Product Description

Create your dream home plans. Based on a powerful CAD engine, 3D Home Architect Home and Landscape Design Suite Version 8 puts you in control of every detail. Plan the layout, place the furnishings - even tweak the lighting - it's all within reach! Whether you're embarking on a serious building project or simply experimenting with home design ideas, find everything you need in 3D Home Architect Home and Landscape Design Suite Version 8. Convenient wizards and tutorials help you create basic plans fast, while unlimited customization guarantees a flawless finished project. Powerful enough to generate buildable blueprint-style plans, 3D Home Architect Home and Landscape Design Suite Version 8 is the only design program you need.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6262 in Software
• Brand: Encore
• Model: 23029
• Released on: 2006-04-04
• Platform: Windows XP
• Format: CD-ROM
• Dimensions: .40 pounds

Features

• Powerful and easy-to-use home and landscape design software
• Browse 1500 home plans and 7500-plant encyclopedia for inspiration
• Create ready-to-build blueprint-style plans for home and landscape
• Add sound effects and voice-overs to virtually animated tours
• View project in realistic 3-D; convenient wizards and tutorials

From the Manufacturer
More than just a layout program, 3D Home Architect Home and Landscape Design Suite Version 8 gives you the ability to fine-tune every element of your home design or landscaping project.* Convenient wizards and tutorials help you achieve your goals fast, while unlimited customization guarantees that your dream home will be perfect in every detail. Easy to use, yet powerful enough to generate buildable blueprint-style plans, it’s the only design program you’ll need.

Features:

• New! Add sound effects and voice-overs to your virtually animated tours! Truly step inside your dream home and explore your design room by room. Add the sound of birds chirping, water boiling, or doors closing. Even add your own voice as you take viewers on a guided tour! It’s the next best thing to being there!
• Point-and-click materials paintbrush! Now you can easily apply materials to your designs with the new materials paintbrush in just a few easy clicks. Carpet, countertops, concrete, and more--it’s all within easy reach!
• House builder wizard! Now it’s easier than ever to design your dream home! Select from the size, style, and element configuration you like best and 3D Home Architect Home and Landscape Design Suite Version 8 will generate your new structure already equipped with walls, floors, and a roof.
• Kitchen builder wizard! Simply select the style, shape, and orientation for your new kitchen and watch as it appears before your eyes--complete with cabinets, a sink, refrigerator, and cooking area! It’s perfect for visualizing your new home or remodel project!
• Easy-to-use tabbed interface! Now it’s easier to get started, easier to access and use your tools, and easier than ever to design the home of your dreams--down to the very last detail. Just wait and see!
• Project trace! Scan in your favorite layouts--even from your own sketches! Or, export images of floor plans from another home design program. Then trace over them and create scalable, editable plans. Your new plans work seamlessly!
• 3D Home Architect Learning Center! Design like a pro in no time! With video guides, extensive tool tips, and status bar prompts to give you help at every turn, 3D Home Architect Home and Landscape Design Suite Version 8 makes it easier than ever to design the home of your dreams.
• Rendering capabilities! Activate ultra-sharp rendering capabilities to view your plans onscreen with unparalleled depth and dimension using 3DTrueView technology--including new surface properties that make mirrors reflect, countertops shiny, and more.
• 2D designer's view! Enjoy accurate top-down representations of furnishings and other design elements in the new 2D designer’s view.
• Improved! Enhance your home’s interior with more stylish furniture, lighting fixtures, customizable cabinetry, sinks, appliances, window treatments, and more.
• Landscaping! Create the ideal landscape to complement your home, complete with plants and trees, slopes and grades, fencing, gazebos, pools--even exterior lighting!
• Complete plant encyclopedia! Learn about plant care, growth zones, plant diseases, soil concerns, and more with the complete plant encyclopedia.
• A major construction, remodeling, or landscaping project can be overwhelming without the right tools. Trust 3D Home Architect to deliver the capabilities and guidance you need to stop dreaming and start planning. Your home or garden masterpiece is closer than you think!

*Design plans created in 3D Home Architect or 3D Home Landscape versions 4 or earlier cannot be imported into this product.

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Customer Reviews

Developer take note: can't produce real blueprints!
I have long been a fan of 3D Home Architect and have used my old version to design a dozen units of housing, usually on my own but with a professional architect's assistance on a few.

This month I sat down to redesign my kitchen and, seeing that the copyright date on my old software (version 3) was 1999, was inspired to try out the newly released 3D HDS8. My experience with the new product has been frustrating, disappointing, and time-consuming.

I feel sympathy for the software developers: they have clearly worked very hard to add a lot of features, and have increased the "power" of this tool to enable the user to make it "do what I mean". To their credit, the limitations of version 3 have pretty much been eliminated: if you have the patience you can model virtually any 3D object within the design space. However, their marketing bosses have castrated the end result: sure it's fun to play with a eunuch, but what's the point if it can't generate offspring?

It seems that this product has been demoted from top-of-the-line to a second tier. It seems that if you want the fully-enabled progeny of this software development team, you will have to fork over $600 for a big-brother product that is marketed through different channels under a different name. My sympathy for the developers: their reputation will be dependent on consumer reaction to this mainstream product.

The good news: what you get with this product is essentially a designer's "video game" that allows you to create beautiful on-screen images. There are a number of ways to render your product on screen, most of which were present in version 3 but there are some extensions to these features that make version 8 superior.

The bad news: once you've taken the time to create a perfect on-screen rendition of your project (a major time sink, it's as addicting as a video game--with every feature including the kitchen sink thrown in, the temptation to add detail is irresistable), there is no way to "create blueprint-style plans to print or email" as promised on the product's box. Also, code bloat has slowed everything down: version 3 worked well on a Pentium 600MHz with 256Mb, version 8 requires a computer that hasn't been invented yet.

Two of my favorite features of version 3 have been ripped out: the ability to darken wall lines when printing, and the ability to view horizontal cross sections in 3D view (the latter is replaced by a whiz-bang but useless 2D vertical section view). This product gives you no printing options whatsoever; all you can do is print whatever's on the screen in 150, 300 or 600 dpi.

Without the ability to print, I can't use this product to communicate anything other than fancy 3D pictures of the interior.

Unfortunately, I can't revert to version 3 either: there is no import/export utility for data files. So I will have to find another program for future products, this one isn't what I was hoping for.

Developers, take note: in version 9, PLEASE add real blueprint printing capability. I need to take these drawings down to the city building department once in a while. The ones I got in version 3 were amateurish but serviceable. Version 8 cannot be used to generate drawings, period.

Don't waste you money
I bought this application almost two weeks ago. I already had a rough design for my blue prints from another program. I am still trying to imput all the measurements. This program is jerky. Precise measurements are almost impossible. For example. When I tried putting the corner tub unit in. it would either go pass the wall, stop before touching the wall. If it finally touched the wall it would flip so the entrance was facing the wrong direction. Pretty much the only way to align items is to zoom in as much as you can, Even then it is almost impossible. All the bells and whistle, like being able to fly through the house for a visaul representation are not worth getting. You almost have no control in the way they designed the movement options. The only way this program should be marketed is free-ware. It absolutely SUCKS!!!!

Totally worthless
I tried to use this program to visualize some proposed renovations to my home - and gave up in frustration before I could even enter the existing first floor. This program lives in some weird fantasy world where kitchen cabinets only come in a few allowable sizes, windows are all custom made, stairs decide their own rise rate, and pocket doors are never placed in walls with other intersecting walls (to name a few). I'll be starting from scratch with another software package... What a huge waste of time.