Rating: 
Summary: Perfection at last! The search is finally over!
Review: Chief Architect and Better Homes & Gardens did an absolutely wonderful job designing this software. I'm using it on Windows XP and it's running as smooth as silk. And guess what? No crashes or freeze-ups! The glass house and dollhouse views are incredible. And the tutorial videos can't be beat. I've been waiting for years for something like this to hit the market. Kiss all those other junky home architect programs created by incompetent designers goodbye forever. Yes, now you and I can actually have fun designing homes! Thank you, Chief Architect!
Rating:
Summary: Very solid product
Review: I was looking for a software that would let me create a good design of my new house. I am not an architect and I am not interested in details such as plumbing, electrical, framing etc. I just wanted to create the walls, add the doors windows, furniture, stairs, roof, etc.This software can do all of these easily, no bugs, no frustration, everything fits or can be rezized. So far I am 80% done with my house. I have had no crashes when I use it with my desktop (2.6 GHZ P4, 256 RAM, GeForce FX5200). But it crashes when I use it with my Laptop (P4 1.8 GHZ, 512RAM but a mobility ATI radeon). The error message says it crashed because of my video card and it happens when switching to 3d view. To see the good about this software read the marketing review, I strongly agree in all of them. I'll list only my complains:
- Not 100% of the objects can be copy/paste from one plan to the other.
- When you start a design make sure you carefully select the template plan. The template plan gives properties to the objects (cabinets, tables, walls, etc). Because when you are half way in your design and realize that you want some object (ie fancy railings) that is not available in your template but it is in another, you also realize that you cannot change the template of the plan you are currently using. You can open a new plan with the correct template, add the object and do a copy and paste, but not all objects can be copy and pasted (ie. Railings).
- When you switch to 3d view it recalculates everything. This gets annoying and slow when your project is almost finished.
- So far i do not see a solution to adding new objects. For example a new door style, a new sofa style. The publisher does not have an online database where they can add new styles for users to keep their design updated. The software is pricy but it is the best I have used. Granted that I have not used the punch software. I have wasted 15/20$ at a time buying low cost software on the software bins
Rating: 
Summary: Suitable for only the simplest designs
Review: If you want to design and build a box with a simple A-frame roof, then this tool is for you. For any modern design with multiple roof lines, gable walls, bonus rooms, etc. it just doesn't work. Also, the window library is not very good and there are no way to build your own windows, i.e. put an eliptical transom over a window, etc.
Rating: 
Summary: Leaves much to be desired
Review: A few years ago, when designing 2 rooms at my office, I became fluent in most of the off-the-shelf, under $100 design programs. I recall switching between 2 applications that each had great features, and would have made a perfect product if merged. One was 3D Home Architect 3, the other (which I can't recall the name) had some similarities to Home Designer 6. Having just tried 3D Home Architect 5 & Home Designer 6, I still have the same feeling: each has very strong & very weak points. Having now sampled both applications, I can't seem to figure how so many people posted hate for 3DHA. I think it's a tie between the two. My big criticism w/ HD6 is that you cannot manually change wall dimensions. It was incredibly tedious to recreate rooms based on the dimensions I had. Apparently, the pro version ($500) allows this function, but I wasn't going to pay that for my little project. When you click a wall you've created in 3DHA, it displays measurements to every other nearby wall. You then can click any of those measurements to resize it manually. This is the absolute most logical way to get exact measurements. In HD6, the library of items is pretty skimpy compared to 3DHA. 3DHA easily allows custom items to show in the 'library' so it's easy to reuse them. As for the 3D rendering, 3DHA really sucks. It is incredibly difficult to get the camera view into custom positions. This is where HD6 is best. You can arrange multiple cameras in your layout, each corresponding to another rendered window. You can also double-click the camera in the layout & it brings up other view settings such as height & field of vision angle. As for working w/ your layout, 3DHA allows you to drag a selection tool over multiple items, creating a multiple selection. You can then move all of those items at once, or select their properties. For changing the color of multiple items, this is great. HD6 does not allow you to select multiple items & then change characteristics of them. Imagine having a room you want to change the color of all of the cabinets. According to my findings, in HD6 you'd have to change each cabinet one by one. In 3DHA you would just hold the shift key & select all of the cabinets, then make your changes. Maybe I'm asking for too much from <$100 programs, but it sure seems both programs make it much harder to do things then they have to.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding Software - Very Powerful
Review: This is great software. I have the Home Architect Deluxe 3.0, so I already had some experience with how the program would work. From that, this version let's you do amazing things if you take the time and put in a little effort. Photo quality renderings that no architect could ever give you. Anyone who is giving this a low rating isn't spending enough time with it. And that's not to say you need to take a course on it.... I spent about 3-4 hours and got the results I wanted, which was a 3D rendering of our planned house, which has a complex roofline. Powerful software can overwhelm people, or they just don't want to give it the time to learn. Like Microsoft Excel, you can't expect to become an ace with spreadsheets just because you buy the software. You have to put in a little time to learn. The results you can get from this software can't be produced any other way. Buy it and spend some time with it and you will love it.
