Create a floor-by-floor house plan, decorate it with a furniture from a wide variety of catalogs then view the results both in two and in three-dimensional images.
Sweet Home 3D can help you draw a sketch of your home, arrange its interiors and visualize the results in 3D views. The program has a simple interface, which is divided into four main panels. One of them is the floor plan, the second holds the 3D preview, the third contains an object library, and the last one shows a list of the active objects and their properties. The tool is quite easy to use, provided you have some knowledge of technical drawing and a good spatial perception.
It is a good idea to start by drawing the walls on the floor plan. This way, you will have the limits you need for each of the house’s spaces. After that, you can drag and drop objects from the library, including pieces of furniture, equipment, lights and others, such as staircases, workbenches and curtain rods. These objects can be modified to match the exact measures. Similarly, their properties can be changed, including color, texture and shininess. Moreover, they can be positioned with accuracy even on the Z axis.
All the changes you make on the floor plan are automatically reflected on the 3D preview. However, the tool does not allow making changes directly on the 3D model. Good news is that two types of views are allowed: aerial and virtual visit. And, if you want to make a presentation of your work, you can even create a video.
The program´s features can luckily be expanded with plugins. It is great that you are allowed to import texture collections. Likewise, as it supports 3D models created with other tools, it is possible to download and import complete libraries using the furniture import wizard.
All in all, Sweet Home 3D is a free design application that may come in handy when you are remodeling your home or planning where to put the furniture. It has the limitation of not allowing to design exteriors or gardens. You should also know that it requires a large quota of system resources and may not work unless your system is using the latest 3D rendering software. Fortunately, there is also an online version of this program that you can use from your browser.
v4.4 [Jun 12, 2014]
- Added a search textfield to filter textures and a list of the recently used textures in the textures choice dialog box.
- Added texture rotation support.
- Made the selected material blink in the 3D preview of the Furniture materials modification dialog box.
- Improved text fields used to edit lengths when Foot/Inch/Fraction unit is active.
- Added Edit > Select all at all levels menu item, with feedback in level tabs showing level names outlined with selection color under Java 6 and higher.
- Replaced Select object menu by Toggle selection menu in plan contextual menu when Shift key is pressed.
- Added dropOnTopElevation property to the pieces of catalog furniture to place objects on furniture at a preferred elevation (to simplify the layout of objects upon or below shelves, chairs, trees...).
- Added Furniture > Reset elevation menu item to recompute the preferred elevation of the selected furniture placed on other pieces.
- Added KMZ extension to the list of file extensions supported in the furniture import wizard.
- Added support for sideways moves in the 3D view with the keyboard using Alt left arrow and Alt right arrow keys.
- Avoided data duplicates in SH3D files during saving.
- Checked available disk space before saving under Java 6 and higher.
- Added an option to repair damaged SH3D files with the ability to retrieve corrupted data from Sweet Home 3D catalogs, to remove damaged 3D models and images, or to display them in red.
- Took into account texture image transparency for the ground texture in the 3D view.
- Improved texture transparency management in SunFlow.
- Fixed an issue in SunFlow parameters that could generate some black square dots.
- Added support for import from SH3D files in the Online version, checking which 3D models and textures are available on the server to reduce home data length saved on the server.
- Added a Delete button in the Open dialog box of the Online version to delete homes saved on server.
- Checked home data length doesn't exceed the maximum allowed on the server before saving it in the Online version.
- Added camera, selectableCameras, level and selectableLevels parameters to the Sweet Home 3D Viewer to let the user select some stored points of view and home levels.
- Added activateCameraSwitchKey parameter to disable space bar in Sweet Home 3D Viewer.
- Added the ability to edit the 3D model of a piece of furniture in the Furniture Library Editor.
- Fixed issues in the dependencies of a DAE file when they use spaces, % and # characters.
- Fixed an issue on texture coordinates computed at doors and windows intersection for walls with an angle different of 0° or 90° in the plan.
- Fixed texture coordinates management on the 3D model previewed in Furniture materials pane for small models.
- Checked length of auto completion strings list saved in preferences doesn't pass the maximum allowed value.
- Refused to import the ZIP file of a 3D model containing entries that are not readable.
- Fixed 3D view management to avoid it remaining grey under Windows with Java 7/8.
- Increased the maximum memory to 2 GB used in the Java Web Start version run under Windows and Linux 64 bit systems.
- Displayed the maximum memory set for Java in the About dialog box.
- Updated English, French, German, Swedish, Hungarian and Bulgarian help pages.
- Other minor bugs fixes and enhancements.
Review 2D and 3D designs without using the application they were created in
Create a floor plan for your home and start adding walls and textures
