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Graphics Businesses Software Apple

Floorplan Software for Macs? 80

Posted by Cliff from the tools-for-digital-architects dept.
jgardner asks: "I was asked by my employer to create a scale drawing of the floorplan for our company's buildings. Using Illustrator or Freehand and building everything from scratch seems too time expensive. I spent a long time online looking for a program which is designed to create floorplans, but only found expensive, high-end products. I need something inexpensive, and it just needs to draw flooplans. No 3D modeling, or walkthroughs required. There are plenty for PCs that are under $100. So far for the Mac, I have only found Architecture 3.03, by Abracadata. This program was originally written for OS 6.x, so it is very old, and has severe limitations. Does anyone know of a better Mac alternative? Maybe even an inexpensive set of tools for Illustrator or Freehand? Preferably OS X, but I can boot into 9 or operate in Classic if forced to."
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Floorplan Software for Macs? More

Floorplan Software for Macs?

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  • Graffle it? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 14, 2003 @07:09AM (#6693729)
    I know that omnigraffle [omnigroup.com], a flow chart program that comes with most newer macs has basic office layout symbols built in to it.

    It's not the most exact in the world, but it's something at least, no?
    • I second that. The program is good and cheap. You can easily do what you need to do.

    • Re:Graffle it! Here's the key (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 14, 2003 @08:53AM (#6694108)
      The key thing with OmniGraffle is that you can punch your dimensions into a text box and it will draw everything to scale. You don't need to muss with rulers, scale conversions, etc.

      On top of that, it comes with pallettes of objects (desks, network access points, chairs, server cabinets, etc.). You can download extra pallettes, and you can make your own pallettes by dragging and dropping images.

      I used it to draw out plans for a kitchen conversion in our office. I've also used it to draw out network diagrams; diagrams of where data is stored on the server... It's a great app!
    • I have used Graffle for basic flow charting (without registering), Does the registered version allow the user to automatically map Database schema or build object models? I have been told Visio Pro can do such amazings tasks.
    • You can see a screen shot [polyphase.ca] of my lame attempt at making a cube with Graffle [omnigroup.com].

      For quick sketches and graphs, its an amazing little tool.

    • Re:Graffle it? (Score:3, Informative)

      by jeblucas ( 560748 )
      Yep, Graffle is the way to go if you don't need flythrough's or anything. It's free with "Power User" Macs, like Powerbooks and towers. The office palette has furniture, computers, network drops, outlets, etc, so you can square everyone with that stuff.

  • Stone design has Create (Score:5, Informative)

    by Whatchamacallit ( 21721 ) on Thursday August 14, 2003 @07:19AM (#6693758) Homepage
    It's quicker and easier then Illustrator or Photoshop. It's also a lot cheaper.

    http://www.stone.com/Create/Create.html

  • MacDraft? (Score:2, Informative)

    by darkkewulf ( 690152 )
    I've never used it myself, but there's MacDraft [microspot.co.uk] (which seems to be a full-featured CAD app).
    • I've used MacDraft for OS X. I measured off the first floor of my house and created a version my actual floorplan in MacDraft.

      Worked great. Simple and cheaper than everything else I see suggested.

      --Richard

  • QCad (Score:4, Informative)

    by Verence ( 145084 ) * on Thursday August 14, 2003 @07:24AM (#6693769)
    Don't have any personal experience with it, but wasn't there a blurb about QCad a wihle ago?

    • Re:QCad (Score:5, Informative)

      by Jermsy ( 692780 ) on Thursday August 14, 2003 @09:04AM (#6694193)
      Yes, QCad would do everything you need... and it's free!

      http://www.qcad.org/
      • Yea, it's interface is also freaky due to the lack of interface conventions. I'll let steve be an Interface Nazi if it prevents nightmares like QCad from happening.

        All due respect to the QCad developers - but you have to make better documentation, or have a big splash page warning users that your interfaceface conventions are severely different than most other apps they've ever used.

