Motivation

During their life, most people move house several times. Thereby a removal is connected with a laborious house hunting and various house inspections. To simplify this search, there should be a facility to present apartments in the Internet. These examples should be three-dimensional and virtually accessible and would have to be equipped with interior decoration, sources of light and other multimedia effects in order to obtain a sufficient impression of the flat.

From two-dimensional floor plans to a three-dimensional world

Microsoft Visio is a program which two-dimensional floor plans containing many details can be sketched with. Meanwhile the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) is a programming language that creates 3D-Models for the Internet. Both are fully developed products, but there is no interface that connects them. As a consequence of which three-dimensionally represented dwellings in the Internet are missing. The available thesis sets exactly here.

A product that changes the house hunting

As the end-product a supplementary product line (Add-In) was developed which furnishes Visio with the necessary properties to convert sketch plans directly into a VRML file (thus into a three-dimensional form). Objects such as walls, windows, doors and furniture are provided with additional characteristics in order to achieve the 3D-requirements. Colours and textures are enclosed to give the objects the desired appearance. Finally multimedia effects are added such as audio files, light, links, view rotation and background pictures which show the example as substantial as possible.

A cost-effective option

Contrary to the normally expensive CAD programs, this solution is a cheap alternative for real estate companies that would like to present their apartments in the Internet fast and easily and still offer a pleasing result.