Camper Floor Plan Planning: The Ultimate Guide to Your Van Conversion

Reading time: approx. 11 minutes

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A good van conversion doesn’t start with the saw — it starts with the floor plan. Get this right and you’ll save yourself a nasty surprise on the scale or at the inspection months later. This guide walks you step by step through VanLogic, from picking your vehicle to a finished technical inspection report — with real screenshots from the current app.

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1. Choose Your Vehicle

The first step is picking your vehicle. VanLogic ships with over 40 vehicle templates — from Ducato/Jumper/Boxer to Sprinter and Crafter/TGE to compact T5/T6 models — each with real manufacturer dimensions (wheelbase, load area, interior height, front overhang) and real weights (maximum permissible mass, front/rear kerb weight).

Pick a vehicle from the list and all base data is filled in automatically — nothing to measure or look up yourself. No matching model? Just enter the dimensions manually.

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2. Place Your Floor Plan & Furniture

Once the vehicle is set, you see the load area as a to-scale floor plan from above. You add furniture through the object editor and drag it straight into place with your finger — kitchen block, bed, seating box, storage, all freely positionable.

Here’s the key part: every piece of furniture carries its own weight with it, calculated from shape, dimensions, material and build method (more on that in steps 6 and 7). So you don’t just see where something is — you instantly see what it weighs.

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3. Collision Check Against the Vehicle Structure

Wheel arches, roof taper, sliding door — VanLogic knows the real geometry of your vehicle, not just its outer dimensions. Build a piece of furniture where a wheel arch actually intrudes into the space, and you’ll see it immediately.

Tap the warning and you get a detail view: which object is affected, what it collides with, and a concrete suggestion for fixing it (e.g. adjust the height or switch to an open build method).

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4. Weight & Centre of Gravity, Live

This is the heart of VanLogic: every change to your floor plan immediately affects axle load and centre of gravity — no need to calculate it yourself. The starting point is the empty vehicle with its factory front/rear kerb weight.

Move a piece of furniture — or even just a single component like a roof rack — to a different position, and front axle, rear axle, total weight and centre of gravity height all update live. If the centre of gravity climbs too high, the app warns you directly.

Want to know exactly how the weight of your build adds up, and what to watch for in a Sprinter conversion specifically? Read our full guide on Sprinter van build weight. And to understand why a high centre of gravity changes how your van handles in corners, see centre of gravity in a campervan.

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5. Balance Warnings (Left/Right)

Besides front/rear axle, VanLogic also checks the lateral distribution. If too much weight sits on one side, the app first warns you subtly …

… and clearly in red once it becomes critical. That way you catch the problem before it’s noticeable while driving.

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6. Choose a Material

Before you settle on a build method, you choose the material — with real density in kg/m³, whether it’s poplar plywood, spruce/pine, or a custom material you define yourself. The weight of your furniture is then calculated automatically from shape, dimensions, build method and that exact density. You never enter an estimated kilogram by hand.

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7. Choose a Build Method — Weight Is Calculated Automatically

A piece of furniture is more than shape and dimensions — the actual build method decides how much it weighs. An open box without a lid weighs differently than a solid block, and a plain frame weighs differently than a slanted box for the roof taper. VanLogic offers several real build methods for this: solid, box with/without lid, open/closed frame, panel, and slanted box.

For the slanted box — handy for furniture under the roof taper — a small 2D preview shows you directly how the construction looks, including wall thickness and any extra shelves.

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8. 3D Preview

Your complete plan can be viewed as a 3D model at any time — already available in the app stores today.

Two more 3D features are already fully built and arriving in one of the next updates: an X-ray mode that lets you see through furniture to check hollow cavities and shelves …

… and an exploded view that pulls an assembly (e.g. the kitchen block) apart into its individual parts, colour-coded with a legend.

Try the 3D preview right in your browser

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9. Export a Technical Inspection Report as PDF

Once the plan is finished, one tap generates a PDF report: base data, axle loads with status (OK/exceeded), centre of gravity height, lateral tilt, a payload check per DIN EN 1646-1, and a tank fill-level simulation (empty/half/full) — ready to bring straight to your inspection.

Curious what the inspector actually checks at the appointment and how to prepare best? Read our technical inspection guide for van conversions.

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Conclusion

Floor plan, vehicle structure, material, build method and weight aren’t a set of disconnected tools in VanLogic — they’re one single, continuously connected system. You see how your build will behave on the scale from the very first piece of furniture, not just after it’s built. To see how VanLogic compares to other planning tools, check out our comparison of camper van conversion planners.

Start planning right in your browser — free, no download required

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→ Plan your build now — vanlogic.app

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About VanLogic: VanLogic is a planning app for camper van builders that automatically calculates weight from shape, dimensions, material and build method, and shows axle loads, centre of gravity, tipping risk and collisions with the real vehicle structure in real time. Available for iOS and Android — and testable directly in your browser.