BIM-GAN: a sketch to layout, 3D, and VR tool for architectural floor plan design

Designing a large-scale floor plan which has a strict functional requirement, such as the number of rooms and tables for an office, has been a painful task for the architects. They usually need to do manual sketches to test out the ideas and move to 3D-modeling software to complete the modeling and drawing.

BIM-GAN is the first machine-learning-assisted architectural design tool which allows the designers to convert their high-level sketch to completed floor plans and 3D models in real-time. The prototype follows the real workflow of the professional architects (Figure 2) and speeds up the workflow from hours to minutes. It also provides a new way for the client to communicate with the architect through a real-time immersive experience. For example, the client can wear a VR goggle and see how each stroke of the sketch is composing a detailed 3D building; and the architect can modify the design within a minute based on the feedback from the client's VR experience. Moreover, since the prototype provides the same workflow as the traditional sketching process, the architects do not need to learn any new software skills and are able to improve the production time significantly.