FAQ
Read this page to get answers to Frequently Asked Questions
about Sweet Home 3D.
Installation
3D models import
Other features
Contributions
 Installation
- What is the minimum system requirements to run Sweet Home 3D?
Sweet Home 3D may be run under Windows 98 to Windows 7, Mac OS X 10.4
(Tiger) to 10.6 (Snow Leopard), various Linux systems and Solaris. Your
computer should have at least a processor running at 400 MHz, 256 MB
and a graphic card with its driver updated (it runs slowly but successfully
on a iMac DV).
Note that Sweet Home 3D offline
installer doesn't run under Windows 98 (SP1 or SP2). Under
that system, you can install Sweet Home 3D only with Java Web Start,
meaning you must install Java first,
then click on the link Launch Sweet Home
3D with Java Web Start.
- When I click on the link Launch
Sweet Home 3D with Java Web Start, my browser doesn't know what
to do with SweetHome3D.jnlp downloaded file. What should I
do?
Under Mac OS X, simply double-click on the icon of the SweetHome3D.jnlp
file (by default you should find it in the Download folder
of your home folder). Under Windows and Linux, this is probably because
Java isn't installed correctly or isn't installed at all on your system.
If you don't mind to download a bigger file (25 to 40 MB instead of
11 MB), the easiest way to fix this problem is to download Sweet Home
3D offline installer
bundled with Java and to follow installation
instructions.
Otherwise, under Windows, you should install or reinstall Java available
at http://java.com, then click again on
the link Launch Sweet Home 3D with Java Web
Start. Under Linux, you must also indicate to your browser that
it should open the JNLP file with the command javaws that you'll
find in the bin subdirectory of the directory where Java is
installed (search something named jre...).
- When I click on the link Launch
Sweet Home 3D with Java Web Start, I got the error message Unsupported
JNLP version in launch file: 1.5+. Only version 1.0 is supported with
this version. What can I do?
This message means that your system tried to run Sweet Home 3D with
a version of Java that is too old (Sweet home 3D requires Java 1.5 at
minimum). Under Mac OS X, ensure
that the SweetHome3D.jnlp downloaded file is opened by
Java Cache Viewer (11.5.0) application. Under Windows, you should
install the latest version of Java available at http://java.com
then click again on the link Launch Sweet
Home 3D with Java Web Start. Under Linux, check that the command
javaws used by your browser to open the JNLP file, is placed
in a subdirectory of jre 1.5 or 1.6.
- When I run Sweet Home 3D, only a splash screen appears
during a few seconds. What happened?
This is a problem due to the configuration of your graphic card. Please
read the answer to the next question.
- I got the message
Sweet Home 3D will exit now because of a fatal error in 3D rendering
system. What can I do?
This is a problem due to the configuration of your graphic card.
Under Windows:
- First, open the Display Properties pane by right clicking
on desktop screen and choosing Properties item in menu. In
that pane, display the Settings tab, and click on the Advanced
button. Then in the Troubleshoot tab of the pane that opened,
check the Hardware acceleration cursor is at its maximum
on Full, confirm your choice and try to run Sweet Home 3D
again.
- If the previous operation didn't resolve your problem, update
the OpenGL and DirectX drivers of your graphic card with the latest
available ones, and try to run Sweet Home 3D again.
- If this update still doesn't fix your problem, click on this link
to run Sweet Home 3D with the DirectX version of the Java 3D library,
or if you prefer to run Sweet Home 3D from its installer, download
the file SweetHome3D.l4j.ini,
copy it in Sweet Home 3D installation directory (by default it's
C:\Program Files\Sweet Home 3D) and relaunch Sweet Home
3D.
- Finally if running Sweet Home 3D with DirectX still fails, click
on this other link
to run Sweet Home 3D with an older version of the Java 3D library.
If it works, 3D performances and rendering won't be as good as with
default Sweet Home 3D version.
If this last solution doesn't work, sorry but Sweet Home 3D won't
be able to run on your computer at this time.
Under Linux:
- Update the drivers of your graphic card with the latest available
ones, and try to run Sweet Home 3D again.
