I have 3D Home Architect and think surely I have had a bad taste of what’s out there. I just want something to draw up floor plans – what’s a good one and how much does it cost and what’s the learning curve?
I have 3D Home Architect and think surely I have had a bad taste of what’s out there. I just want something to draw up floor plans – what’s a good one and how much does it cost and what’s the learning curve?
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Replies
I'd do a search here for some of the many threads discussing this but... a lot is a function of what you're looking for. One time use, or ongoing? Will you need 3D or a lot of detailing? I use Chief Architect, not cheap nor simple to learn. I know a few fellas here have mentioned using inexpensive drawing programs with good success, maybe one of them will chime in.
I do all remodeling. I don't really need the 3D part - at least if it is as "clunky" as this 5.0 3D Home Architect seems to be. I even had an old industrial arts instructor over here that taught cad drafting and he had trouble trying to navigate it (in a short time at least). The instructions seem REALLY bad (again, it could be me).
Which version of 3D Home Arch do you have. There are considerable difference between some versions. And what problem have are you having with it.
There are two basic divisions in "drafitn programs".
CAD is basically just an electronic drafting board. You can draw lines and you can draw double lines, and you can draw curves, etc. But you can't draw walls. To get a wall you need to draw parallel lines. Then get or make a symbol for a door or window. Then breake the parallel lines to insert the window, etc.
That is the same from the free ones to the $$$k Autocad. However, Autocad does have "scripts" and whihc more $$$ you can get addons which makes know what a wall is.
Then there are object oriented drawing programs. They know walls and that walls have width, height, and length. And that if you insert a door you still have a wall, but it also show the door inserted.
And most of them take that informat (such as wall height) and will give you 3 d views. But that you do'nt need to use that feature.
These start at about $30-50 and at the low end include 3D Home Arch, Punch, TurboCad Floor Plans (don't know the exact name) and BH&G program which is a scaled down version of Cheif Arch.
Then there are the pro programs which start at $1-2k.
It's 3D Home Architect 5.0 and I can't complain about price (45$) but I can complain about the instructions. I know they can't teach you the alphabet, but they could at least make the instructions more user friendly.
Starting with ver 5.0 3D Arch abandoned the old Chief Arch "engine" and went with something completelyh different.Lots of people did not like it.
I started out with one of those "cheap" cad programs and it was great! I mastered it in a matter of weeks and was able to quickly draw blueprints, or scale cabinet drawings, everything that I needed to do. At the time I was just a carpenter working for a contractor, but I was able to create blueprints for, and subsequently build two different houses for myself . I think this qualifies that software as being quite useful. Sadly, when we upgraded from windows '95 to '98 the software started not working right, and when we went from 98 to xp I lost it altogether. The company that made it evidently disappeared from the face of the planet, or I would have gotten upgrades. I've never been so mad.
After that I got the software for softplan from the company I worked for and installed it in my computer. What a PITA that turned out to be!!!! After trying to learn that software for several months, I finally just gave up. it simply was not user friendly. There was nothing intuitive or common sense about it. (remember, I mastered the cheap one in just a couple of weeks.) I think that if a person wanted to invest in some classes and take about 6 months to a year they could probably get pretty proficient with it, but I just don't have that kind of time or patience.
I then sent for the free trial disc of chief architect but their software would not load into my computer. I tried their tech support people several times but they were not helpful at all and I decided that if they couldn't even help somebody load the software, what help would they ever be once I was actually trying to learn it? So I just gave up on them too. (Ok, so I'm kind of a quitter) Needless to say. I am thinking about just going out and buying another one of those "cheap" programs. I certainly lucked out with the last one.
Anyway, the point I was trying to make in that rambling, convoluted post was; In my experience, the more you pay for cad software the higher the learning curve. And the less user friendly it seems.
I am wondering if you had other PC issues with that record.I never considered SP to have been hard to learn at all. It is far easier than pure CAD programs for me. Occasionally, it just doesn't jive with the way somebody thinks tho.I had heard that Chief is even more easy and intuitive and that they have great support at ART.
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No, I think you have the same time crunch I do. This program seems illogical like you described. I could see spending the time going through the steps, but I'm not into searching for the "secret key" as if this is a video game or something. What I want is something simple and direct - at the sacrifice of the bells,whistles if necessary.
Mark, maybe you should just get an old computer with windows 95 on it and dedicate it to your old drawing software.
blue
Actually blue That's exactly what I did. I dug our old packard bell out of the mothballs and have it set up for exactly that. The problem is I can only print the little page size copys. I can't just take a disc into the blueprint place and have a big one done. Fortunately,(I think), I am currently in a situation where I really don't need to do any drafting except just for my own playing around.