Bring your own design into the studio

Which files work

The import reads only models that say what each part is: storeys, walls, rooms, slabs, doors and windows, each named as such. It never guesses from bare surfaces.

Revit: IFC with rooms exported as spaces

Export IFC (IFC4 or IFC2x3) and turn on “Export rooms as spaces” (in the IFC export setup, under Property sets or Rooms). Every room must be placed on its level. Walls, floors, doors and windows export as themselves.

ArchiCAD: IFC with zones as spaces

Export IFC with the zones included (IfcSpace). Each storey must be a building storey. Straight walls with a rectangular profile read; curved walls and solid-element operations are listed as unsupported.

SketchUp: the Aakar exporter

SketchUp files cannot be read on the server. A free Aakar extension (coming soon) walks your model by tag and writes aakar-model.json, which you upload. Tag each group or component with one of the tags below; a template .skp with the tags set up ships with it.

aakar-model.json

The model file the exporter and the floor tracer write: millimetres, one entry per level with walls as centre lines, rooms as polygons with a type from our list, doors and windows on their wall. A house our own SketchUp export wrote re-imports unchanged.

The SketchUp tags

Room types in Aakar/Room/<type> use our list: living room, kitchen, dining, main bedroom, bedroom, guest bedroom, bathroom, toilet, puja, study, home office, family lounge, recreation, store, laundry, lobby, parking, shop, balcony, terrace, stair. A name the import does not know is listed for you to label in the studio.

Aakar/Wall, Aakar/Column, Aakar/Slab, Aakar/Door, Aakar/Window, Aakar/Room/<type>, Aakar/Stair, Aakar/Level/<n>

Which files are refused, and why

.skp uploaded directly

The SketchUp library runs only where SketchUp is installed. Use the Aakar exporter and upload the aakar-model.json it writes.

.obj, .glb, .fbx, .3ds, .dae, .stl

These files hold surfaces only: no rooms, no walls, no storeys. Export IFC with spaces from Revit or ArchiCAD, or use the Aakar exporter in SketchUp.

IFC without rooms

An IFC with walls but no IfcSpace cannot tell a bedroom from a bathroom. Turn on room (space) export and export again.

IFC with no storeys, or fewer than four walls on a storey

Each floor must be a building storey with its walls exported as walls, not as loose faces.

Files over 40 MB

Export the building only: no furniture, no site context, no linked models.

.dwg and .dxf

Drawing files are not read yet. Trace the plan image instead; a DXF reader is planned.

Tracing a plan image

Have only a drawing? Open a PNG, JPG or PDF page of each floor in the tracer. It stays on your device; only the traced rooms are sent.

Scale

Click the two ends of a dimension you know and type its length, or type the millimetres per pixel. The 50 mm grid and the corner snapping follow.

Rooms

Trace each room to the wall centre lines as a rectangle or a polygon and give it a type and a name. Edges two rooms share become one internal wall (115 mm); outer edges become external walls (230 mm). A thickness can be set per edge.

Doors, windows and stairs

Click a room edge for a door (900 mm, swinging in) or a window (1200 mm, sill 900 mm); draw the stair as a rectangle with the direction it climbs.

Floors and the plot

Add a floor, or copy the floor below as a start; floors stack at 3000 mm. Trace the plot and mark the road edge and north, or take the plot from the site tracer.

Check and continue

Before anything is sent, the tracer checks what the studio checks: at least four walls and one room per floor, every door and window on a wall, no two rooms overlapping. Then it uploads the same aakar-model.json an exporter would.

What happens after the import

The studio shows what it found (floors, walls, rooms, doors, windows, stairs), the elements it could not read and the rooms it could not name. You label those rooms, then open the design in the studio: the 3D viewer, the details, the estimate, the structural check, the drawing set and the exports work as for a planned house. The planner’s alternative options and the hand-edit tools stay off for an imported design.

Open the studio

In the studio, choose “Bring your own design” beside “Plan a house”.