Product Description

Home Designer Pro 9.0 is the latest release from Chief Architect, the professional software design company and the software of choice by more builders, architects and designers. Home Designer Pro leverages the same professional quality from Chief Architect making it the most powerful and easy to use home design, remodeling and landscaping software. HOME DESIGN * Choose from over 5,000 sample plans * Powerful building tools like automatic roof generation, dormers, stairs, framing and foundations * Draw in 2D and 3D or both simultaneously * Record walk-throughs with the stylized views of Rendering Techniques AUTOMATED & MANUAL BUILDING TOOLS * Create any custom roof or ceiling plan with Roof Design tools * Manual framing tools for fully editable framing, including joists, rafters, trusses, beams, posts * Create custom ceilings of any slope and shape including vaulted and cathedral * Automatic Structural Dormers - builds dormers automatically with walls that reach the floor KITCHEN & BATH DESIGN * Create custom cabinets in minutes by choosing your own colors, countertops and door styles * Generate a custom editable countertop from cabinets that are in the plan * Choose from top name-brand appliances to add to your design * Cabinet Countertop layers allow separate control of countertop displays in 2D and 3D DECKS & LANDSCAPING * Design single or multi-level decks using automatic deck framing and an advanced deck framing option * Distribute objects in garden beds, populate your garden beds automatically * Choose from over 3,600 plants and see what your plants will look like in 0-20 years * Show plants with filled colors in your 2D landscape design SITE PLANNING & COST ESTIMATION * Automatic Cost Estimation and Materials list * Automatic Terrain tools create flat, irregular shaped, or sloped lots * Use a GPS to import terrain elevation data * Create rendered cross-section and elevation views with photo realistic textures

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1021 in Software
• Brand: Chief Architect
• Model: P90-DN-0AZ1
• Released on: 2009-08-07
• Platforms: Windows 7, Windows XP, Windows Vista
• Format: DVD-ROM
• Dimensions: .30 pounds

Manufacturer's Description
Home Designer Pro 9.0 is the latest release from Chief Architect, the professional software design company and the software of choice by more builders, architects and designers. Home Designer Pro leverages the same professional quality from Chief Architect making it the most powerful and easy to use home design, remodeling and landscaping software. Design Like a Professional!

Professional home design software for the serious home enthusiast. Click to enlarge.

Professional Software
Chief Architect Home Designer Pro 9.0 is professional home design software for the serious home enthusiast. Enjoy the same tools that the professionals use for home design, remodeling, interior design, decks, landscaping and cost estimation.

Home Designer Pro has all the same great features as Architectural Home Designer, Interior Designer, Landscaping and Deck Designer plus advanced CAD tools, advanced building tools, the ability to create blueprints, manual framing and roofing and much more.

Designing like a Professional has never been so Easy!

Home Design and Landscaping Software
Create accurately scaled floor plans that automatically generate 3D models in minutes. Create any detailed view of your design using advanced 3D camera tools like Glass House, Doll House, Framing, Elevation and Cross-Sections. Create the Virtual Look and Feel Before You Build!

Manual framing tools for fully editable framing, including joists, rafters, trusses, beams, posts, and more. Click to enlarge.

Design in 2D and 3D. 3D Views are automatic with a point-and-click of the camera tool. Click to enlarge.

Artistic rendering techniques such as Watercolor, Glass House, and Technical Illustration Click to enlarge.

Powerful deck and patio tools allow you to design and visualize your new deck with 3D models and can help you estimate the costs. Click to enlarge.

Create Back-Clipped Cross Section and Elevation Views to limit your view to relevant details for precise plan editing. Click to enlarge.

Choose from over 3,600 plants with the Plant Chooser. Click to enlarge.

Design the kitchen of your dreams. Click to enlarge.

Glass House View provides a full translucent view of your design. Click to enlarge.

Use the Cabinet Designer tools to create unlimited cabinet styles. Click to enlarge.

Home Design Software by Chief Architect

• Choose from over 5,000 Sample Plans
• Choose from built-in style templates or create your own custom home design, or use the House Wizard
• Powerful building tools like automatic roof generation, dormers, stairs, framing and foundations
• Artistic rendering techniques for Watercolor, Glass House and Technical Illustration

Integrated Design Tools
Home Designer Pro makes it easy to design and visualize your ideas on your next home or remodeling project with over 8,000 powerful integrated tools. Use the automated building tools to assist you in your design process. The tools have commonly accepted defaults for most building practices to help you in your home design projects.

