How to model and customize a house interior

Modelling and customizing a house interior with a BIM software for the architecture. Let's find out how to get the best solution according to the customer's needs.

The customer's choice of furnishing materials represents one of the key and most determinant moments during the designing phase.

As a matter of fact, what’s essential during this initial phase is being able to communicate your design ideas clearly while reflecting the customer's choices and taste. For this reason it is important that all the selected elements have very specific characteristics and properties.

The attention to detail and the definition of furnishing elements allow to have a clearer vision of the project and a more precise idea in terms of volumes and interior spaces. There are many reasons for creating an interior design project. However, the goal is usually the same – to improve how a space functions and to make it more visually appealing.

In a BIM type of technology, all objects are equipped with unique properties such as: type, geometry, finishes etc. Additionally materials and architectural elements can be tailored according to the customer's taste.

Let's take the project of a single-family residence designed by the architect Otavio Pereira Nunes as case study.

In particular, thanks to a BIM software for the architectural design, we will shape all the elements of the furniture (flooring, carpets, sofas, lighting) that make up the heart of the residence: the living area.

Living Area: furnishing elements

Customization of the interior flooring

Edificius, the BIM software for the architecture, allows to assign and easily customize a different flooring for each environment of the building. Let's see how.

When accessing the editor, we can start to customize the selected material.

From the properties toolbox we can modify the material by assigning, for example, colour, tile dimension, reflection and brightness. In this way we can personalize even the smallest details and immediately verify the result in both 3D and Real Time Rendering views.

Customization of interior furnishings

Entering the general catalogue or the online BIM Objects Library, we can furnish the project environments in few steps and very easily customize the previously inserted furnishings.

Customization of interior lighting (lighting points)

Let's now proceed to customize the lighting.

From the BIM Objects Library or the General Library we can select the elements that will illuminate the living area (ceiling spotlights) and through the use of the guidelines we place them in specific points.

Once the ceiling spotlights have been inserted, through the property toolbox we continue to define the characteristics of the single lighting point.

We can assign the type (point light and spot light), the range (led, incandescent, etc,), the focus, the opening and the angle of inclination.

The Real Time Rendering integration allows to verify the sunlight and shadows simulation according to different weather conditions.

Customizing a SketchUp imported object

In case an object is not present in the BIM Object Library it is possible to import it from SketchUp (see How to add SketchUp models in an architectural BIM design software ) and subsequently have the opportunity of editing.

The potential of the BIM software for the architecture allows to have an increasingly precise modelling possibility and at the same time meeting the customer's needs. Let's now look at a summary video below, showing the main steps of the project and the rendering of the final results.