- If this update doesn't fix your problem, click on this link
to run Sweet Home 3D with an older version of the Java 3D library.
If it works, 3D performances and rendering won't be as good as with
default Sweet Home 3D version. Otherwise, sorry but Sweet Home 3D
won't be able to run on your computer at this time.
- Sweet Home 3D crashes when I want to edit preferences,
print, create a photo or create a video. What can I do?
This bug happens mostly on a few Linux computers when Sweet Home 3D
checks whether computing offscreen 3D images is supported by Java 3D
on your computer. This feature is required to compute the top view of
furniture in the plan, to print the 3D view and to manage the two lowest
photo and video quality levels. If Sweet Home 3D detects offscreen 3D
images aren't supported by your system, it automatically disables the
features based on it, but sometimes, the detection test itself makes
Sweet Home 3D crash! Click on this link
to avoid this test in Sweet Home 3D and disable directly the features
depending on offscreen 3D images.
- A new version of Sweet Home 3D is available in my
language, but all texts are still in English. How can I change texts
by the ones of my language?
Choose your language in the Language drop down list of the Preferences
pane. Under Mac OS X, this pane is displayed by choosing the Preferences
item in the Sweet Home 3D menu. Under other systems, it's displayed
by choosing the Preferences item in the File menu.
- Where can I find older versions of Sweet Home 3D?
The installers of older versions of Sweet Home 3D are available in the
Files
section of the project on SourceForge.net.
If you want to run older versions of Sweet Home 3D with Java Web Start,
click on this link to run version 1.8
or this link to run version 0.10
(Sweet Home 3D version 0.10 is the study case of the French book Les
cahiers du programmeur Swing, written by Emmanuel Puybaret and published
by Editions Eyrolles in December 2006).
- How can I uninstall Sweet Home 3D?
To uninstall Sweet Home 3D, follow these steps depending on your system:
- Under Windows Vista / 7, select Programs and Features
in Windows Control Panel, select Sweet Home 3D in the programs
list then click on the Uninstall button.
- Under Windows XP and previous versions of Windows, select Add
or Remove Programs in Windows Control Panel, select Sweet
Home 3D in the programs list then click on the Remove
button.
- Under Mac OS X, move the icon of Sweet Home 3D application
in the trash. If you installed Sweet Home 3D with Java Web Start,
you may also empty the Java cache used by the program by running
javaws -viewer command in a Terminal window, then
removing Sweet Home 3D from Java Web Start applications list.
- Under Linux, if you installed Sweet
Home 3D with its installation program, move its application folder
in the trash. If you installed Sweet Home 3D with Java Web Start,
run javaws -viewer command in a Terminal window,
then remove Sweet Home 3D from Java Web Start applications list.
Sweet Home 3D saves also some data in other files and folders, separated
from the previous ones to avoid losing them when you update the software.
For your information, here are the places where you can find this data
when it exists:
- Under Windows Vista / 7, imported furniture, textures and plug-ins
are saved in the
C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\eTeks\Sweet
Home 3D folder and its subfolders ; user preferences
are saved in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\JavaSoft\Prefs\com\eteks\sweethome3d
folder of Windows registry.
- Under Windows XP and previous versions of Windows, imported furniture,
textures and plug-ins are saved the
C:\Documents and Settings\user\Application
Data\eTeks\Sweet Home 3D folder and its subfolders.
- Under Mac OS X, imported furniture, textures and plug-ins are
saved in the
Library/Application Support/eTeks/Sweet Home
3D subfolder of your user folder ; user preferences
are saved in the files com.eteks.sweethome3d.plist
and com.eteks.sweethome3d.SweetHome3D.plist found in
the Library/Preferences subfolder of your user folder.
- Under Linux, imported furniture, textures and plug-ins are saved
in the
.eteks/sweethome3d subfolder of your user folder ;
user preferences are saved in the.java/.userPrefs/com/eteks/sweethome3d
subfolder of your user folder.
3D
models import
- I downloaded a 3DS model from the web, but Sweet Home 3D doesn't
import it correctly and some parts of the model are scattered. What
can I do?
Importing 3DS files in Sweet Home 3D is made possible thanks to Java3DSLoader,
a third party tool provided by Microcrowd.
