Frequently asked questions

OpenKitchen3D is open-source kitchen and cabinet planning software. You capture a room by scanning it with an iPhone or iPad, opening an existing floor plan or drawing it, then design parametric cabinet runs in 2D plan, elevation and real-time 3D, check clearances, and export a cabinet schedule, bill of materials and estimate.

Yes. The planner, the project file format and the catalog schema are MIT licensed, so you can use, study, modify and share them at no cost. Any optional hosted services offered later, such as cloud sync, will not be required to open or edit your own projects.

OpenKitchen3D is in active development and built in the open. The room-planning engine it is built on, OpenPlan3D, is available now for free in your browser. The kitchen-specific cabinet tools and the iPhone and iPad app are being built in phases.

OpenPlan3D is the open floor-plan engine underneath — walls, rooms, openings, 3D and RoomPlan import. OpenKitchen3D is a separate product built on top of it, adding kitchen-specific cabinets, runs, validation, catalogs and pricing. Projects move between the two where their formats overlap.

No account is needed to plan a kitchen. Projects are local-first and stored on your device; signing in will only be needed for optional features such as syncing between devices or sharing a link with someone else.

Room scanning uses Apple RoomPlan, which needs a LiDAR sensor — found on iPhone 12 Pro and later Pro models and iPad Pro models from 2020 onward. Other devices can use a guided manual measuring workflow or draw the room by hand.

A RoomPlan scan is usually close enough to start designing, but it is an estimate. Kitchens are built to tight tolerances, so OpenKitchen3D keeps scanned dimensions separate from field-verified ones and asks you to confirm wall lengths, openings, ceiling heights and utility locations before a plan is used for ordering.

Yes. You can draw walls by hand at precise dimensions on any device with a modern browser, or open an existing OpenPlan3D floor plan.

No. A scan captures visible walls, doors, windows and large objects. OpenKitchen3D never infers plumbing, electrical, gas, venting or structure from a scan — those locations must be measured and confirmed on site.

Base, wall, tall and corner cabinets, plus appliances, fillers, end panels, toe-kicks and countertops. Cabinets are parametric — width, height, depth and front layout are real data — so resizing never distorts doors or hardware.

A run is an ordered group of cabinets along a wall, or a freestanding group like an island. Cabinets in a run snap to the wall and to each other, reflow when one is resized, and share a generated countertop and toe-kick.

Yes. Everything is stored in millimetres internally and shown in metric or imperial, so switching units never introduces rounding errors into your project.

Yes. Islands and peninsulas are freestanding runs with seating overhangs, and corners can use blind, diagonal or L-shaped corner units that the planner chooses and validates.

The validation panel flags cabinet collisions, door and appliance swing conflicts, narrow work aisles, missing landing space, missing fillers and sizes your catalog does not offer. Each warning links to the affected objects and suggests a fix.

It checks common planning guidelines and labels each one with its source and region, but it does not certify code compliance or replace a permit review. Always confirm requirements with your installer or local building authority.

Yes. Door style, finish, countertop and hardware can be changed for one cabinet, a whole run or the entire room at once, and the change flows through to the schedule and price.

OpenKitchen3D starts with a generic starter catalog with common North American and European sizes. Manufacturer catalogs come later through the open catalog format, and only with the publisher’s permission to redistribute them.

Yes. Catalogs are open, versioned packages that define cabinet families, allowed sizes, fronts, finishes, SKUs and pricing expressions. Cabinet shops and manufacturers can publish their own without changing any application code.

Yes. Prices come from the catalog’s pricing rules plus configurable markup and tax, and every estimate records the catalog version and date it was priced from so it can be reproduced later.

The open OpenKitchen3D project JSON, a cabinet schedule and bill of materials as CSV, a PDF with plan, elevations and estimate, PNG and SVG snapshots, and a GLB 3D scene. DXF and other CAD exchange formats are planned later.

Yes. Export a PDF with dimensioned plan and elevations plus the cabinet schedule, or share the project file, which anyone can open without a vendor account.

Not in the first release. Manufacturing output needs construction rules, joinery and hardware boring that must be validated in real shops, so cut lists, nesting and DXF parts are planned as a separate beta, with CNC only after testing on specific machines.

The planner runs in modern browsers on Mac, Windows, Linux and Chromebook. A native iPhone and iPad app adds RoomPlan scanning, Apple Pencil support and AR preview, and opens the same projects.

The core design workflow is designed to work offline, with projects saved on your device. Features like syncing and share links need a connection.

On your device by default. Projects and scans are uploaded only if you choose to sync or share them.

2020 Design (Cyncly) is a mature professional tool with large manufacturer catalogs, and IKEA’s planner is built for designing IKEA kitchens. OpenKitchen3D is free, open and not tied to one vendor, but it is newer and still in development.

Most professional kitchen tools are paid subscriptions or licences, while free options are usually retailer planners or freemium apps with limits. OpenKitchen3D aims to offer professional-style run-based design, elevations and schedules as free open-source software.

Measured kitchen layouts, construction presets and feedback on the catalog format are especially useful right now. For help or partnership questions, email labs@laan.com.