Create Floor Plans And Interior Designs

Planet Next has announced LivingRoom for iPad 1.5, a major update to their Lifestyle app that allows the user to easily create accurate floor plans, and then overlay design elements. The app includes a library of over 50 structural and design items, over 100 textures, 250+ colors, and the capability to add custom fabrics and textures. All elements are adjustable in size using touch or keyboard entry, as are their positions and angles. Once a floor plan is constructed, the user is free to move around furniture, lamps, cabinets, appliances, etc. to find the ideal arrangement. Room designs may be posted to Facebook and Twitter, saved to the Photo Library, or emailed as a PDF file.

On launch, in portrait or landscape mode, the app automatically re-opens the user's most recently edited floor plan. Alternatively, the user may choose My Rooms and scroll to the desired plan, or may select New Room and begin with a blank canvas. Starting with an empty screen, LivingRoom prompts the user to select the Add button, which brings up a translucent, horizontal band containing small icons of common household items, appliances, structural items such as walls and staircases, and basic geometric shapes.

Most users will start with a floor plan, easily created by dragging walls down from the library. The app accommodates either feet or meters, and wall dimensions can be quickly set by dragging control points. Selecting the wall object brings up its Information dialog, where the user may enter numerical dimensions into text boxes. Similarly, walls and all other objects can be moved by dragging, or incrementally using the Nudge tool. Also adjustable, both manually and by slider setting in the Information dialog, is the angle of each item. Each object occupies its own layer, and may be moved forward or backward. Even the most irregular layouts can be quickly constructed using the stretch, shrink, move, rotate, copy, paste, and lock functions.


Feature Highlights:
* Create professional quality room layouts and designs in minutes
* Saves all work automatically
* Generous undo/redo
* Large built-in database of structural and design items - furniture, appliances, lighting, bathroom & kitchen objects, and more
* Easily move, resize, and rotate objects; add custom labels
* Create irregular room types easily - just combine and rotate wall sections, doors, and windows
* Add colors and textures to any object in the room
* Keep all projects together and browse them easily in the built-in Rooms Gallery
* Duplicate any room with one touch
* Save designs to the Photo Library
* Share designs via Facebook, Twitter, and email
* Add custom fabrics and textures
* Keep notes for each project
* Set units of measure
* Optionally hide all furniture and only show structural components

With the floor plan complete, the user may begin the interior design process by adding items already provided in the library, or by creating elements and adding labels using the integrated keyboard. Scaling furniture is quick and intuitive, and within minutes the designer has a workable starting point. Particularly effective in adding realism is the Texture function, accessed from the Information dialog. From here the user can choose from a large library of over 100 grayscale textures, including: carpet, concrete, fabrics, leather, metal, stone, tiles, wood, and other. Once assigned to the object, any of 256 different colors may be applied to the particular texture. There are also provisions for adding custom textures, and employing custom photos as surfaces.

As part of its simple, interactive interface, the developers have also included a variety of convenience features, such as: labeling of rooms and areas, a map-like graphical legend in the lower right, compass directions, two-finger pinch and rotate gestures, automatic snapping into alignment of adjacent objects, zoom in/out, note-taking while the floor plan is displayed, easy duplication of objects or complete rooms, auto-save function, many levels of undo/redo, optional layout grid, optional furniture hiding, optional nudge controls, and more. Users may share their creations on Facebook and Twitter, save their designs to their Photo Library, and send PDF files of their designs by email.

"Feedback from interior decorators and designers, as well as ordinary people experimenting with layout and design has been overwhelmingly positive," stated company Founder Matt Aronoff. "Whether you are going over ideas with a client or planning a furniture purchase for your new place, LivingRoom for iPad 1.5 will help bring your creative vision to reality."


Pricing and Availability:
LivingRoom for iPad 1.5 is $4.99 (USD) and available worldwide exclusively through the App Store in the Lifestyle category. Review copies are available upon request.

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