Just like Sweet Home 3D, this tool is free and open source, and you
may report problems about a given 3DS file to the author of Microcrowd,
or even better, contribute a fix if you've got some skills in Java 3D
or 3DS format.
- Does Sweet Home 3D support 3D models that uses textures?
Yes from version 1.6. You may import the 3D model file directly or a
ZIP file that contains the 3D model file and its texture files. Note
that once imported, a 3D model file and the files depending on it (MTL
file, texture image files...) are copied in private directories of Sweet
Home 3D to let you move these files elsewhere or even delete it.
- How can I change the color of the different parts
of a model at OBJ format?
The OBJ file format is a text file format that is quite simple. From
its description at Java
3D web site, this
discussion and this
one available on Sweet Home 3D forums, you may change the color
of the different parts of an OBJ model by adding usemtl colorName
rows in the file, where colorName is one of the color
described in this
document. From version 1.6, you may also describe model color and
texures in a MTL
file referenced by the OBJ
file with a mtllib mtlfile statement.
- How can I create a new category of furniture?
During the Import furniture wizard, you may choose the category
of an imported 3D model with an editable drop down list. Thus,
if you want to add an imported model to a new category, type a new category
name in the text field of this drop down list. If it doesn't exist,
it will be created.
- Which program can I use to create 3D model files?
You may use any program able to create or export 3D models at OBJ or
3DS format. Among the free programs, start with Art
of Illusion if you never use any 3D modeling program, because it's
quite easy to learn and use. Blender
is also a very popular program supported by a large community, but it's
much more difficult to learn. Both programs are able to export at OBJ
format and run under Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
- How can I transfer the furniture I imported on an
other computer ?
Whether they come from the default catalog or were imported, all the
pieces of furniture you use in a home are saved in the matching SH3D
file. Thus you may transfer and open a SH3D file on any other computer
even if it runs under an other operating system.
On the other side, the pieces imported in the catalog of Sweet Home
3D are saved in private folders. If you want to transfer these pieces
to the Sweet Home 3D catalog of an other computer, you may use ExportToSH3F-1.0.sh3p
plug-in. Once you installed
this plug-in, choose the new menu item Furniture > Export imported
furniture to SH3F... to create a SH3F file and import it on the
other computer with the Furniture > Import furniture library...
menu item (caution, this plug-in doesn't work with the Java
Web Start version of Sweet Home 3D).
If required, you may edit a SH3F file with the downloadable Furniture
Library Editor.
- I chose Furniture > Import furniture...
menu item to import a 3D model, but during the wizard, I got the message
Sweet Home 3D must exit now because of a fatal error in 3D rendering
system. What can I do?
This is a problem due to the configuration of your graphic card. Please
read the answer to the same question
in the Installation section. If it doesn't
solve your problem, you may also try to import
librairies of additional 3D models.
Other
features
- Where are described the features of Sweet Home 3D?
The features of Sweet Home 3D are described in its user's
guide, in this video tutorial
and in the full help system provided with the software.
- How can I create different levels in a home?
Sweet Home 3D doesn't manage this feature yet, but you can edit
more than one document simultaneously to create the different levels
of a home, and you may copy paste some parts of a plan between opened
documents.
Note that some users bypassed this missing feature, by adding
thin boxes (from Miscellaneous category) in the 2D plan to replace
the floors and the walls of upper levels, while other users created
documents for each level and assembled them with the Export to OBJ
format and Import furniture tools available in Sweet Home
3D (read How to create a multi-level
house guide by Hans Dirks). To manage objects that may superimposed
in plan, you may order furniture list by elevation order, to select
easily the objects of upper levels and modify their visibility.
If you want to add a sloping roof, you may assemble blue
slate roof,
red slate roof or polygonal
roof 3D models available at the 3D models
import page.
- How can I create round walls?
It's not possible, but you may approximate a round wall with small wall
parts (see the files murRond.png and murRond.sh3d
attached to this page).
Don't forget to temporarily deactivate magnetism (either with the shift
key or with Preferences pane), to disable the angle constraint
while drawing small wall parts.