        -shpoffo
        • different from photoshop, yes.

          different from anything you've every used: not if you get out much :?)

          once i figured out the basic idea (about 2 minutes), i found the interface makes perfect sense, and is quite easy to use. could be better, of course, but perfectly adequate, and better than most in some ways.
      • it isn't like the current standard, autocad, has such a great GUI either...
  • I don't know if MS has ported this to OS X yet, but it sounds like this is exactly what you want. Yes, it's an M$ product; however, it's reasonably good at what it does (sorry folks, Dia has a *long* way to go to catch up) and can be used for a lot more than "just" office layout (the pro edition has office layout stuff, ERD and UML as well, if I remember correctly).

    Just my $0.02.

    • Not on MacOS X (Score:3, Informative)

      by redragon ( 161901 )
      Visio hasn't been ported...and as far as I know, there aren't any plans to port it. Given the recent relationship between MS and Apple, I wouldn't count on more apps being available on MacOS X, but less.

      I liked someone's suggestion of using OmniGraffle. It's awesome for UML, and flow-charts. Wonder if someone could make up a pallete with walls, windows and doors...I like that idea...

    • Re:Visio? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Frightened_Turtle ( 592418 ) on Thursday August 14, 2003 @09:14AM (#6694266) Homepage
      As far as I know, Visio will not be ported to the Mac.

      I've used both Omnigraffle [omnigroup.com] and Visio. Visio is a very good program and very comprehensive. The problem is, it's not very easy to use. It's fairly difficult to make it do what you want it to do. Make a mistake or need to resize your chart, you are in for hours of editting.

      Omnigraffle is much easier to use! Very intuitive interface, easy to adjust things -- and yes, it does come with an office layout pallette. You can even import your own graphic elements, if you choose. The new version 3 does even more cool stuff!

      If the folks at Omnigroup ever decide to take on Excel (my favorite M$ product), I've got some money I'd like to throw at them...

  • Xfig! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CrazyWingman ( 683127 ) on Thursday August 14, 2003 @07:48AM (#6693838) Journal
    Load up your X11 server and run xfig. :)

  • Try ConceptDraw (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mikeloader ( 590119 ) on Thursday August 14, 2003 @07:57AM (#6693885)

    Have you looked into ConceptDraw? It's a Visio style drawing and flowcharting program. There are a couple of versions at different pricepoints. I've used it for flowcharting, site mapping, wireframing, org charting, and, well, designing my new kitchen. :-)

    Here's a link to the libraries. I think even the cheap version supports floor plans.

    http://www.conceptdraw.com.ua/en/tours/libtour/cdt ours.php [conceptdraw.com.ua]

    I've used ConceptDraw a lot in a work setting. I don't think it's quite as good as Visio, but it is the most full featured program of its type for MacOS. I found it very stable but with quite a few UI quirks. (Not as polished as an Adobe or Macromedia product.)

  • floorplan hackers! (Score:5, Funny)

    by dema ( 103780 ) on Thursday August 14, 2003 @08:13AM (#6693948) Homepage
    Anyone know why when I searched [google.com] for "Mac floorplan software" in google I got a ton of mac warez/hacking sites? I guess a lot of pirates these days have grown, and need to design their new super 1337 pad.

  • Paper (Score:2, Funny)

    by nado ( 101599 )
    I would use paper and a pencil and then scan it. Just make sure you pick a nice scale so that you can do the math in your head.
    • Actually, what we did in my office was scan the blueprints into Illustrator, draw in a couple of the cubicles and put peoples names on their office/cube.
  • If you are in a hurry, and know of several progams that work for windows. Just buy Virtual PC, or some other emulator (you might want to try Bochs).

    The only question is price. If your time is worth the price of the VirtualPC software. But this would seem to be the simplest answer to your question.

    And please, spare me the philosophy. I understand the reasons for going pure-mac, or pure-linux, or pure-whatever, but the question is "How to I get from A->B most effictively" and that is how I answered t

    • The only question is price. If your time is worth the price of the VirtualPC software. But this would seem to be the simplest answer to your question.

      You forget to mention that users are also required to pay for a licensed copy of the Windows operating system to run Windows programs using the Virtual PC software.
      There are plenty of solutions much simpler than resorting to an emulator.

      And please, spare me the philosophy.

      No.

      It's seems unjust to recommend giving money to a convicted felon for no good r

      • definitely. it'd be much cheaper to just FIND a windows pc somewhere instead of paying quite a bit of money for virtual pc. at the apple website it's about 130 dollars alone, not including the os pack which would be i think another hundred dollars or more. you could probably buy a mac os x piece of software for that price to get the job done, not to mention perhaps there are other suitable free programs too.

