Flooring questions, answered
Can I calculate flooring from a building model?
Yes – upload the building model as an IFC file to the free Autolay planner; it reads the rooms stored in the model, lays the floor of each one to scale and counts the pieces, cuts, packs, waste and cost.
Open the free planner →A building model already knows every room's outline, so there is no need to measure a printed plan again. Export the model from your architecture software as an IFC file and upload it: the planner opens the model in the browser and reads the rooms from it.
For each room you then choose the floor covering and pattern, and the planner works out what has to be bought and cut – not a flat area plus a percentage, but the real pieces.
How it works, step by step
- Export the model as IFC. Save the model from your architecture software in the IFC format, including its rooms (spaces).
- Upload the file. Open the planner and choose the IFC file. It is opened in your browser; the model is shown in 3D.
- Pick the rooms. Rooms stored in the model are listed with their names and outlines. Pick one or several; if the model has no rooms stored, crop the model to the floor and trace the outline instead.
- Choose the floor covering. Pick the material, the piece size, the pattern and the laying direction for the rooms.
- Get the quantities. The planner lays each room and gives full pieces, cut pieces, packs, waste and a price estimate per room and in total, ready as a PDF with the plan and the cut list.
What it does not do
- The rooms are read from the space objects in the IFC file; a model exported without them needs the outline traced by hand.
- IFC, glTF, OBJ and PLY models are accepted; STEP files are not.
- Very large models can be slow in the browser – export only the storey you need.
- Without an account, an upload can be up to 50 MB per file.
Answer checked against the Autolay planner in October 2026.
More questions on this topic
- Can I calculate flooring from a building model?
- Yes. Upload the model as an IFC file to the free Autolay planner. It reads the rooms stored in the model, lets you pick them, lays the chosen floor covering in each one and counts the pieces, cuts, packs, waste and cost per room and in total.
- Which file format do I need?
- IFC. Most architecture software can export it. A 3D scan as PLY, OBJ or glTF also works; a 2D drawing works as DXF.
- Does it handle several rooms at once?
- Yes. Pick several rooms; the result lists each room and the total for the order.
- Is there an example to try?
- Yes. The planner opens an example building model with one click, so you can see the result before uploading your own.