"Turn a floor plan into a 3D model" describes two completely different jobs, and most tools quietly do the cheaper one. It is worth knowing which you are buying.
The first returns a picture of a 3D view. Fast, cheap, perfect for a brochure, and there is nothing underneath it — no walls, no file, nothing to move. The second returns geometry: named parts you can orbit, edit and export. It costs more and takes longer, and it is the only one of the two that survives a client asking to move a wall.
Route one: a 3D view image
Upload the plan, choose a model style — black card, white card, clay, wooden, architectural sketch, or a 3D software render look — and you get an axonometric view back in about a minute for 4 credits ($0.35).
This is the right tool for a listing page, a brochure spread, an Instagram post or a five-second explanation in a meeting. It is the wrong tool the moment somebody wants a different angle, because there is no model to re-photograph.
Route two: actual geometry
Load the same plan into the 3D Modeller as a reference and it reconstructs the layout as parts. Walls become walls. Doors and windows become real openings with glazing. Floors become slabs, the upper slab gets a genuine stairwell void with stairs running through it, and a flat, gable or hip roof goes on top with triangular gable ends.
From there you can orbit it, switch floors, read a labelled 2D plan and a room schedule, recolour the finishes for nothing, undo, export a validated GLB, or publish a free read-only link a client can open with no account. A concept is 25 credits ($2.19) and a plain-English revision is 15 credits ($1.31).
The part nobody tells you
Neither route measures your plan. Both reconstruct it. A wall that scales to 3.4 m in the reconstruction may be 3.1 m on the drawing, and no amount of confidence in the output changes that — so every room size needs checking against the original before it informs a decision.
The modeller at least tells you when it has intervened: if the plan cleanup slid a room back inside the footprint, resolved an overlap, squared a wall or dropped a piece of furniture that was blocking a door, it writes that out as a design note you can read. Nothing is silently corrected.
Getting a better reconstruction
- Crop to the plan. Title blocks, north points, legends and revision tables all get read as content.
- One floor at a time. Two plans on one sheet usually produces one confused floor.
- Export at a decent size. A 600 px screenshot of a PDF loses the door swings, and door swings are how the layout is understood.
- Type the dimensions you care about. If the overall footprint matters, write it into the brief rather than hoping it was read correctly off the drawing.
Common questions
Does it read a PDF directly?
Page 1 is rasterised in your browser at up to 2048 pixels and the image is what gets processed. If the page you need is not page 1, export that page first.
Will the room dimensions be right?
Treat them as concept figures. A plan reference is a reconstruction, not a measurement — check every room against the original.
Can I export the result to Blender or SketchUp?
From the geometry route, a validated GLB. The SketchUp and 3ds Max exports are experimental import scripts. The image route has no geometry to export.
What does it cost?
4 credits ($0.35) for a 3D view image, 25 credits ($2.19) for editable geometry, 15 credits ($1.31) for a revision.
Both routes, side by side, with prices: Floor plan to 3D model.