CAD (computer aided design) programs can be used to design rooms interactively.
Designing a room interactively is a project you can do with a computer aided design (CAD) program, which has tools for creating floor plans. Such programs, several of which are freely available, also have features for converting your floor plans into 3-D structures that you can walk through and orbit around. Since CAD programs aren't made specifically for room design, new designers may feel lost in using them to produce their first room plans. One solution to this problem is to get training from programs specific to room design, such as that provided by Home Styler or Small Blue Printer. (See Resources for these and similar, free Web applets for room design.)
Instructions
1. Open your CAD program and select its rectangle tool, which you'll use to define the room's borders.
2. Define a rectangle in your program's top view, ensuring the rectangle has these characteristics: its length fills most of the window, and its height is between one-third and three-fourths the rectangle's length. These proportions will ensure your room has a realistic size.
3. Begin drawing furnishings for a bedroom: Draw a smaller rectangle within the room rectangle. Make this rectangle's length about one-third the length of the room, and make its width one-half its length. Position the rectangle near one corner of the outer rectangle. The new rectangle will represent a bed.
4. Draw a rectangle representing a dresser. Make a duplicate of the bed rectangle and resize it so its length is slightly less than the bed's width, and its width is slightly less than its length. Position the dresser anywhere near the bed, and close to one of the edges of the outer rectangle.
5. Convert the room's floor plan to a 3-D model for interactive modeling and viewing: Select your program's perspective view, then select the bed rectangle.
6. Apply your program's extrusion modifier to the bed, then size the extrusion so the bed's height is about one-third its width. (Extrusion is the 3-D modeling term for making 2-D shapes into 3-D objects.)
7. Repeat the extrusion process for the bedroom's dresser, but make its height 2.5 times the height of the bed.
8. Locate a digitized photo of the front view of a dresser. Load the photo into your program's material editor, then select the front face of your dresser.
9. Select the material editor slot containing the photo of the dresser, then drag the mouse pointer toward the selected dresser face. (Performing this selection will usually consist of left-clicking the slot. If this doesn't work, consult your program's documentation.) Release the mouse button when the pointer has reached the dresser face. The dresser will now display the dresser photo.
10. Get a digitized photo of a bedspread and load it into a new slot in your program's material editor. Left-click to select the material editor slot, then drag it toward the bed, releasing the mouse button when the mouse pointer has reached the bed. The bed will now display the bedspread photo.
11. Select your program's orbit tool. (In many CAD programs, this action is usually done by pressing your mouse's middle button anywhere on the screen. If this doesn't work, consult your program's documentation.)
Drag the mouse to different screen positions to orbit your viewpoint around the room. Evaluate your room's design based on what you see from this orbiting action.
Tags: your program, material editor, room design, about one-third, aided design
