Floorkit: a first look at turning plans into editable 3D

Another new tool has found its way into the tool bag. Floorkit caught my attention today because it sits in a space I keep coming back to: taking a plan set and turning it into something we can explore in 3D.

There is real value in being able to move between a drawing and a model. For teaching, it can help make room layouts, wall positions, openings and changes in floor level easier to discuss. For course development, it opens up possibilities for walkthroughs and interactive resources built around the same information.

So we gave Floorkit a first run against an architectural plan set to see what we could build, edit and pass into our existing viewer.

A toolkit for building your own CAD workflow

Floorkit is presented as an architectural toolkit built on the OpenGeometry kernel. The idea is to let teams shape an application around their own expertise, interface and workflow, with CAD authoring, editing and drafting underneath.

For developers working with Three.js, the vendor describes a division of responsibilities: your application controls the camera, lights and render loop, while Floorkit supplies the building geometry and model-editing commands.

That is the part that interests me. A teaching tool could use a focused interface for a particular task, with learners exploring a building model rather than navigating a full CAD application.

Watch our first tests

The demonstration below shows the workflow we explored during this first trial.

What we built today

Our test used a floor plan and a section from the supplied architectural drawings. We traced a limited part of the building manually, using the drawing dimensions as our starting point. This was not an automatic PDF import or an AI-generated reconstruction.

The trial model contained 17 walls, 12 openings and two slabs. It covered the living and kitchen area, Bedroom 1, bath and service partitions, a cropped foyer and the alfresco.

We checked the main dimensions against the source drawings, including a 10.83 m main width, a 5.43 m main depth and a 3.60 m clear ceiling height. We also modelled the alfresco floor 40 mm below the unit floor.

The result gave us something useful to work with: editable walls and openings, saved building data and a scaled plan drawing. The trial produced a one-page A3 PDF with a visible 1:100 plan, together with an SVG drawing.

Editing, saving and moving into the viewer

A model needs to do more than look right on screen. We tested a 100 mm door edit, undo and redo, and checked that saving and reopening preserved the model exactly.

The trial report records 18 passing browser checks, covering dimensions, model data, geometry, edits, drawings and the exported model. The seven original source PDFs were preserved unchanged, and identifying information was removed from the displayed plan and public model metadata.

We also produced a GLB and loaded it into our separate Three.js viewer. The exported bounds and authored IDs matched, with no captured console errors or warnings in that handoff test.

One detail matters here: the GLB came through our own Three.js export adapter. We have not verified a native Floorkit GLB exporter. This was a successful file handoff, rather than direct integration of Floorkit into our current viewer engine.

Where it could help with teaching

The next step I can see is a walkthrough or a focused learning activity growing from a plan set. A learner could compare the drawing with the 3D arrangement, inspect openings or discuss why one floor sits below another.

That is a direction to explore, rather than something this first trial has already delivered. We did not model the roof, stairs, upper storeys, furniture, joinery, structural design or building services. Some opening dimensions and offsets, partition positions and slab thickness were assumed.

These outputs are illustrative teaching and workflow-test assets. They are not construction-ready or engineering-certified documents.

A useful first trial, with more to check

For now, Floorkit is worth keeping as an isolated authoring and evaluation tool. Blender remains our modelling authority for reviewed teaching assets, with reviewed model data and GLB files passed into the delivery layer.

Direct engine integration and mobile performance still need testing. Educational hosting also needs confirmation of eligibility and a licence key for the intended hostname before we put the Floorkit runtime into a public learner page.

This space is moving quickly. Today's trial gave us a practical starting point: a dimension-led model we could edit, save, draw and hand over to a separate viewer. I am keen to see how far that workflow can go.

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