Earlier this week Autodesk Labs released Project Dragonfly. This free Web-based floor plan design software tool caters to do-it-yourselfers who are designing or decorating one or more rooms.

As Scott Sheppard, software development manager for Autodesk Labs, noted in the aptly titled blog entry Project Dragonfly now available on Autodesk Labs, the application was "cooked up" by the group behind Project Draw and Autodesk Seek, with the help of some new developers at Autodesk.

Project Dragonfly users start by creating an empty room in the application's workspace or using a 2-D furnished sample room or 3-D model from the design gallery. From there, they can drag and drop windows, doors, closets, furniture and other items from Project Dragonfly's catalog.

The floor plan design software offers features such as Content Behavior Rules, which prevent a user from, for example, having a couch face the wall, and Collision Detection, which prevents a user from placing a loveseat atop a couch.

Finally, once a 2-D floor plan design is done, it can be viewed as a 3-D model and emailed to friends and family.

User feedback is a key part of the Project Dragonfly release, which is currently a technology preview version. The Project Dragonfly forum is pretty much empty -- not a big surprise, given that the project went live March 9. However, a couple comments on Sheppard's post suggest that there is some interest in connecting this floor plan design software to other Autodesk software, including AutoCAD, Inventor and Revit.

That's a good sign of some early interest in the endeavor. We'll keep you posted on any further developments.