MagicPlan Creates A Floor Plan With Your Phone’s Camera

iOS/Android: Need a quick and dirty floor plan for your house? Free app MagicPlan can put one together using just your smartphone’s camera.

A few years ago, I built my own house. That means I a spent a lot of time agonising over floor plans and materials estimates, and by the end of it I had every room dimension memorised. Do you know who has the brain space for that? No one. That’s why when I moved to my new (150 year old) farmhouse — with all new room sizes and dimensions — I finally decided to let my iPhone do the work for me. This is where the MagicPlan app comes in.

First, it uses your phone’s camera to measure the dimensions of each room, which means you can have your whole house measured in a matter of minutes, instead of spending a couple of hours wrangling a tape measure. The measurements are accurate enough for planning purposes (although I still recommend breaking out an actual tape measure when you’re going to build something.) It also allows you to carry a copy of your floor plans in your pocket at all times.

While not everyone is in a constant state of tearing their house up and piecing it back together again, I can’t think of any reason not to use the free version of the app to keep a floor plan close at hand — instead of whipping out a tape measure every time you want to buy a piece of furniture or a new rug, you’ll have everything in one place.

You can also download a PDF of your plans. The free version is watermarked, but doesn’t interfere with reading the plans or dimensions. Try it out using the links below.

MagicPlan [iTunes App Store]

MagicPlan [Google Play Store]