Switching to 3D and walking through your home
One click turns your flat floor plan into a home you can walk through — to scale, with the furniture you placed, room by room.
A floor plan tells you where things go. The 3D view tells you what the place actually feels like — the proportions, the sightlines, whether that sofa really has room behind it, how the rooms flow into each other. And it's one click away from the 2D editor.
Switching to 3D never changes your design. It builds a 3D model from your floor plan and furniture (a quick "Building 3D model…" while it does), then you can orbit it from above, drop in and walk through it, jump between rooms, and pop back to the plan whenever you want to change something.
What you'll need
- •A floor plan with some furniture in it — see Adding, moving, and arranging furniture
Step by step
- 1
Open the 3D view
From the editor, click 3D View. After a moment to build the model, your whole floor plan appears in 3D — real walls at the heights you set, every piece of furniture exactly where you placed it, all to scale.
Click 3D View to turn your floor plan into 3D. - 2
Orbit it for the overview
Drag to orbit the camera around your home and look at it from any angle — the dollhouse view. Scroll (or pinch) to zoom in and out. On a phone or tablet, drag with one finger and pinch to zoom.
- 3
Walk through it — W/A/S/D or the joystick
Drop into walk mode and move through your home in first person. On a computer, use W forward, A left, S back, D right, with the mouse to look around — hold Shift to walk faster, and press Esc to step back out. On a phone or tablet (or any time you'd rather not use the keyboard), drag the on-screen joystick to move and drag elsewhere to look. Walk out of the living room, down the hall, into the bedroom. It's the closest thing to actually being there.
W/A/S/D (Shift to run) or the on-screen joystick to move, drag to look — walk through your home in first person. - 4
Jump between rooms with the beacons
Every room Room Sketch 3D detects in your plan gets a beacon floating above it, labelled with the room's name and dimensions (see Auto room detection and naming). Click a beacon and you're dropped straight into that room — the quick way to get around a multi-room plan instead of walking the whole way.
Click a room's beacon to jump straight into that room. - 5
Toggle the ceiling
Turn the ceiling off for a clean top-down read of the layout; turn it on to feel the height of the rooms. If you've set a vaulted or sloped ceiling (see Setting wall and ceiling heights), this is where it shows up.
Ceiling off to read the layout; on to feel the height. - 6
Stay oriented — and get the controls help
The labelled room beacons keep you from getting lost — and clicking one is always a one-click way back to a known room. New to the 3D controls? Open the controls-help overlay any time for a quick reminder of orbit, walk mode (W/A/S/D or the joystick), and zoom.
Tips
Orbit to plan, walk to feel
Use the orbiting dollhouse view to check the layout from above — gaps, alignment, flow. Then drop into walk mode to feel what each room is actually like at eye level.
Use beacons in a multi-room plan
Don't walk the whole apartment to check the bedroom — click its beacon and you're there. Beacons are the fast travel between rooms.
Walk the path your guests will walk
From the front door, walk the route someone takes through your home — keyboard or joystick. That's the sequence of impressions you're actually designing, and the quickest way to spot a doorway that's too tight or a corner that's awkward.
Common mistakes
Designing only in 2D
A layout that looks balanced on a flat plan can feel tight, lopsided, or wrong once you're standing in it. Walk it in 3D before you buy furniture or commit to a move.
Judging proportions while zoomed in
If everything looks enormous, you're standing too close — pull the camera back, or drop into walk mode at eye level, before you decide the room feels off.
Never leaving the dollhouse view
Orbiting from above is great for the layout but flattens how the space feels. Make a habit of walking through it too — that's where you catch the problems a top-down view hides.
Frequently asked questions
How do I walk through my home in 3D?
In the 3D view on a computer, switch to walk mode and use the W, A, S, and D keys to move (forward, left, back, right) with your mouse to look around — first-person, like a video game. You can also click a room's beacon to jump straight into that room.
What are the floating beacons in the 3D view?
Each room Room Sketch 3D detects in your floor plan gets a labelled beacon above it. Click a beacon to teleport the camera into that room — handy for getting around a multi-room plan. The labels come from auto room detection and naming.
How do I get back to the 2D floor plan?
The same control toggles back to the 2D editor. Switching between 2D and 3D never changes your design — it's just two ways of looking at the same home.
Can I move furniture in the 3D view?
Arrange your furniture in the 2D floor plan, then switch to 3D to see the result. The 3D view is for visualizing and walking through — to reposition a piece, flip back to the plan, move it, and return.
Why does the 3D view take a moment to load?
It builds a 3D model from your floor plan and every piece of furniture. A larger home with more rooms and pieces takes a little longer the first time; after that, switching back and forth is instant.
Can I see vaulted or sloped ceilings in 3D?
Yes — if you've given walls different heights, or set per-vertex heights for a slope (see Setting wall and ceiling heights), the 3D view is where you see vaulted ceilings, sloped roofs, and split levels.
Does the 3D view work on a phone?
Yes — in the iPhone and iPad apps, the Android app, and mobile browsers. Drag with one finger to look around, pinch to zoom, drag the on-screen joystick to walk, and tap a room beacon to jump there. (W/A/S/D is the keyboard alternative to the joystick on a computer.)
Start designing your room
Draw it, furnish it, walk through it in 3D — on web, iOS, and Android.
Open Room Sketch 3DOne-time purchase · No subscription · Web, iOS & Android