You may also use a round
wall part 3D model available at the 3D
models import page to simulate a round wall.
- Importing a background image seemed to run correctly
but no image appears in plan. What is going on?
Check the size you chose during the second step of the Import background
image wizard. The chosen value matches the size of the line drawn
bellow in the real life, not its size at screen or on the paper you
scanned. If the current unit is centimeter, this value will be probably
much larger than 100.
- Sweet Home 3D hangs when I try to save my home. How
can I fix this?
If you run Sweet Home 3D under Windows with Java 6 (check in the dialog
box displayed by Help > About Sweet Home 3D menu item), this
problem is probably due to the bug
#6372808 in Java. Until it's fixed by Sun Microsystems, install
and run Sweet Home 3D under Java 5, by following the following steps:
- download the latest Java 5 version available at http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index_jdk5.jsp
(Java Runtime
Environment (JRE) 5.0 Update 22 at this time),
- install it in the default location,
- open an Execute dialog box by choosing Execute...
menu item in Windows Start menu,
- copy the following command and paste it in the text field of the
Execute dialog box (including the quotes):
"C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.5.0_22\bin\javaws.exe" http://www.sweethome3d.com/SweetHome3D.jnlp
- click on Ok.
This will run Sweet Home 3D installer with Java 1.5.0_22. Once Sweet Home
3D is installed and launched, check if it works better by choosing File
> Save... or File > Open... in Sweet Home 3D.
Don't hesitate to post a comment in the bug
#6372808 and/or to vote for it to show Sun Microsystems team that
we really need them to fix this bug.
- Sweet Home 3D refuses to open a SH3D file I created.
Is there a way to recover it?
When Sweet Home 3D saves a home, it attempts to create first a temporary
file that replaces the previously saved file only once the temporary
file is successfully created. This ensures that there's very little
chance that your previous SH3D file gets corrupted even if the last
save operation failed. Nevertheless some users still report they can't
open their SH3D file. In case this problem happens to you, please try
to describe to the developer
of Sweet Home 3D the circumstances of the last save operation (was
is successful?), whether the SH3D file was transferred or not by email
or with an USB key, what happens when you try to open the file that
causes problems, and join a compressed version of your SH3D file if
possible.
Finally, try next time to back up regularly your SH3D files, like you
should do for any document you spend hours on.
- The 3D view of Sweet
Home 3D is always black or shows twice
the same image. What can I do?
Under Windows, running Sweet
Home 3D with DirectX generally solves this problem. Read also the
answer to this question in the
Installation section.
- Sweet Home 3D refuses to print the 3D view. What can
I do?
This is a problem due to the configuration of your graphic card that
can't create offscreen 3D images. Please read the answer to this question
in the Installation section.
- The furniture of the default catalog always appears
as red boxes in 3D view, and help links don't work. What can I do?
This bug may appear if you installed Sweet Home 3D with Java Web Start
and you run the program with Java version 1.5.0_16 (the Java version
is displayed in Sweet Home 3D About dialog). This bug was fixed from
the special version 1.4 JWS, and you just have to update
Sweet Home 3D.
- How can I improve the lighting of the 3D view?
Depending on your graphic card, the 3D view may look too bright or too
dark. You may adjust Light brightness in the pane displayed by
choosing 3D view > Modify.... If you want a more
photorealistic rendering of the 3D view, choose 3D view >
Create photo... from the menu and select the best quality available
in the displayed pane. For even better results, try the latest
version of the Advanced
rendering plug-in.
- Where are missing features listed?
You'll find requested features at this page
and in some discussions of Sweet
Home 3D forums.
Sweet Home 3D roadmap is described in this
discussion.
Contributions
- How can I contribute to Sweet Home 3D?
You may contribute to Sweet Home 3D in many ways:
- How can
I contribute to the translation of Sweet Home 3D in an other language?
Localizing Sweet Home 3D in a language consists of the translation of:
This may be achieved by one or more persons and should take at least
four days of work.
Please, read the translation guide
and/or write to the developer
of Sweet Home 3D to receive more instructions about this process.
Thanks to Pencilart for her contribution
to the translation of this page.
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