Using iPhone Apps to Draw a Floor Plan

Do you want to draw a floor plan of a room on your iPhone with a drawing app?

Do you find it a challenge to draw straight lines or resize rectangles to make it proportional?

I did!  Then I found an app to make life easier.

Armed with a physical measuring tape and a free app on my iPhone 4, I accomplished a professional looking blueprint of the room.

The floor plan includes the door, the window, and an odd corner.

The app is called MagicPlan.

Here is how it works.

First, stand in the part of the room where you can see every corner on the floor when you rotate yourself on the spot.

Even if there is furniture covering the corner, it should be in your line of sight.

MagicPlan uses the iPhone camera so you can see the room with an aiming cross hair that looks like a corner.

Aim at the first corner on the floor and hit the red button.

Rotate yourself on the spot and do the next corner.

As you register more corners, you can see a 3D visual of the floor plan forming.

When you encounter the door, hit the blue button at the start and end of the door frame on the floor.

If furniture is blocking a corner, imagine you can see through the furniture and just aim at that corner.

You will eventually end up at the first corner and measurement is done.

Measurement? Yes, MagicPlan actually measure the walls.

A drawing of the floor plan will be created like the picture above.

At first I noticed the door was swinging to the wrong side.

So I just touched the door and rotated it the right way.

There was no window at first too. Windows do not reach to the bottom so there was no reference. I added it after taking measurements.

Are the Measurements Accurate?

With my physical measuring tape, I checked the size of every wall and door.

So the numbers were off by 5 to 10 cm.

Not a problem! I touched the numbers and changed them.

According to the app, the next room you measure will be more accurate after the actual input.

How About Measuring the Height of the room?

We intend to get double-decker beds and tall cupboards, but the room has odd corners… And odd ceiling! Imagine a sunken wall.

MagicPlan do not do height.

But there is a solution… Take a picture of that odd part.

Ok I did but it’s a small room and the lens is not wide enough.

Another app to the rescue… Photosynth!

No need to measure this one. Just stretch my arm up and that’s the height of the odd ceiling.

So off we go now to Ikea to shop.

Adrian Lee
Http://AdrianVideoImage.com