Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I've only owned Home Designer Pro v10 about a month so my review might be a little premature but so far, I'm extremely impressed and feel it's one of the best software products and drawing programs that I've ever owned. The learning support available on the HomeDesignerSoftware.com web site is exceptional and a good part of what makes me so enthusiastic. I've always been a drawing enthusiast(Corel Draw, Illustrator, Visio, you name it) and was going to do my house plans in 2D when I remembered those 3D programs I'd seen on tables in Costco and Sams Club. Checking out Amazon, where I buy most of my stuff now, I saw there was Home Designer, HGTV, and Punch!, amongst others. Some reviewers of HGTV and Punch! complained about awkwardness of use or difficulty in learning whereas users/reviewers of Home Designer more typically remarked how relatively easy the software was to learn and use. So I decided to give Home Designer a try, fell in love with it, and haven't looked back-never even tried the others.
One of the best kept secrets of Home Designer is that there is a 30-day free trial of the Pro version available from the Home Designer web site. It's hard to find because the home page offers a slide show and the free trial offer only comes up on the second or third slide. Look under the Pro product, too. My recommendation is to download the free trial, start trying it out using their excellent video tutorials at HomeDesignerSoftware.com, and look at the features matrix to see what you get in the basic Essentials version versus the Suite verus Architectural or the full-blown Pro version. I initially was just going to go for the Suite version, which at $83 right now is a sweet spot in price versus features (pardon the pun). I planned to upgrade slowly to the Architectural and then Pro versions if I liked what I saw. But since I REALLY liked what I saw and my house has complicated roof and ceiling planes that are easiest to model with the Pro version, I jumped in the deep end right away and am glad I did.
Home Designer is not basically a CAD program. You can draw lines in 2D plans and in elevation (vertical views). But Home Designer and other programs like it, such as HGTV and Punch!, are basically object-oriented drawing programs that allow you to model by placing pre-fab objects such as exterior walls, interior walls, windows, doors, roofs, furniture, cabinets, appliances, etc. You typically place these objects in 2D, then get to immediately review and adjust the results in a life-like 3D view in which you can place a camera(s) wherever you want inside or outside your house. Although usually best done for modeling within a room or a given area, you can also place and adjust objects directly in 3D. You can even create an animated movie to walk yourself through the structure, pause, look around, etc. Each of the objects has length, depth, height, color, texture, etc., that you can extensively adjust within the characteristics commonly found in construction or decoration for that type of object, e.g. layers within a wall. There is an extensive library of objects and materials for construction, interior design, landscaping, etc. You also import objects from other programs like Autodesk's 3DS or Google Sketchup. Since Sketchup is free, it is my choice for creating any 3D object from scratch that you don't happen to find a template for in Home Designer. You can't really create a 3D object for which there is no template in Home Designer itself. For example, we have a brick mailbox shaped like a pillar (rectangular prism). I drew it in Sketchup, imported it, slapped a brick texture on it all around, and my wife remarked "There's our mailbox!" Right now, the latest version of Home Designer (10) does not know about the latest version of Sketchup (8) but a Sketchup 8 drawing can easily be saved in a previous version format for importing into Home Designer. I found a triangular prism imported from Sketchup very useful for filling in an odd-shaped space in the vaulted ceiling of our masterbedroom that I couldn't quite complete with the tools in Home Designer by itself.
Home Designer's video tutorials took me a long way towards quickly learning to model. But what if I just want a quick reference or need to look up something in more detail than the tutorial has time for? another unfortunately too well-kept secret is that there is both a very well-written PDF USER GUIDE (239 pages) with written versions of tutorials and an in-depth PDF USER MANUAL (910 pages) that provides very organized clear explanations of the way things work (when you download the TRIAL, in the HELP menu there will be the option to view/save each manual). Plus the 29page Getting Started Guide that helps get you up and running. So there's a lot of excellent video and written help to rely on. Also, user forum, support database with solution finder, etc., on web site but haven't used those myself.
So, hope all these words convey my enthusiasm. Home Designer is a great product. It's a lot cheaper and easier to learn than something like AutoCad or 3DS. It allows the average home enthusiast to easily and quickly create and view amazingly realistic 3D representations of his/her home. Since Home Designer has a lot of power but it's not unlimited, you may find some things for which you have to settle for a close approximation or import something from another program like Sketchup where you can painstakingly create a 3D object from scratch. You're still going to have to work to truly master the program. But if you love your house and yard and want to model it, play around with it, see how it could be remodeled, don't just sit there. Give the free trial of Home Designer Pro a spin, try the video tutorials. And if you have as much fun as I did, you may soon want to own a version of the software that's appropriate to your needs. For me, there were too many times I said, "I can't believe I just did that. This view is amazing."
My final bit of advice. If you're recreating your house plans from scratch as I am, get yourself a laser-measuring tool. I got myself a Bosch DLR130K Digital Distance Measurer Kit and wonder how I ever lived without it. Using it is almost as much fun as drawing with Home Designer.
P.S. One of the best reasons for trying the trial version is to make sure you won't be caught short on needed features in the version you decide to get. Here is a link to a detailed matrix of the capabilities of each version. [...](EDIT:since Amazon deletes links, see Comparison Matrix, lower left HomeDesigner site-scroll thru list). Some of the details may not mean much to you until you try the trial version with the tutorials. But for example, I got the Pro version because I have a complicated roof and I wanted complete manual control over roof design.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Chief Architect Home Designer Pro 10
Chief Architect Home Designer Pro 10: professional software for home design, remodeling, interior design, kitchen and bath design, landscaping, deck design, and cost estimation for the serious do-it-yourself user. Home Designer Pro offers advanced design, building, and CAD tools with the ability to create blueprints, framing plans, roof plans, and more. Use the same tools as the professionals and design your dream home today!
Professional tools for designing your dream home. View larger.
Click here for more information about Chief Architect Home Designer Pro 10
0 comments:
Post a Comment