  • SketchUp (Score:4, Informative)

    by JonoPlop ( 626887 ) <me.JonathonMah@com> on Thursday August 14, 2003 @08:50AM (#6694089) Homepage
    I must say, SketchUp [sketchup.com] wins hands-down over any floor-plan-type software. It does have 3D modelling and walkthroughs, but you don't have to use them. The only thing is that it's not inexpensive, as you specified (the web site says US$475), but there is a free 30 day trial. Check out some of the tutorials, too, to see what amazing things you can do with this app.

  • Canvas (Score:4, Informative)

    by DaRat ( 678130 ) on Thursday August 14, 2003 @09:10AM (#6694230)

    I'd highly recommend Canvas [deneba.com] from ACD Systems (formerly Deneba Software). It's a mite expensive (~$350) but it excels at doing technical drawings/illustration particularly to scale. I've been using Canvas for doing starship deckplans [mac.com] for the Traveller game, and I can set the scale to be 1 X to be 1 Y and then have all of my drawings/measurements displayed in the Y units.

    Canvas is pretty easy to learn though it has its quirks. On the plus side, while it is geared towards technical illustration, it's also a general purpose graphics package that can handle bitmap editing (subset of Photoshop functionality, and some photoshop filters work with Canvas), light page layout, and flow charting. Canvas imports and exports a wide variety of formats. I couldn't live without it for my work (user interface design).

    There is a free 15 (I think it's 15) day trial version available.

  • You may want to look at these... (Score:4, Informative)

    by bobdobbs3 ( 641058 ) on Thursday August 14, 2003 @09:41AM (#6694470)
    I suggest you go to VersionTracker and search "CAD."like so. [versiontracker.com]

    You may want to see if these fit the bill for you.
    CADintosh X 4.4 - 2D CAD - 2.6M - Shareware
    CADtools 2.1.4 - CAD plugin for Adobe Illustrator
  • Check out http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnigraffle/

    The professional version is very cool.

  • Mac Architect's Site (Score:5, Informative)

    by geperoo ( 698142 ) on Thursday August 14, 2003 @10:41AM (#6694995)
    There are lots of options. See http://architosh.com or http://architosh.com/DPG/software/tables/cad_archi tecture_aec.phtml
    --
    They don't list QCAD, a free Mac OS X native 2D only program. I recently loaded it on my 64 450 it has worked well so far and should do what you need. QCad uses the AutoCAD .dxf as it's native format so you can import/export infomation from other sources.

    PowerCADD X is also a good choice, simple and stright forward. The new Mac OS X version is $895.00 with $150.00 extra for a AutoCAD translator. Cheap for a CAD application but still a good outlay of cash for something you may only use once or twice.

  • Free option! (Score:5, Funny)

    by American AC in Paris ( 230456 ) on Thursday August 14, 2003 @10:52AM (#6695117) Homepage
    Hey, don't forget--Glider Pro [mac.com] is now free!

    Design your entire home from the ground up and test it for paper-airplane-friendliness!

  • It might be more than you're looking for but whenever CAD is mentioned don't forget an underappreciated Mac resource in architosh.com [architosh.com].
    The site for all things CAD.

    =tkk

  • www.architosh.com there you will find plenty of resources for the Mac Architecture applications

  • Floor Plans, etc = SketchUp (Score:5, Informative)

    by ShimmyShimmy ( 692324 ) <bplennon AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday August 14, 2003 @11:35AM (#6695561) Homepage Journal
    SketchUp [sketchup.com] absolutely takes the cake on this one. SketchUp is the best 3-D modeling design software available (no reason you can't work in 2-D). SketchUp features automatic length and surface area calculations, as well as automatic labelling and dimensioning.

    You can also use walkthroughs; literally walk through the model. You can build on different layers and hide any/all of them, and even deaignate a plene on your model, such that everything on the positive side of the plane is hidden, but the rest is visible (perfect for cross sections, cutaways).

    SketchUp costs $475 for the full version, but you can get a demo, which can either work for 30 days, or for 12.0 hours of actual use time. THere is a windows client as well. The best part about SketchUp is the versatility. You can actually save drawings as .dwg (AutoCAD drawing), pictures, and many other formats.

