Thread: Autodesk homestyler

A web app that allows users to ldesign their home with the unplicity of drag-and-drop. Autodesk Homestyler is a :eweb app, also available as Chrome extension. It's a very andy application for designing d laying out the rooms of our home, and, if you were America, you would be able directly place orders for the terns you selected to furnish I Urdesigned home.

The software also allows you Jshare your designs online on ,itessuch as Facebook as well as 'xport the design to professional wftware such as AutoCAD.


System requirements

It's recommended that you use a browser such as Firefox or Internet Explorer 9 that sup*ports hardware acceleration of Flash content. Since the software is also a bit resource*heavy and will get bogged down on netbooks and low-speed internet connections.

Getting started

Having a rough sketch or diagram of the overall design before you begin will get things rolling in the right direction. You could run into unexpected problems if you try to modify your design later on.

You can also layout the floor areas first and add the rooms on tap of them. This helps as you'll have a general idea about where the rooms will go and so avoid )verlapping walls.

The interface

The interface is very simple. Everything is on an on-screen panel and you just drag what*ever you need onto the main canvas. While all the items are classified based on various criteria, it's often easier to just search for what you need as eve-
rything is not necessarily where you expect it to be.

The layout

Basic room placement is quite easily done as the rooms snap to 90-degree angles. It's when you try to create angles and other shapes that you can run into trouble. The software doesn't provide a tool to measure angles accurately so you had better delve into the deep recesses of your mind to dig out what little trigonometric knowledge you may have left. The dimensions are shown on the fly however, so you'll always know what your wall dimensions are.

There are various tools avail*able to nudge the walls to certain shapes, but it sometimes works out better when you split the wall and manipulate the axis and length yourself. Placement rules Homestyler has a feature called "placement rules". This feature basically ensures that every*thing you place in your design is following the laws of physics. For example, without placement rules, you wouldn't be able to place, say, a pot on a table. The pot would end up on the floor, clipping through the table.

You can enable placement rules by going to Edi t > Edi t Preferences and checking the box marked "Enable Place*ment Rules". Placement rules can make moving large objects such as sofas around a room a challenge. This can be overcome by just holding down the [Shift] key while moving the object.

Furnish your home

Furniture is classified into living room, dining room, etc. for quick access so you can choose accordingly.