How to Create a 3D Floor Plan with Polycam
To create a floor plan in Polycam, scan each room with LiDAR or photos, let it process, then use the room-plan output to generate a 2D plan and a dollhouse 3D view. You can export the plan as a PDF and the model as OBJ, GLB or USDZ.
Who Needs a 3D Floor Plan?
Real estate agents listing a property, contractors quoting a renovation, and interior designers planning furniture layouts. A measured plan plus a dollhouse render communicates a space faster than a dozen photos, and for remote clients it is often the deciding artefact.
Polycam makes this practical without hiring a surveying firm, though accuracy has limits that matter for structural work.
How Do You Capture for a Floor Plan?
- Use LiDAR mode on a Pro iPhone or iPad for speed; fall back to photos if unavailable.
- Walk the perimeter of each room, then a pass through the middle.
- Capture doorways explicitly so rooms register as connected.
- Scan one room at a time and merge later — one giant continuous scan drifts.
Label rooms as you go. Renaming ten unnamed meshes afterwards is tedious and error-prone.
How Accurate Is the Result?
| Method | Typical accuracy |
|---|---|
| LiDAR scan | Roughly 1-2% of room dimensions |
| Photogrammetry | Varies; scale must be set manually |
| Tape measure (reference) | Baseline |
Good enough for listings and planning. Not good enough to cut cabinetry from. For anything installed, verify critical dimensions by hand.
How Do You Build the 2D Plan and Dollhouse?
In the Polycam web dashboard, open the scan and choose the floor-plan output. It extracts wall lines and produces a top-down plan, generally as a PDF. The dollhouse view is the 3D model with walls cut at a fixed height so you can see into rooms from above.
Clean up the auto-generated wall lines before exporting. Doors and windows often need manual adjustment, and a crooked wall in a client-facing PDF undermines the whole plan.
How Do You Share or Embed It?
Publish the model to a Polycam link and send it to clients — they can orbit the dollhouse in a browser without an app. On higher plans, you can embed the viewer in a listing page. For offline use, export GLB and host the viewer yourself.
An AR export (USDZ) is a nice extra for on-site walkthroughs on an iPhone.
What Are the Limits?
Large properties mean many scans, and the free tier runs out fast. Very reflective or glassy spaces scan poorly. And the platform is mobile-first — serious post-processing still happens in desktop tools, so expect to export rather than finish the job inside Polycam.
Quick Summary
- Scan each room separately (LiDAR or photos), label rooms, then merge.
- LiDAR accuracy is around 1-2% of room dimensions.
- Polycam generates a 2D plan PDF and a dollhouse 3D view.
- Clean auto-generated wall lines before client delivery.
- Fine for listings and planning; verify critical dims by hand for installs.
