Floor plan to Blender: import a 3D house model as GLB or OBJ

To open a floor plan in Blender you need a 3D file, not a drawing. Export the plan as a model, then use the importer Blender ships: File > Import > glTF 2.0 (.glb, .gltf) for GLB or glTF, and File > Import > Wavefront (.obj) for OBJ. Blender imports geometry, so the step that turns lines on a sheet into walls and rooms happens before the import, not inside Blender. This page is for anyone holding a PDF or a photograph of a plan who wants a blockout to light, render or animate, and would rather not model the walls again by hand.

Which 3D file should you export for Blender?

Export GLB unless something downstream needs another file. It is a single file with its textures inside, and the glTF 2.0 specification fixes two things a house model cares about: all linear distances are meters, and +Y is up. Blender works +Z up, so the up axis has to change somewhere, and with glTF the format decides it rather than you. Choose packaged glTF when you want to read the JSON or swap a texture by hand, OBJ when the receiving tool is old or simple, and Collada only after checking that your Blender version still reads it.

That last row is the trap in most older tutorials. Collada was the standard answer for moving a building between applications, and on Blender 5.0 and later the menu entry is gone, so a DAE needs Blender 4.5 LTS or a third-party add-on. GLB does not carry that risk: the glTF 2.0 add-on is enabled by default, and the Wavefront OBJ importer is part of Blender itself.

What is in the model before you export it?

A reconstruction of your drawing: rooms, walls and openings, plus the fixtures and furniture placed in the editor. It is conceptual geometry, closer to a blockout than to a set of as-built drawings, and there is no wall assembly, no structure and no service behind the surfaces. In Metric mode, a wall shown as 3.2 m is 10 ft 6 in. Scale is interpreted from the source drawing rather than surveyed, and it can come back unresolved, which is the one status worth reading before you trust any dimension in the file.

How do you import it, and what do you check afterward?

1. Import into an empty scene the first time. If the geometry lands somewhere unexpected, nothing you already built moves with it.
2. Use the menu entry for the file you exported: File > Import > glTF 2.0 (.glb, .gltf) or File > Import > Wavefront (.obj).
3. For OBJ, set Forward Axis and Up Axis in the import panel before you click through. OBJ stores no unit and no orientation, so those fields are the whole conversion.
4. Set the scene units before judging the size. Properties > Scene > Units holds Unit System and Length, and the manual is clear that Unit Scale changes the values shown in the interface, not how anything behaves internally. Reading in feet does not move a vertex.

Then run four checks, in this order, because each one hides the next. Scale first: measure a long wall in Blender and compare it with the dimension printed on the plan. A model whose overall run reads 39 ft 4 in (12 m) against a plan that states the same number is a model you can build a camera around. Compare a second independent dimension too. A factor of ten or a hundred suggests a unit or import-scale mismatch, but inspect the export and object transforms before ruling out a source or reconstruction problem.

• Orientation. A correctly authored glTF model should import upright: Blender’s importer converts glTF’s +Y-up convention to Blender’s +Z-up convention. A house lying on its side is an orientation problem to investigate, not normal success. Check the source model, root-object transforms, and whether an extra rotation was applied. For OBJ, check the Forward Axis and Up Axis import settings.
• The Outliner. Look at what arrived as separate objects and what arrived welded together before you start selecting geometry by eye. OBJ in particular has no parenting to give you.
• Normals. Turn on face orientation in the viewport overlays. A wall lit from the wrong side is usually a flipped face, and the OBJ importer carries a Validate Meshes option that checks imported meshes for corrupt data and repairs it.
• Duplicate vertices. glTF splits vertices wherever normals or UVs are discontinuous, which is how graphics hardware wants them. The importer has a Merge Vertices option that recombines co-located vertices where it can.

Make the import useful before you improve its appearance

Choose one downstream task, such as a new camera view or a furniture arrangement. After the unit and material checks, select a wall, an opening and one furniture piece and inspect how they are organized. If changing the scene requires separating or rebuilding geometry, include that cleanup in the handoff effort. Opening a GLB in Blender is not the same as recovering the native architectural editing relationships.

Keep the source drawing and a checked known length with the scene. Compare the first imported view with the exported option before adding detail. If the real task is native architectural authoring rather than mesh visualization, assess the required building data and destination tools before committing to a mesh workflow.

What INK TO BRICK does here

INK TO BRICK turns an uploaded floor plan into the model you export. The upload is a PDF, PNG, JPEG, SVG, or DXF file of up to 25 MiB. Choose the required PDF page and crop in the local preparation workspace before uploading. The nine 3D formats are GLB, glTF, OBJ, Collada DAE, STL, 3MF, SKP, STEP and USDZ. GLB, glTF, OBJ, DAE, STL, 3MF and USDZ are included on every plan, SKP needs Pro or Team, and STEP is on Pro and Team. Every plan includes basic exports. The project creator or an assigned customer Editor with an available seat can use it while the project is nonpublic.

Every 3D export names its source, which matters more than the format does. The canonical model is the reconstruction with your edits. The original-model source refers to a model associated with the project, not the floor plan PDF or image. A saved presentation build is one specific look you kept, so the file matches the images you already showed someone. Your plan sets how many floors a home or project can have: up to 2 on Home, 4 on Home Max and Plural, 3 on Core, 6 on Pro and 10 on Team.

If you have not converted the drawing yet, start at floor plan to 3D. If you are not sure GLB is the right file, the export format guide lays all twenty side by side. For what a handoff to a visualization team involves, read 3D visualization handoff; for the difference between a model and a rendered image, read render versus model. Format access by plan is on the pricing page.

If an AI agent will continue the scene, give it a Blender-specific control surface. OpenAI’s Astra architectural visualization case study used Blender’s Python API to create and review a scene. A separate Blender MCP server is another route. The INK TO BRICK MCP server reads existing floor plan projects and supported option state; it does not import the GLB into Blender or operate Blender for you.

Try it and check your result

Import a GLB into an empty Blender scene, identify the entry room in the Outliner and measure two independent wall runs against the source. Inspect a window wall from both sides with face orientation visible, then save a new .blend working copy. If the house is sideways or the dimensions differ, inspect transforms and import settings before adding another rotation or rescaling the whole scene.