Get Started Quickly and Easily

• The Quick Startup Options Guide will help you begin with "How-To" tutorials based on your type of project
• Use the House Wizard for quick and easy layout of your rooms
• Select from the pre-designed Home Design and Landscaping Style Templates complete with colors, cabinets, decks and more
• The online help system provides detail information on all types of building projects
• Includes over 80 easy "step-by-step" tutorial training videos that will quickly get you started on your next home design project

3D Design Tools

• Design in 2D and 3D. 3D Views are automatic with a point-and-click of the camera tool.
• Glass House View provides a full translucent view of your design. Choose other Artistic rendering techniques for Watercolor and Technical Illustration views.
• Doll House View, a 3D overview without the roof, is an effective tool for space planning of furniture placement and traffic flow
• Create a Virtual Tour--draw your record line to Automatically Generate; or record your camera movements
• Visualize your home with day and night views
• Assemble a scale model of your design with Model Maker
• Generate shadows from the sun for realistic 3D views
• Point-and-click to remove wall surfaces, or use 3D Cross-Section Elevation Slider to quickly create a 3D slice of your desired view

Automated and Manual Building Tools

• Design roofs and walls in 3D
• Generate various styles of Automatic roofs or manually design any custom roof including curved roofs
• Use the Automatic Dormer tool to quickly place dormers--shed, gable, eyebrow and barrel
• Automatic Structural Dormers
• Unblock and manually edit Automatic Dormers
• Create any custom roof or ceiling plan with the Roof Design Tools. Edit and create roof planes to create a roof of any pitch and shape. Start with an automatic roof and then add custom details, or create the entire roof manually.
• Automatic framing tools
• Manual framing tools for fully editable framing, including joists, rafters, trusses, beams, posts and more
• Choose from several built-in wall styles with individual wall layers or define your own wall style
• Ability to read and edit files by Chief Architect Full Professional Software
• ICC Residential Design Checklist will allow you to check your plan against national building codes

Kitchen and Bath Design

• Design the kitchen of your dreams--move walls, create new cabinets, add appliances--Design your perfect workspace!
• Design your new kitchen or bath using the Cabinet Designer tools
• Plan the new layout of your bathroom with custom cabinets, sinks, showers and garden tubs. It's easy to visualize your ideas in 3D.
• Create custom cabinets in minutes by choosing your own colors, countertops, door styles and more
• Use the Cabinet Designer tools to create unlimited cabinet styles. Choose your own colors, countertops and door styles.
• Design and edit custom countertop shapes and styles

Interior Design

• Smart Design Objects, Drag-and-drop from thousands of design objects in the built-in Library organized by category
• Material Painter lets you apply colors and materials quickly and easily
• Choose from thousands of colors and textures or create your own materials using a digital photograph
• Design for your lifestyle and personality--change colors, add lighting and choose furniture to accent your new room
• Choose from a variety of interior items--including chairs, tables, sofas, fabrics, accessories and more. Resize, change colors and materials to meet your exact needs.
• Import your own symbols from 3D file types including .SKP, .OBJ and .3DS

Decks and Landscaping

• Powerful deck and patio tools allow you to design and visualize your new deck with 3D models and can help you estimate the costs
• Design single or multi-level decks complete with automatic deck framing and an advanced deck framing option for more complicated deck designs
• Quickly lay out your deck with stairs and arrange furniture
• Deck foundations automatically generate to match sloped lots
• Plant Encyclopedia to learn more about the plants in your designs
• Choose from over 3,600 plants with the Plant Chooser
• Plant Hardiness Zone reference maps
• See what your plants will look like in 0--20 years
• Pathways--Use the Pathway tool to design curb-appealing landscaping using stone, pavers, or sidewalks--line with trees, shrubs, flowers and more

Site Planning & Estimating

• Use Automatic Build Terrain and Terrain Perimeter tools to create flat, irregular shaped, or sloped lots--use a GPS to import or enter elevation data
• Create plot and perimeter plans; automatically generate a 3D model of your actual terrain
• Export Material List to spreadsheet programs including Microsoft Excel
• Save snapshot Material Lists for different stages of the project
• Add detail to each individual component in the material list for a comprehensive cost estimate breakdown
• Master Materials List allows you to store and manage commonly used material prices
• Sprinkler Designer tools to easily layout sprinkler zones
• Fences and Driveways--With the Fencing tools you can choose a variety of fencing styles and custom gates. You will also find driveway, sidewalk and curbing tools
• Hill and Valley tools make it easy to add gardens, beds and slopes that automatically appear in 3D views. Choose from landscaping style templates or create your own.
• Define Terrain Elevation lines, Elevation Regions and Terrain Breaks

CAD Tools

• Powerful CAD tools to detail cross-section views with insulation, cross-boxes and more
• Advanced CAD editing tools such as replicate, line weights, point-to-point move, custom patterns and more (Compatible with AutoCAD patterns)
• CAD-to-Walls allows you to convert CAD lines from DXF file format to walls
• Layers can be used to separate key building components such as electrical or framing. Display or hide features of your design, set colors, lock layers and use reference layers for precise editing.
• Create Back-Clipped Cross Section/Elevation Views to limit your view to relevant details for precise plan editing

