Step 1: start a project

A new empty project

Pick File › New empty project. You get one level, Level 0, with its floor plan, and nothing else. The status bar says what to do next.

Or open a sample

The File menu has a few ready-made houses to explore:

• New starter house: the house CreaBIM opens on, a two-storey family house with every kind of element, its plans, sections, elevations, schedules and a full set of sheets. See The starter house.
• New simple sample house: a plain two-storey house with walls, doors, windows, slabs, a roof, a stair, sections, elevations, schedules and sheets.
• New layered sample house: the simple house built from layered walls, floors and roof (see Layered assemblies).
• New typed sample house: walls, doors and windows that share types, a storefront curtain wall, a wall opening and a stair shaft.
• New sample with a beam in a wall: a lintel hidden inside a wall, to try X-ray and picking what is hidden.

Choose your units

Before drawing, check File › Project units…. Pick Metric (millimetres, centimetres or metres) or Imperial (feet and inches). Every field, dimension and schedule follows that choice. See Units.

The views

The middle of the window is split into areas: by default the 3D view and a drawing (a plan, section or sheet) side by side. Whatever you draw in one appears in the other at once. Pick another layout from Workspace at the top right: Model is one big 3D view, Document adds the sheet. Each area's header picks what it shows. See View areas.

Next: Set up the levels