User Guide

Guide Topics

Welcome!

For information on a topic, simply click its tab on the left. If the topic you are looking for is not covered here, please contact us!

To get you started

Please make sure you have followed the first 3 steps before you start:

Register on our website (Tutorial Video)
Download and Install YouCanPlan3D (Tutorial Video)
Create a YouCanPlan3D Account (Tutorial Video)

Installing YouCanPlan3D

Once you have downloaded the appropriate YouCanPlan3D installation package, it's as simple as launching the installer and following the instructions on screen.

System Requirements

To avoid disappointment and wasted effort, please check that your system meets the required specifications before installation. Any system that equals or betters the specifications listed below should be fine. If you run into any problems feel free to contact our support team.

	PC	MAC
Operating System (OS)	Windows 2k, XP, Vista	OS X 10.4 / later
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium III / AMD Athlon, 500Mhz	G4 CPU, 1GHz or faster
System Memory (RAM)	512MB (1024MB Recommended)	512MB (1024MB recommended)
Free Hard Drive Space	100MB	100MB
Internet Connection	128 Kbits/sec
Graphics Card (GPU)	3D-capable with 16MB VRAM	3D-capable with 32MB of VRAM
Screen Capabilities	1024x768, 16-bit High Colour	1024x768, Thousands of Colors
Java Runtime Environment (JRE)	JRE 1.5 or above

Connecting to the YouCanPlan3D server

When launched, YouCanPlan3D will automatically attempt a connection to the YouCanPlan3D server. A successful connection will show the main program menu.

Server IP Configuration

If for some reason the online server goes down, or has been moved, the YouCanPlan3D client will be unable connect. You will receive a prompt to enter the new server IP address.

This address will be available here.

You can then enter the new server IP address by pressing “Configuration”

My Account

To start using YouCanPlan3D, you need an account. To create an account, click on "Create New Account" in the main program menu.

You must provide a valid email address here since that is where we will send your password to. This process prevents bots from registering and also serves as a method of ensuring that you are indeed you.

What user type are you?

When you create your account, you also need to choose a user type to register.

Householders are residents with the responsibility for the design of the house for that household.
Residents are individuals who live in the community and belong to a household.
Visitors can login to the community but can not submit any designs.

Only 'Householder' and 'Resident' accounts will work at present

Only a householder has the permission to choose a profile type which better defines their household. It is up to the householder to specify a household name and password for other residents to join your household.

As a resident, you are supposed to join somebody else’s household. A household name and its password are required to create your account

Once your account has been created, your password will be sent to your email address. To change it, just go to log in via the GUI and press change password button. You will receive a prompt to enter your old password and new password twice

If you have forgotten your password, simply enter your username in the log in GUI and press forgot password button. A new password will be sent to your registered email address.

The four centres

There are four basic centres in YouCanPlan3D: Look, Manage, Shop and Chat. Each centre is housed in it's own panel and nested on it's own edge of the screen. You can show or hide these centres at will. When hidden, a centre is represented by it's own icon. By hiding all the centres you will have a complete view of your design or community.

Look centre

Look centre controls everything you can see and how you see it. Camera & view modes, visible layers, navigation controls and more can be found here

Manage centre

Manage centre helps you manage desigs in your household. You can delete, view and add designs or work on them with your residents. You can find a plot that suits your profile, manage your budget and submit designs either for community view or as a bid for a plot in a challenge.

Shop centre

In shopping centre, you can add or change components used in your design. Each component’s price is displayed as well as the amount of your budget remaining.

Chat centre

Chat centre provides you with several chat modes (public, public group, private group and private chat). Messages sent in public chat will be seen by all online users. System messages are also displayed here. You can create or join a chat room for group chat either in public or private mode. You can only join a private chat room by invitation. Colour and size of messages can be customised. System messages, however, are always highlighted in a specified colour

