Getting started

Uploading & scaling drawings

Supported file types, what makes a good input drawing, and how to set an accurate scale.

Supported file formats

You can upload:

  • PDF — both kinds work:
    • Raster PDF, usually an image placed inside a PDF.
    • Vector PDF, usually a DWG saved as a PDF — see Preparing DWG drawings.
  • PNG, TIFF, JPEG, JPG and WebP — any drawing on your screen can be screenshotted into one of these, and any drawing on paper can be photographed with a smartphone.
  • ZIP — an archive containing several PDFs or images, uploaded in one go.

Each file can be up to 20 MB.

Drawing types

  • Floor plans — one per storey of the building.
  • Elevations — optional, and used to give storeys, doors and windows their real heights instead of default values.

Other drawing types, such as section drawings, are on the roadmap but aren't supported yet.

Uploading floor plans

In Create BIM, drag and drop one or more floor plan drawings onto the page. Once they're uploaded, you can reorganize them by clicking and dragging — the order defines the storey order, from lowest to highest.

The Create BIM panel with floor plan images being dragged onto the drop area
Drag and drop one or more floor plan drawings onto the upload area.
The uploaded floor plans listed as Floor 0 to Floor 3, with one card being dragged to a new position
Uploaded plans are listed by storey. Click and drag a card to change the order.

Uploading elevation drawings

To upload elevations, first switch to Elevations in the left panel (while in Create BIM), then drag and drop the elevation drawings there. See Floors & elevations for how they're matched to compass directions.

The Elevations tab selected in the left panel, showing North, East, South and West drop areas
Switch to Elevations, then drop each drawing onto the direction it belongs to.
Drawing quality
Higher resolution, higher contrast drawings with clean, unbroken lines give the most accurate results. Low quality scans still work, but you may need to correct more elements by hand afterwards in the 2D editor. See which drawings perform well.

Setting the scale

Every drawing needs a scale so that real-world distances (wall lengths, room areas, storey heights) can be calculated correctly. Choose a method under Image scaling method in the right-hand panel for each drawing.

Auto

The default for every drawing. The scale is detected automatically from the drawing where possible — for example from a scale bar, or from the vector data in a vector PDF. Always double-check the result against a known dimension before continuing.

The Scale tab of the building settings panel with the Auto image scaling method selected
Every drawing starts in Auto mode.

Scale (1:X)

If you know the drawing's scale, enter it directly — for example 1:100 or 1:50. This option is only available for PDF uploads, and only when the PDF's scale is actually known. It is also disabled for cropped PDFs; use Auto or Line in that case.

The PDF scaling option set to Scale with a ratio of 1:100 entered
For a PDF plotted at a known scale, enter the ratio directly.

Line

Measure a known distance in the drawing:

  1. Click Line under Image scaling method.
  2. Draw a line along a dimension line in the drawing.
  3. Enter the real length of that line in the box below. The default unit is meters, so 17220 mm is entered as 17.22.
  4. Click Set for All to apply the same calibration to every drawing.
A measurement line drawn along a dimension line on a floor plan, with its real length entered as 17.22 in the Scale line length field
Draw the line along a dimension line, then enter that distance in meters.
Set the scale for every floor plan
Whichever method you choose, Scale and Line must be set for all floor plan drawings. Any drawing left unset falls back to Auto scaling, which can make storeys inconsistent with each other.

Height settings

Height settings are edited from the right-hand panel while an input image is in Edit mode, and are set individually for each storey. Where nothing is specified, these defaults are used:

  • Storey height: 3.0 m
  • Door height: 2.1 m
  • Window height: 1.6 m, starting 0.8 m above the floor
The Storey height, Window height, Window from floor and Door height fields in the right-hand panel
Storey, window and door heights are set per storey in the right-hand panel.
Elevations win over defaults
If you upload elevation drawings, the AI overrides your window and door heights with the information it finds in those elevations.
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