Hello.
I am considering buying some software for drawing up working plans for remodels and the occasional new home. I am old school. For twenty years, I’ve been using my drafting table, a pencil and a square. It hasn’t done me wrong. But times change. I don’t know if I can tranisition to new school and don’t want to spend the money for CA or Softplan, which both appear to be several thousand dollars, until I am sure it is better than my table. I’ve done a little research on the low dollar stuff and it mostly looks like garbage. The Home Designer Pro by CA for $500 looks like the only thing worth considering, from what I’ve seen.
I would like some software that would allow me to design and draw additions, kitchen remodels, bath remodels, and about one house per year. I would like to be able to produce a set of prints that I could take to an engineer and have worked over and stamped. They would also have to be presentable to banks and inspectors. I also like the ability to present 3d to customers.
I have never used Autocad, but I do use Sketchup a fair bit.
Any opinions on Home Designer Pro or any other software would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Mike
Replies
Software
I've been a TurboCad user for many years and swear by their products. I use Pro but consider one of the less expensive versions like Delux.
http://www.turbocad.com
Ive been professionally drafting for 30 years. For the last 14yrs I've used various software packages. Autocad Lt, Softplan, Vectorworks, Revit and Sketchup. Haven't messed with any of the 149 dollar types. I use Autocad Lt daily since for me it's real close to handdrafting and I get the visual results I'm looking for. Sketchup is getting better and better with each release but I really only use it for doing conceptual exterior work. Lots of users have shown Sketchup can produce great quality construction documents. For me, I just cant seem to get the workflow to soley use it for CD's. I have used Softplan since a coworker was using it and we could prepare documents as a team. I am not really fond of some visual qualities and find it to be more clunky. But it is quite powerful and can produce all the required documents for a set of CD's And it geared towards residental work. Currently I am teaching myself Revit. It is a much more complicated program so unless you already have some CAD experience I would not reccomend trying to learn it. I purchased Vectorworks in 2008 and tried to learn it. I just could not get into it. Seemed overly complex and not user friendly. What I would reccomend is to learn Sketchup and use it, siince it has tremendous capabilties. With any software user base is in my opinion the most important thing when trying to learn. AutoCad, Sketchup and Revit have a huge user base. So there is lots and lots of online help Vectorworks and Softplan have less online help. All software is offered as a trial basis so It's real easy to test them out to find the one that best fits the way you work and think.
Hi Mike
I started on a drafting table with our Design / Build company back in '69
in the mid-80's I tried AutoCad... but I fould it to be clunky and went back to my drawing board
about '96 I saw Chief Architect at a home show and decided to try it.. that was version 3 ...
I've been with Chief ever since... now on version 16 ( X6 )
about 3 years ago I bought a version of Softplan becuase a lot of my peers on line thought it was superior to Chief. I tried it for a year and found that it was a little clumsy compared to Chief
I also own Envsioneer... which I think is extremely nice and fairly easy to learn Envisoneer can download 20-20 which a lot of kitchen designer use.
I think if I were starting out I would go with Envisoneer... but I'm happy with Chief
I know wuite a few people on line who do all theri work in Home Designer and are very happy with it.
once you do the buy-in... and you have a good computer ( you want a gaming computer for 3d CAD programs )
then you need a good printer... large format... like the HP DesignJet T520
Softplan... Envioneer... Chief... Vectorworks.. all are 3d
when you draw in 3d .. you draw in plan view but it is producing in 3D.... the other thing to keep in mind is that you are always working in full scale... 1" equals 1".....
the turn around for a lot of these programs is aobut 18 months.... a new version every 18 months... once you buy into chief you can stay current with upgrades for an annual fee which also includes full support
Chief will run on both Mac and Windows... one of the few
I've used SoftPlan for several yers. It's good software, and will do all the things you mentioned. But it's danged expensive, and the company is pretty arrogant.