MagicPlan 3.0: the Home Improvement App That Creates a Floor Plan
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could wave a magic wand, utter “Abracadabra!”, and find your home instantly transformed into a completed space, filled with the furnishings and décor your love? Well, consider that your smartphone may just be the magic wand you’ve been looking for, especially if you download the MagicPlan application. While this app won’t actually transport decorative elements from another dimension into your home and arrange your décor for you, what it will do is make the task of decorating your interior a heck of a lot easier thanks to the many innovative tools it employs. And if you happen to be in a professional field where having floor plans on hand is a necessity, you’ll find even more to love in this clever application for your iPhone and iPad.
In the interest of full disclosure, you should know from the outset that the app, while free to download, does have some limitations unless you’re willing to shell out some cash. You can map and create floor plans aplenty, but when you export them as a JPG or PDF file you’ll discover that they come with a developer watermark that could make them a little difficult to see. However, if you’re willing to cough up $2.99 you can export one complete floor plan, and you can get 10 for $19.99. Or for pros that use the app frequently, the $19.99/month subscription offers unlimited exports of floor plans (you will be automatically charged for this through iTunes until you cancel).
Also, you should be aware that the Sensopia, the developer behind this app, collects anonymous data, something that many users have voiced unease over. In truth, many apps do this, but at least MagicPlan is up front about it. A popup states, “This application collects and transmits anonymous data for diagnostics and improvement purposes.” While some might worry about private data being mined to sell to third parties, the wording suggests that data is collected for the sole purposes of improving the app.
Now that the disclaimers are out of the way you might be wondering just what makes this app so revolutionary. Think about the last time you measured a room. You likely had to move furniture and get on your hands and knees to measure each wall before mapping it out on graph paper with the proper dimensions. MagicPlan does all the hard work for you. Once you have gone through the calibration process for accuracy, all you have to do is stand in the middle of the room, point at a corner, and rotate along the length of the wall. As you go from corner to corner, eventually returning to your starting point, you’ll capture the area dimensions with the app in order to create a floor plan of the room. Then you can go from one room to the next, adding dimensions until you have a complete, interconnected floor plan of your home. Furniture can stay right where it is and there is even a tool to automatically fit closets.
This is thanks to several patented software technologies that use sensor fusion, reality capture, augmented reality, and algorithms to accurately map your interior spaces and piece them together. Developers expect that the program will come in handy not only for private homeowners, but also for real estate developers, interior designers, and even law enforcement officers that have to map crime scenes. And now that they’ve announced partnerships with Home Depot, Real Tour Vision, and Cocontest (an interior design platform) it’s likely that they’ll soon find targeted ways to appeal to all kinds of professionals (even electricians or plumbers like Filan & Conner). But for now, anyone who needs a quick and easy floor plan can benefit from this application.