Shortcuts and help in the app

Troubleshooting

• "3D is not available": the browser could not start WebGL. Update the browser, or switch on hardware acceleration in its settings.
• A room is missing or two rooms merged: walls must enclose a room. Close the gap by dragging a wall end onto the other wall.
• The plan is the wrong size: use Set scale on the longest dimension you know.
• Projects do not save: private browsing and full storage block saving. Export the project file to keep a copy.
• The AI could not read the plan: crop to the floor plan, use a sharper image or a PDF, or trace it with the Room tool. Anything else: contact us.