Best 3d home design software??
Steve C
Need some advice on which 3d home design software I should buy. Not the Pro
type but something you could find at Comp USA, Frys, Costco and the like.
You know, under $100. I have a 100' wide lot that backs up to a creek and I
want to design a home that takes advantage of the view. Heres what Im
looking for.
1. Easy to use program. 2. Be able to design a home with sunken living room,
vaulted ceilings etc. 3. 3d walk through. 4. A program that has built in
home designs I can look at. 5. Landscape design, furniture placement, wall
coverings. 6. Share plans with others over the net. 7. Easy to use :)
Seen a few suites out there from Sierra, Borderbaun, Punch and Abacadata.
Would like to hear any thoughts.
Thanks.. Steve
Calvin Henry-Cotnam
I've found 3D Home Architect from Broderbund to be very good.
The sunken floor in the living room may be a bit difficult, but I've
designed a home with one room at a lower level than the rest of the
floor it is on. As for your other points:
1) It is very easy to learn how to use - most features are intuitive.
3) It produces good 3D walk-throughs. You can record them and view them
played back.
4) It comes with a large number of sample plans you can look at.
5) Furniture can be placed, and a limited amount of landscaping can
be done. They do have another product for landscape design that works
with it. You can apply different textures and finishes to surfaces,
though I usually just view with the plain default colours.
6) Sharing the plans - well, 3D H.A. stores things in their own
proprietary format, which you can send to someone who also has
it installed. HOWEVER, it can export files in DXF format which can
be viewed with many CAD packages (like AutoCAD) as well as various
DXF viewers that are available.
Again, it is very easy to use. IMHO, probably the easiest to learn
piece of software I have ever used.
Aside from the 3D views, it basically only gives you a floorplan.
However, the floorplans can be exported in DXF format and taken to
something like AutoCAD. Therefore, if you need a set of proper
construction drawings, you (or your draftsman) won't have to start
from scratch.
One other nice feature is that it will produce a material take-off
list. I've compared its output with my own hand-done analysis and
found it to be quite close.
--
Calvin Henry-Cotnam | "Nothing quite livens up a suburban
DAXaCK associates | neighbourhood like a driveway boasting
Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada | plastic milk crates loaded with crap."
http://home.ica.net/~calvinhc | -- John Oakley, radio talk-show host
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Drew cutter
amount of ram ( 32 or more )and 128 mb or more of ram. The vaulted
ceiling maybe be problem ( I kept getting error messages , when I tried
to do this).
Ken Grunke
It's a free download, either Windows or Mac. Here's some stuff I've done:
http://www.token.f2s.com/dwfun
Have fun,
Ken
Steve C wrote:
> Hi all,
> Need some advice on which 3d home design software I should buy. Not the Pro
> type but something you could find at Comp USA, Frys, Costco and the like.
> You know, under $100. I have a 100' wide lot that backs up to a creek and I
> want to design a home that takes advantage of the view. Heres what Im
> looking for.
> 1. Easy to use program. 2. Be able to design a home with sunken living room,
> vaulted ceilings etc. 3. 3d walk through. 4. A program that has built in
> home designs I can look at. 5. Landscape design, furniture placement, wall
> coverings. 6. Share plans with others over the net. 7. Easy to use :)
>
> Seen a few suites out there from Sierra, Borderbaun, Punch and Abacadata.
> Would like to hear any thoughts.
> Thanks.. Steve
J
but no sunken rooms. The program does allow for it, but it's a bit
confusing. I guess you might consider our garage "sunken". It's down
about 5 steps. You just have to adjust from first floor what the height
of the sunken floor is (i.e. -8 inches). It does do 3D views and
walkthroughs. I did it on a 486 with 32Meg of memory - it took a while
(don't let a screen saver go on cuz then it has to do it over again).
They also make 3D Landscape and 3D interiors for the other things you
wanted to do. I have both of those also and didn't find them real
helpful. There are basic things within the main package that can get
you by if you don't get too elaborate.
I'd use it again.