PlanTape · User Guide ← Back to the app

Measure a floor plan in 5 minutes

PlanTape reads an HDB floor-plan PDF, finds the rooms for you, and gives you floor area (m²) and internal wall perimeter (m) per room — ready for flooring and skirting quotes.

Steps
  1. Upload the floor plan
  2. Let AI detect, then sanity-check
  3. Verify the scale (most important step)
  4. Fix room shapes
  5. Add missing areas & merge
  6. Area vs Perimeter view
  7. Export

1Upload the floor plan

Drop the PDF anywhere on the upload box (or click it to browse). Original HDB floor plans work best — the kind with dimension numbers like 3000 printed around the walls.

The PlanTape upload screen
Drag the PDF onto the dashed box. Detection starts automatically.

2Let AI detect, then sanity-check

Detection takes roughly 20–60 seconds — the button shows a live counter. When it finishes, every room is outlined and labelled with its area, and the room list on the right shows both area and perimeter per room, plus totals at the bottom.

Detection result with coloured room overlays
Each colour is a room type (green bedrooms, blue living, amber kitchen…).
Quick check: compare a room against the plan's printed dimensions. A bedroom marked 3000 × 4200 should read close to 12.6 m². If everything looks proportionally wrong, fix the scale first — see the next step.

3Verify the scale — most important step

Every number comes from one thing: the blue calibration line and the length you tell PlanTape it represents. The AI anchors it to a printed dimension automatically, but you should check both ends sit exactly on the dimension ticks. To redo it yourself:

  1. Click Set scale in the toolbar (or press S).
  2. Drag a line along the longest printed dimension you can find — end tick to end tick.
  3. The length box focuses automatically — type the printed value in mm (e.g. 12650) and you're done. All areas update instantly.
Drawing a scale calibration line
Drag along a printed dimension, then type its mm value. You can also drag either end handle of the blue line to fine-tune it.

4Fix room shapes

Click a room with the Select tool (V) and its corners appear as small squares. It works like Illustrator:

To do thisDo this
Move a cornerDrag it — it snaps to align with nearby corners (pink guide lines)
Add a cornerDouble-click on the room's edge where you want it
Remove a cornerDouble-click the corner
Curved wallAlt-drag a corner to pull out curve handles; drag a handle to bend
Nudge preciselyClick a corner, then arrow keys (Shift = ×10)
Move the whole roomDrag the room's body while it's selected
Undo any mistakeCtrl+Z (redo: Ctrl+Shift+Z)
A selected room showing its corner anchors
The selected room (LIVING/DINING) shows draggable corner anchors. Zoom with the mouse wheel; the +/− buttons are bottom-right.
Numbers recompute live as you drag — watch the room's m² label while you work. In the sidebar you can also rename a room (click its name), change its type, hide it from totals (eye icon), or delete it.

5Add missing areas & merge

If the AI missed a corridor or bay, don't fight the polygon — add a shape and merge it:

  1. Rectangle tool (R): drag a box over the missing floor. For odd shapes use the Pen (P): click each corner, click the first point again to close (click-drag while placing a point makes a curve).
  2. In the room list, click the merge icon (⧉) on the new shape's row.
  3. Click the room that should absorb it. The two become one outline; overlap is not double-counted.
Merge mode banner after drawing a rectangle
Merge mode: the blue banner tells you which shape is being absorbed — click the target room to complete (Esc cancels).

6Area vs Perimeter view

The toggle at the right end of the toolbar switches what the plan shows: Area shades each room with its m², while Perimeter draws bold orange outlines with each room's internal wall perimeter in metres — the view for skirting and wall-finish quotes.

Perimeter mode with orange outlines
Perimeter mode. The sidebar totals always show both figures.

7Export

Export CSV (bottom-right) downloads a spreadsheet with every room's area and perimeter plus the totals for included rooms. Rooms you've hidden with the eye icon are listed but excluded from totals.

8Accounts, saved plans & pricing

You can try PlanTape without an account — one free AI detection to see it work on your own plan. After that, sign in (Google, or email + password) to keep going:

Editing, measuring and exporting plans you've already detected never costs a detection — the quota only counts AI detection runs. If a detection fails, it isn't counted.

Shortcuts

KeyAction
V / S / P / RSelect · Set scale · Pen · Rectangle
Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Shift+ZUndo / Redo
Enter / EscClose / cancel a Pen drawing (Esc also exits merge mode)
Arrow keys (+Shift)Nudge the selected corner 1 px (10 px)
Mouse wheelZoom (the +/−/fit buttons are bottom-right)
Accuracy reminder: AI detection is a starting point, not gospel. For quotation-grade numbers: verify the blue scale line sits on the ticks, spot-check one room against its printed dimensions, and nudge corners onto the wall faces. The measurements are exactly as good as the calibration line and the outlines you approve.