Homes and rooms
How to read a floor plan
A floor plan is a horizontal slice through the house at about a metre above the floor, drawn to scale. Once you know the scale and a dozen symbols you can measure anything on it, and a computer can rebuild it in 3D.
Scale first
Look for “1:100” or “1/4″ = 1′” in the title block, or a scale bar. At 1:100, one centimetre on paper is one metre in the house. If there is no scale, one known dimension, a door (usually 80–90 cm) or a labelled room length, fixes everything else. Kubikly asks for exactly one such dimension when the plan has none.
The symbols
- Thick parallel lines: walls; thicker usually means structural or external.
- A gap with a quarter-circle arc: a door and the way it swings; a gap with three thin lines: a window; a gap alone: an opening.
- Stairs: parallel treads with an arrow pointing up; the arrow's tail is the bottom step.
- Fixtures: a rectangle with a circle is a toilet, a rectangle with a small circle a sink, a rectangle with a corner circle a bath; four circles in a square are a hob.
- Dashed lines: something above (a beam, a mezzanine, a wall unit) or below (a foundation).
Measuring a room
Measure wall to wall on the paper, multiply by the scale factor. Area is width × length for rectangles; for an L-shape split it into rectangles. Plans usually quote net internal areas; agents sometimes quote gross areas that include walls, so the same flat can be 5–10% bigger on the listing than on the plan.
From plan to 3D
Upload the plan and the AI extracts walls, rooms, doors and windows into a structured model with real coordinates, not a picture. You get areas per room, a 3D view with ceilings and curtains, a plan view with dimensions, and the ability to move walls and restyle rooms by talking.
Frequently asked
- What if the plan is a hand sketch?
- It works, with a rougher result; give one measurement and it becomes accurate.
- Does north matter?
- For daylight, yes: the north arrow tells you which rooms get morning or evening sun. The 3D model keeps the plan's orientation.
- Is the 3D model to scale?
- Yes, once one dimension is confirmed; every wall, door and window carries its real size.
Keep reading
- How to turn a floor plan into 3D for freeA step-by-step way to get a walkable 3D model from a floor plan without paying: what you upload, what you get, what the free tier covers and what costs credits.
- What is a parametric 3D model?The difference between a generated image, a mesh and a parametric model; why parameters make edits reliable, measurements real and exports useful; how Kubikly builds one from a photo.
- Restyle a room to match any photoHow to take a photo of a room you like and apply its style to your own room in 3D: what the AI reads from the reference, what it keeps, and how to get a photoreal render of the result.