    SketchUp is definitely the way to go.
    • I found it strange nobody had mentioned Sketchup yet. Sketchup is a great, native program (not a port, but made from scratch for the Mac) which uses OpenGL to do 3D rendering on-the-fly (and works as well for 2D) and has lots of tools that ease the layout of floorplans or buildings.

      http://www.sketchup.com/ has several demos and tutorials to try out. The thing has automatic scaling, several libraries of objects and materials, a bustling community and the people behind it must be some of the nicest businessm
  • Being that you've apparently already got a copy of Illustrator in the office, I'd recommend Hot Door's CAD Tools [hotdoor.com], a package I've used in the past.

    While OMNIGraffle and Stone's CREATE will take a smaller chunk out of the expense account, consider the notion that you'd be extending Illustrator's functionality rather than investing in a stopgap solution.

  • This is a quality drafing program most likely in the price range you are looking for. ($149.00 for the standard edition.) I have tried the demo and its easy to use and should net you some nice looking floorplans quickly. I use high end CAD packages daily ( Ashlar products etc.) and although they are great products there really are no low end versions. At least this High Design was written from scratch for OSX ao it really looks and performs well. You also will be able to add some color - something very lim

  • You are all silly. (Score:3, Funny)

    by DAQ42 ( 210845 ) on Thursday August 14, 2003 @02:05PM (#6697128)
    The Sims.
    The original one.

    The original concept of the application was to design a layout design program. Yeah, it's "semi-3D" but you can view it from multiple perspectives.

    so yeah.

  • Intaglio (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Try Intaglio... nice, Cocoa app with dimensions, scaling, layers, etc.

  • Pencil and paper (Score:3, Funny)

    by gerardrj ( 207690 ) on Thursday August 14, 2003 @05:26PM (#6699873) Journal
    Works every time. Has nearly zero learning curve or Internet research time.

    You might want to have the office supply staff invest in a straight edge and a drafter's/architecht's scale and a few circle/shape templates. If you want to go overboard, a few different hardness pencils and a small colored pencil set.

    In all the hardware mentioned should run less than $100.

    Unless you already have them, aquiring the measurments of the buildings will take more time than drawing them, whether on computer or by hand.
  • Install fink and say 'fink install kivio'.

  • Pov (Score:1)

    by milou ( 223336 )
    my husband used pov to model our house... http://www.povray.org/download/
  • "Using Illustrator or Freehand and building everything from scratch seems too time expensive. I spent a long time online looking for [...]" If he'd used Illustrator right from the start he'd be done by now...
  • DrawWell is a very affordable ($49) general drawing program for Mac OS X that has document scaling built in for exactly this sort of use. Just set a scale and your preferred working measurement units in the Document Inspector Measurements tab and off you go! You even get handy tool tips giving a shapes current dimensions next to the cursor while you are drawing. Couldn't be easier. See www.drawwell.com
  • There should be blueprints on file with City Hall. And, whoever designed the building probably still has them. Take the money you have for this program and just go purchase those.
  • http://www.microspot.com/

    Just announced today, 8.15.2003

  • Your building(s) were probably designed by an architect. They probably have the plans on file. Any architect who isn't stupid will probably give you copies for free (or the cost of printing if they're on paper) in order to maintain a relationship with you. If your building(s) is(are) newish, then the drawings may be in a CAD format (e.g. AutoCAD), so you may need to ask them to convert them to something useful (e.g. .ai)

    Another alternative would be to hire an architecture student to do the work. The de

  • If you already have Freehand, it's not that hard at all, and would probably take quicker considering you don't have to buy any software, ask management to approve the software, get the software installed, etc.

    Now, if you don't already have it, that's another story.
  • I've not used it, but I've heard a lot of people rave about VectorWorks [nemetschek.net]. It looks good, albeit perhaps overkill for simple floorplans.
  • Design Your Own Home(R) 3D WalkAround(TM) http://www.abracadata.com/dyoh3dwalkaround-macinto sh.html It's by the same people, Abracadata, that did the older program you mentioned. We used it a year or two ago running system 9.x, so I would expect it would work just fine with OS X in Classic. I think it's just what you're looking for.

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