Plot Design Mode/Community Mode You can switch your design mode between plot design and community view using the 'design' and 'community' icons. First button will load you to the plot design view where you can test different designs on your plot, while the second button will show you the whole community view where you can tour the community, choose your plot, view plot information etc.
Walkabout/Orbit By default, the community view is in orbit camera mode
You can switch between orbit mode and walkabout view mode by clicking the 'footprint' and 'circular arrow' icons.
Neighbour View You can view your neighbours’ designs when building your own design in order to improve the consistency of the whole community view. By pressing the 'neighbour view' icon,

you can switch from your stand alone design

to neighbour view

Internal/External View

You can switch between viewing your model from the exterior and viewing internal components by using the 'interior/exterior' icons

to change from external view

to internal view

With/without Placeholder View

You can design your house by switching on or off the placeholders using the 'placeholders' button

It switches from with placeholders

to without placeholders

Using Layers View

By specifying which layers you wish to see, you can define a custom layered view of your design by using the 'layers' button. An example list of available layers for your current design is shown below.

You will then have a customised view of layers for the current design

Mini Map The mini map always shows your current walkabout position with a blue circle and plots you have designs for with a small green house. You can enable the mini map with the 'map' icon
Fit to Window For both plot design view and community view, you can use the 'fit to window' button to make the design or community to fit to window

View Different Side of Design

In order to give you a more convenient design environment, various tools are designed for you to build a plot design. You can view your design’s front, right side, back, left side, top and isometric view using

The following is an example of their corresponding operations

Navigating controls

To use the navigating controls, press the helm icon.

. You will then see the navigation control tool.

Orbit mode

Tilt: You can use the left hand side slider to tilt the view vertically. Drag it or click the icons at its tips.
Zoom: You can use the right hand side slider to zoom in or out (+ to zoom in, - to zoom out)
Arrows: Use the left, right, forward and back arrows to pan left, right forward and back relative to ground level.
Look around: Click and drag the ring to rotate your view

Walkabout mode

In walkabout mode there are additional options such as the collision detection on/off, move up and down, change walking speed etc.

Collision detection on/off: If the collision detection is on, you will be stopped when any object blocks your path. Click the icon in the center to toggle collision detection on and off
Walking speed: Use the top slider to change your walkabout speed.
Up and down: Use the right hand slider to adjust your view height.

Find your plot

In the “my profile” panel, your registered information, your household information and your household profile is displayed. Your profile is defined when the householder of your household creates the account. By pressing “Find a plot” button

in my profile panel, plot information that suits your profile, e.g. budget, bedrooms, storeys, distance to transport, etc. will be displayed.

Test a design on your plot

To test a plot design, build your design and allow your residents to improve it, you have to:

Choose the plot you want the design to be on by clicking any plot with or without designs from the community. You will then see the plot name displayed in the “Plot” field in “My Designs” panel
Give your design a name
then press to create a new test design

Load your new test design file by selecting ‘test4’ in your household design list table and then pressing the load button

Residents in your household can still load and see design ‘test4’, but they can not change anything. “Current writer” is the person who holds permission to modifying the design file.

Managing designs in your household

In “My designs” panel, you can manage all designs in your household. For example, in our example household there are 3 test designs on plot 4 and 7.

After you loaded and locked the design file, in the central canvas, you can see design ‘test7’, move your mouse to the placeholder on the plot design and use the tools in manage centre and shopping centre, to continue to complete your test design. Alternatively, you can use

button in look centre to let the software generate an example design for you. To allow other residents to see and improve your design, you need to:

Save and send it to server by clicking save button
Press the close icon to release the current design

Current Writer

Also, once you have saved your current design, if you open any other design, you will release the current design for editing. In the example the lock on test7 is automatically released when test4 is opened

Once you have saved and release your file, residents in your household will be able to view and change your design. The resident who holds the lock on a file can change the file name, status etc. using the Design Properties icon.

While locked, others can only view the status using this button. If the design’s Current Writer is either you or nobody, this design can be deleted by pressing the Trash Can icon.

Your household design status will be updated as you add or remove different types of designs.

Edit your design

In my design choices panel, you can edit and build your design from the component tree of a design. You can click at any part of your house on the list, e.g. Rear façade, and choose a rear façade from the shopping category which automatically shows you all the available rear façades which suit your house type and plot
You can undo or redo any action that changes your design. To delete a part of the design, click on the component and then press delete button. Use left and right arrows to find more pattern books.

