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I recall about 10 years ago I used some free software where I basically drew a house plan of my house, including wall widths and heights, and could then view it in 3d. Basically I drew a line (eg for a wall) then entered properties such as thickness, height, materials, etc., and then went on a drew the next wall (perpendicular or at specified angle to the first wall) and so-on until I'd input all of my house.

Now I thought that software was Google Sketchup, so I tried out the new Sketchup free (web-based, by Trimble), but that doesn't allow me to specify properties for the lines. I even found an old 2011 download for Google Sketchup to see if they'd just changed it dramatically, but that old version doesn't look much different from the new one.

So now I'm looking for any free software that allows me to do what I recall doing with that old software. I don't need much more than what I've described above - I just want to visualise an idea, but I can't quite do it with the Sketchup functionality.

I'm using Windows 10 Pro 64 bit. I'm happy for this to be download or web-based, and want it to be free (but a 2-week trial sort of thing is probably adequate, as I don't think I'll need it longer than that). It's for totally non-commercial purposes, if that makes a difference.

Edit: To be clear, I'm not wanting to draw a house, rather I want to be able to draw some objects/shapes like a box or furniture that has sides with thickness as well as the shape dimensions (eg a 1m X 2m shape that has sides that are 10mm thick)

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  • Here's the thing with Sketchup, because I have used it a lot, it doesn't specifically say you can do it, but you can. Start a line and point it in a direction and type "10mm" on the keyboard and hit enter and boom the line is 10mm. I don't know if every single property is accessible this way, but some are for sure including dimensions and angles.
    – cybernard
    Feb 5, 2021 at 22:17

2 Answers 2

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You can try Sweet Home 3D. It has both desktop and web-based versions. It's free and open-source.

It's pretty straightforward on basic planning. If I remember well, you can create multi-floor projects as well. It has some in-built furniture and there are some other furniture libraries available both on the website and from some manufacturers.

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  • Thanks I will look at that and see if I does what I want
    – Midavalo
    Jan 29, 2021 at 19:57
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Another possibility is BricsCAD Shape. It is free and there are good tutorials on the site. I will say if you have a lot of experience with 3D solid modeling it might actually be harder to figure out BricsCAD Shape. It works differently than I expected, but looks like it is pretty capable. It isn't strictly an architecture modeler, but seems pretty slanted in that direction.

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  • Thanks I will look at that and see if I does what I want
    – Midavalo
    Jan 29, 2021 at 23:27

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