Outdoor design
Free 3D Garden Planner: Design Your Yard in 2D & 3D
Plan a garden, patio, deck, raised beds, or full yard to scale. Drag in plants, trees, and outdoor furniture. Walk through in 3D. Free, browser-based, no sign-up, no paid plan.
A 3D garden planner is the fastest way to test landscape ideas before you dig a single bed or pour any concrete. Home 3D Plan lets you sketch your yard to scale, drop in plants, trees, paving, and outdoor furniture from a built-in catalogue, then switch from a top-down plan to a 3D walk-through to see how the space will actually feel.
Whether you're planning a small balcony, a courtyard, raised vegetable beds, a new patio, a deck-and-pergola combination, or a complete yard redesign, the workflow is the same, measure, draw, drop in elements, look at it from every angle, then iterate. All free, in a browser tab, with no download or sign-up.
Who uses a 3D garden planner
Homeowners planning a DIY landscape project, testing where the patio fits without paying for a design consult upfront.
Landscape designers and contractors using it for fast client visuals: a coloured 2D plan plus one good 3D angle often locks in a quote without booting a heavy CAD package.
Hobbyist gardeners planning rotation, sun exposure, and bed placement for vegetable plots, ornamental borders, or pollinator gardens.
Real-estate sellers showing buyers what an underused yard could become with relatively small landscaping moves.
How to plan a garden in five steps
Step 1. Measure the yard. Note property-line distances, the house outline, any existing features (trees, sheds, paths), and the position of sun at different times of day. A tape measure and a rough sketch are enough.
Step 2. Draw the boundary in 2D. Use the wall tool (set thickness to 0) to trace fences and property lines, then add the house footprint as a separate room. Grid snapping works in metres or feet.
Step 3. Lay out hardscape. Drop in paths, patios, decks, and retaining walls from the materials library. Get the proportions right before you commit to softscape.
Step 4. Place plantings and outdoor furniture. The catalogue includes outdoor sofas, dining sets, fire pits, planters, raised beds, trees, and shrubs at typical residential dimensions.
Step 5. Switch to 3D. Walk through the design, check sightlines from the house and the street, and verify proportions. When you find an angle you like, snapshot it to a photo render (PNG) in one click.
Patio + outdoor seating planning
A workable patio needs three things: enough square area for the seating plan you have in mind (allow ~2 m² per person for dining tables, ~1.5 m² per person for sofas/lounges), clearance to walk around furniture without bumping into it, and a sensible relationship to the house door / kitchen for serving food.
Drop your intended outdoor dining table at the size you're considering and check the buffer around it, chairs need ~60 cm of pull-back space behind them. Then place sofas and fire-pit areas and verify the path from house to patio doesn't cut through the conversation zone.
Raised beds + vegetable garden layout
Raised beds work best when you can reach across them comfortably (so width ≤ 1.2 m for single-side access, ≤ 2.4 m for two-side) and when the paths between are wide enough for a wheelbarrow (~75 cm minimum).
In the planner, draw beds to your intended size, leave the wheelbarrow paths between, and add the height of mature plants from the catalogue so you can check that tall crops aren't shading dwarf ones.
Deck + pergola planning
Decks are dominated by the railing height (usually code-mandated ≥ 1 m for decks above 60 cm) and the joist span (affecting which support posts are needed). Sketch your deck outline, drop in the support column locations, then visualise the railing height in 3D to make sure it feels right from inside the house looking out, not just looking down.
Pergolas should sit one storey high (2.2 to 2.6 m) over the part of the deck you want shaded. Use the 3D view to verify the shadow throw at the time of day you actually use the space.
Why Home 3D Plan for garden design
Free, with no paywall. Most browser garden planners require a paid plan for high-resolution exports, more than a couple of beds, or 3D access. Here every feature is free for every user.
No install, no Windows-only restriction. It runs in any modern browser. Plan on your laptop, then keep working on the same project from your phone.
Saves to your account so the plan survives a browser crash. Snapshot the lit 3D scene to a photo render (PNG) in one click, unlimited and watermark-free, or share a read-only or editable live link.
Indoor and outdoor live on the same canvas, the same project that holds your house plan can hold the yard too.
Frequently asked questions
Is this really free?
Yes. Every design feature is free for every user on every device today, with no per-export charge and no watermark.
Will there ever be a paid plan?
It is free today with no paywalled features. Home 3D Plan is community-funded rather than investor-funded, supported by optional partnerships and community contributions. If we ever introduce paid plans, we will show the fees before any charge and will not lock features you already use behind a paywall.
Do I need to create an account?
No. You can open the editor and start designing without signing in. A free account only adds cloud saves across devices, sharing, and a personal texture library; it does not unlock design features.
Can I plan just an outdoor area without modelling the house?
Yes. Draw the property boundary and skip the house. The planner doesn't require a complete building to work on outdoor layouts.
Does it include real outdoor furniture and plants?
Yes. The catalogue includes outdoor sofas, dining sets, fire pits, planters, raised beds, trees, and shrubs at typical residential dimensions. Each item can be resized if your actual piece differs.
Can I capture a shareable image of my garden plan?
Yes. Snapshot the lit 3D scene to a photo render (PNG) in one click, unlimited and with no watermark, and share a read-only or editable live link that opens in any browser without an account.
Can I produce a to-scale technical drawing?
The platform also includes DraftCAD, a separate 2D CAD tool that exports to-scale PDF, DXF, and SVG drawings. The garden planner itself gives you the 2D plan with dimensions on screen, unlimited photo renders, and shareable links.
Is Home 3D Plan free?
Yes. Home 3D Plan runs in your browser at no cost, with no sign-up requirement and no paywalled features. The PWA install is also free.
Do I need to install anything?
No. Home 3D Plan is a Progressive Web App, so you can open it in any modern browser and start designing. You can optionally install it to your home screen for offline access.
Can I export my plans?
Yes. Snapshot your lit 3D scene to an image (PNG) with one click, unlimited and with no watermark, and share a read-only or editable live link that opens in any browser without an account.