Rating: 
Summary: They just want you to buy the upgrade
Review: It's as if they stripped out most of the functions on purpose...I guess they want customers to be frustrated with this software so you'll buy their expensive upgrade. I hope they take my return instead.
Rating:
Summary: We love this software!
Review: We bought this software after researching alot of others to find the best product for the price we wanted to spend. We are very happy that we chose Home Designer! Our project is adding 1500 square feet, part of which is a second story, to our existing home as owner/builders (pretty ambitious, huh?). We have been able to design and redesign with this software while working out alot of the problems we have with our lot constrictions. We read about other programs only having preprogrammed lot dimensions that weren't editable, but we drew our weird lot dimensions and started right in! It's nice to see that things we thought would work in our heads aren't really that practical when you put them "on paper". We now have the luxury of seeing everything in the new space that we dreamed about for years! The decorating aspect of Home Designer is great too with lots of options and textures. We've been able to see the space and plan it better with the AWESOME 3D views, Doll House view and Glass House view. AND it takes hardly any time, is easy to use (love the drag and drop) and we had a "do-able" plan within 3-4 hours. We still have the roof to work out but that's it. We haven't had any problems with crashing or drawing speed. It all works seamlessly and really quite fast. Our computer runs Windows XP with 512mb RAM and a 64mb GeForce4 MX graphics card. We highly recommend this software for home building or remodeling!
Rating:
Summary: Almost worthless for anything but a box with a roof
Review: I bought this software to help design an addition to my house, but Home Designer Suite 6 is not even able to let me draw my existing house, a 1400 square foot house with an attached garage. The problem is more than one style of roof, and a mud room attached to the front of the house. Home Designer cannot accept more than 1 roof style, and does not allow me to add a roof to the mud room without automagically changing the roof on the main part of the house. I feel really stupid for spending $80 on this product, and will probably go back to paper and pencil.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I'd read reviews for a lot of these types of programs, and it seemed to have the fewest complaints. Well, for $100, I expected much much more. It's probably OK if you want the most basic simplistic approximation of a space, but you cannot:
1. Customize any objects. Got a curved counter or shelf? Forget it! The so-called CAD tools are for floor plans only, you cannot create your own 3D objects.
2. Import any pictures or textures. Want to put in your carpet or wood grain or marble or stucco, or art or whatever? Forget it!
3. Import any 3D objects. Would aleviate a lot of problems. Other programs allow it. Forget it!
4. Adjust texture directions. Put wood grain on a molding. Note the direction of the grain. Want to rotate it 90 degrees, so it looks right? Forget it!
5. Export to ANY 3D format. Want to share the design via VRML or 3DS or ANYTHING? Forget it! It does export DXF, but only the flat floor plan.
So again, if you don't mind the barest basics, this is an easy and fun program. But if you want to get an idea of what your place would look like if you actually put in the stuff you wanted, there ain't no way, unless you happen to use the boring objects they ship with.
Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your money
Review: Very dissapointed with product. It looks like they took 5 year old program technology and put a new wrapper on it. Anybody that loves this product either works for Better Homes or hasn't taken their medication.
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