Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #144 in Software
• Brand: Eleco
• Released on: 2008-10-10
• Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows XP
• Format: Closed-captioned

Manufacturer's Description
Bring dreams to life

GRAND DESIGNS 3D gives you design tools to create your dream home. Renovation & Interior edition allows you to remodel the interior and exterior of your home in 2D then add furniture and materials to create a dream living space. Finally, visualise your designs in 3D and create photorealistic images.

Customer Reviews

Intuitive & Easy to use
I bought a copy of this software to put together some plans for an outbuilding I want to convert. I found the software excellent value for money and miles ahead of similar software on the market. Many available products are based on US software and contain house features and finishes that would not be seen on European properties, also many are based around imperial measurements and don't convert well to the metric system. In contrast Grand Designs 3D is clearly designed for the European housing market and European measurements. In about three hours I managed to knock together a plan for the outbuildings I want to convert without much difficulty, having not used the software before. I thought the software was pretty easy to use as long as the user takes the time to look at some of the plans and tutorials contained in the software. There is also a pretty good help system and the manual seemed to cover everything I needed. I am reasonably computer literate but certainly no expert, but I found this software pretty easy to use and very flexible, it looks like almost any window, door, bath, kitchen unit etc can be resized to the exact size you want. It was great being able to keep changing features until you get what you want. The cost of the software is miniscule compared to the projected cost of building an extension or refurbishing a kitchen and I'd thoroughly recommend the software to anyone who wants to try and visualise a project before they phone a builder or architect.

Re-design a property - and enjoy both the process and result!
Our house is a modern 'brick box' which I've always felt had a poor layout which could be improved upon - the en-suite should be a bedroom, the bathroom should be a bedroom, the study should be the en-suite.... and so on. However, it's hard to visualise what would work by using scraps of paper and I wanted to avoid the expense of having professional plans drawn up or tedium of doing them myself. Then I stumbled upon this piece of software.

I'm a complete newcomer to CAD/design packages but thought I'd give it a try to see how feasible my ideas would be in practice.

I seldom read manuals but as this is a completely new venture for me, I gave it a few cursory glances but really needn't have because the package is quite intuitive.

It was very easy to draw a square representing the shape of the property then click and drag walls, windows, fixtures, fittings and other features, resizing them to fit and creating a model of the existing and the new proposed design layouts. The 2D sketches became a 3D replica and any glaring errors, eg doors which would open into each other, could be easily identified and moved to a more suitable spot. It then became easy to visualise the new layout and almost 'walk through' it.

I was surprised by just how easy it was to follow and 'experience' just how much benefit we could obtain from the revised layout.

The package was simple to install, easy to use, felt stable and, equally important, it was enjoyable to use.

It's given us many more ideas both for our current home, garden and outbuilding and I would highly recommend it to anyone considering altering an existing property layout or starting from scratch on a new property.

Useful product
Looking at the other reviews, opinions on this are clearly divided. It's not especially cheap, but I feel it's actually an ok product. The single machine licence is a nuisance, but I found it easy to use and very comprehensive, as long as you are clear about what you want and know how to go about it. It's not for doodling, it is intended for serious re-modelling and renovation. Sure, the professionals have much better products and are expert with them , so if you just want to pay someone to do the work for you, there is little point in buying it. If you want to do all or some of it yourself, I think it is very useful and not hard to learn. Recommended.