Welcome to CreaBIM

CreaBIM is a free program for designing buildings. You draw walls, floors, doors and roofs, and CreaBIM keeps them as one 3D model of the building. Plans, sections, elevations, schedules and printed sheets are all made from that model, so they always agree with each other.

New to BIM?

BIM stands for Building Information Modelling. Instead of drawing lines that only look like a wall, you place a wall: an object that knows how thick and tall it is, what it is made of and which floor it stands on. Because the program knows what everything is, it can:

• draw the plan, the sections and the 3D view for you, from the same walls;
• update every drawing at once when you change something;
• count doors and windows in a schedule;
• send the model to other programs as IFC, the shared language of building software.

If a word here is new, the page BIM words explained has short definitions.

Where to start

• The starter house is the project CreaBIM opens on: what is in it and things to try.
• Getting started: a first house walks you through a small project, one step at a time.
• The window at a glance names the parts of the screen.
• Moving around the views shows how to orbit, pan and zoom.
• Keyboard shortcuts lists every key.

Getting help while you work

• Press F1 at any time. The guide opens at the page about the tool you are using, or about what you have selected. Press F1 again to close it.
• Click the ? next to the tool's name in the bar under the tools.
• Use the Help menu, or search the guide with the box at the top of this panel.
• Hover over any button: a short tip says what it does. The status bar at the bottom of the window tells you what to click next.
• Press Ctrl+K to find any command by typing part of its name.