Build your design from patternbook

To build any part of your design either choose from “My design choices” panel or by clicking on the placeholder on your plot, the shopping category will list all available pattern books and only the ones that can fit to your house type and plot position.
For example, if you want to build your front façade, a list of all front façade is shown in shopping category:

Double click on any of the pattern books you would like to apply to your design.

Manage your budget

When you design your house, you are informed of each component’s price and your budget remaining. The more people choose the same component, the cheaper this component is. Therefore, walk through your community, find the most popular housing component to use to improve your community’s consistency and manage your budget. Your budget remaining will be automatically calculated as you edit your designs

Information boards

You can check each plot’s information from its information board at its front or check all plots updated since your logging in from the plot table

The plot info board contains all designs submitted for community view or submitted for bid by all residents in the community. One household, however, can only show one plot design for community view at any one time. When you first log in to the community, each plot in your community is loaded with a random public design or a bid design one exists.

By pressing “Previous” or “Next” on the board, you will be able to view other submitted designs. The plot info board provides the information of plot name, design name, from which household, for community view or submitted for bid and last modified time.

You can also check the plot table to see the status of each plot that has been updated since you logged in.

From this table, you can get the idea of which plot is more popular and also check their latest upgraded asking price.

Simulate designs

You can make cool and easy simulations on your plot or your community by randomly selecting pattern books to complete your plot design and a future look of your community. Either in plot design or community mode, press

button, you will get a quick build on your plot design or community

The plots which have already had submitted designs are not affected. The simulation will just fill in the blank plots with some random designs selected from pattern books

View neighbouring designs

When you design your house, you can switch it to a neighbouring view with [img] to make sure your house will be consistent with your community’s building style. You will then be switched to a neighbouring view.

Challenge time remaining

For each YouCanPlan3D challenge, you can view the community, design your house and submit your bid within a specified period of time. Once the challenge expires, you can not submit any bid but you can still test on different plots until the next challenge starts. To check whether you are still within the challenge time, press the clock icon. The time left will be shown

Community statistics

To check the community statistics, click the statistics icon.

You will see the total number of users, current number of online users, number of users that have finished, total number of plots, total number of available plots, testing plots, for community view plots, bidding plots and the average offer in the community

Show your design to the community

Your household can show only one test design to public view at any one time in any plot. If you have already published a public view design, the old one will be replaced by any new one submitted. Once you have completed the test design, press

to display your design in the community. You will be asked for confirmation before submission.

Any design submitted for community view can be withdrawn to testing, deleted or replaced by another public view design. Your household design status will be updated as well. To change the design back to testing, simply load the file and change its status from Public to Testing.

You can delete the public design or replace it by submitting another one.

Submit design

“Submit your design to bid” is a final decision for your work. It means your plan is being submitted for bid and you can not withdraw or delete. Your offer will be considered. If you are ready to submit your plot design for bid, just press the button

Once you’ve done this, your offer will be effective. However, you can still view others’ designs, test and submit for public view designs and use all the functions of YouCanPlan3D except submitting another bid.

Chat

There are three basic types of chat, private, group, public and they are all available in YouCanPlan3D. After you log in to a community, you will see an online users list

Private Chat

To start a private chat with any online user, click on that user, press “Start private chat”. A conversation between you two will be created in private chat panel. You can have as many private chats as you like.
You can customise your message display using the tools one the panel and leave the chat at any time you like

Group Chat

You can either join a chat room or create your own new chat room to start a group chat.

To join a room, simply find the current online chat rooms, choose a room and press “Join room”
To create a room, press “Create room”, give the room a name, specify its capacity and type
As a public chat room, any user can join, but if it is a private chat room, only the persons already in the room can invite others. You can invite any other to join your room and if you receive an invitation like below, you can choose to accept or reject.
Like private chat, you can have as many group chats as you like. When the last person leaves the chat room, this room will be automatically deleted.

Public chat

All the system messages are sent in the public chat area. Messages you send in this area will be seen by all online users. Messages sent in all types of chat are filtered for bad words. If you publish bad words 10 times, you will be kicked out and your account will be banned permanently.

Invite a friend

You can send email to your friends to invite them to join YouCanPlan3D or to join your household through the software

Simply enter your friend’s email address and add your own message. If you invite them to join your household, your household name and password will automatically be sent to them in the email