Sharing and exporting
Send the house as one HTML file anyone can open, print the drawings as a PDF to scale, and export DXF for CAD, GLB for 3D, and PNG or SVG.
In the video0:40
How to do it
To show the house to someone without the app, open the menu (the folder at the top left) and choose “Share as a file (HTML)”. You get one file, named after the project.
Send it by e-mail, or pass it on in a shared folder or on a USB stick. It opens in any browser, on a phone too, without a network: the plans floor by floor, the house in 3D, the drawings and a summary of the rooms and their areas.
For the building authority, open Drawings, press “Print all sheets” and choose “Save as PDF” at 100 % scale in the print dialog: every sheet at true scale.
For your architect’s CAD program, press “Export DXF” under the sheets: every plan, section and elevation in one file. “Export plan as DXF” in the menu gives the plan of the floor you see.
The menu also has “Export 3D model (GLB)”, “Export plan as PNG” and “Export plan as SVG”, and “Save project file”, which keeps the whole project to open in House Madness again.
Good to know
- What leaves the app is the house as you accepted it: an open suggestion from the assistant isn’t in the shared file, the PDF, the DXF or the exports.
- The shared file is made on your device and never uploaded: 2.3 MB for the Villa Solhaug demo house, less for most houses. It is in the app’s language, follows the reader’s light or dark theme and works by keyboard. The site plan is in it without its map.
- The DXF is release 2013 at 1:1 in millimetres, on standard layers (A-WALL, A-DOOR, …), with what exists, what is new and what is to be demolished on layers of their own, doors, windows, furniture and kitchen units as blocks named by kind and size (a piece from its maker’s 3D model by its own name), and the dimensions in the project’s style. The site plan, the structure sheets and the area table aren’t in it yet.
- Printing to scale without a watermark, SVG, GLB and DXF, the shared file, and pictures and panoramas come with Pluss; the plan as PNG and the project file are free. Pictures of the house for the family or the neighbours are in Pictures and 360° panoramas.
Questions and answers
What does the person I send it to need?
Just a web browser: no app, no account and no network. The file has the plans to pan and zoom, the house in 3D to turn, each drawing sheet, and the rooms with their areas in your country’s terms. Without JavaScript, as in a mail app’s preview, it shows the plans, the sheets and the summary one after another.
Which CAD programs open the DXF?
AutoCAD, ArchiCAD, Revit, BricsCAD and the others that read DXF. The drawing is at 1:1 in millimetres, so your architect, engineer or builder can measure it and work on from it instead of redrawing a PDF.
Can I open the shared file in House Madness again?
No, it is for looking at. To move the project to another computer or keep a copy, use “Save project file”, and open it again with “Open project file…” in the menu.