Building Tools

• Customize construction methods for walls, floors, ceilings and foundations. Identify the exact placement of framing components, specify wall layers, floor structure platform height, mudsills and more.
• Advanced stair tools allow control of shape, starter treads, flaring, tread width and more
• Create pony walls and edit wall shape or create a stepped foundation in cross-section view
• Multiple-select editing. For example, select all your cabinets and change them all with one command.
• Use callouts to reference between details, plans and cross-sections in a blueprint layout
• Create blueprint layouts (up to Architectural C drawings 18" x 24") with 3D, CAD, Cross-Section/Elevation and Plan Views
• Rotate and Flip Plan
• Advanced dimensioning tools include angular, end-to-end and interior dimensions
• Fully editable dimension lines and configurable dimension editing allow you to change where dimensions locate walls, windows, doors and other objects

Customer Reviews

Powerful and easy to use.
It's very rare that you get to use a new piece of software and think "wow, this really does what I want it to do and whoever wrote it actually put serious thought into making it work properly". And that is exactly what I thought when I got my hands on Home Designer Pro v9.

I had tried similar software (including the Grand Designs software), but with this it is much, much easier to produce a good result. The user interface is powerful, yet easy. I'm not big on reading help text, so rely on user interfaces being intuitive. This one is. Even so, I would still recommend watching some of the excellent tutorial video that comes as part of the package in order to get a feel for what it can do before you jump in and try it yourself.

The gumf for the package gives a pretty good idea of what it can do - everything from designing the shell of a building, the interior walls, doors, windows, staircases, lights etc through to automatically dropping complete bedroom furniture layouts onto your design, through to having a plant database for working out which plants can go where in the garden. It also has the usual 3D views, video recording of "walkthroughs" etc. It doesn't (as far as I am aware) do the gimmicky footstep noises and jingles that you may have noticed in the Grand Designs software, but it doesn't need to. It does what it says it does and it does it well.

The only (and I do mean the only) negatives that I have spotted so far are that (a) it has not been European-ised (i.e. it feels American), (b) one of the 3D features occasionally upsets the graphics adapter in my machine, and (c) I managed to get a null pointer exception when trying to copy multiple objects from the floor plan. Personally, I'd say this software is good enough that I'll probably go buy a new graphics adapter just so that I can use all of the features of the software, so that answers (b). Regarding (c) - the software allows you to automatically send details of the problem back to the developers so that they can investigate, a good thing in my eyes - it shows that they care about sorting out problems that occur in the field.

Comprehensive Design Solution
A slick interface and video based training makes this an easy package to get started with. The range of drawing tools is impressive, and the range of objects and building methods included is comprehensive. If I had to make a minor point here, it's that - unsurprisingly - the defaults are US centric. Several of the templates are imperial (measurements) only, and the styles are rather US specific, as is some terminology. That said, it's possible to adjust items such as the interior and exterior wall defaults to match those more commonly encountered in UK construction. Placement of objects is intuitive, and they can be sized and moved to a high degree of accuracy using various methods of snap and dimension entry. The rendering is fast and attractive. The visual output is easily suitable for sending to clients, and you can produce 3D 'walk-throughs' which is a nice feature. This is by far the best way to visualise the layout of a design. The learning curve is steep, but after a month or so of frequent use, you should be able to produce professional designs in reasonably short order. This is rather faster than most would be able to tackle 3D designs in AutoCAD competently.

I did have a few error messages while using it. One seemed to actually 'corrupt' my model, and no matter what I did, I could no longer copy & paste entities within that drawing. I would recommend saving checkpoint versions of any file you work on to avoid danger of this happening and losing all your work. Application errors are extremely common in software with this level of complexity, so this is not unexpected. However, the ability to recover my corrupted file by the expedient of maintaining file checkpoints automatically would be welcome, especially considering how many hours work may have been invested in a given model.

Overall though, the design tools are extremely comprehensive for a product at this price point, and it's certainly a lot easier to use than more traditional design products such as AutoCAD. The library of objects in the Professional version is huge, however there were a couple missing which I would have liked to see added - one irritating omission is a 3D 'wedge' orientated with its parallel sides in the X-Y axis, which made modelling a custom bath housing rather challenging. I could also not find a way of drawing and 'extruding' new 3D shapes, though they can readily be imported from other 3D design packages - so you can use a freeware tool to generate them before importing. I found it relatively simple to find compatible 3rd Party 3D models for components I was using in my design (e.g. Roca bathroom fittings) which could readily be imported and scaled to size.

With the above comments in mind, I think this package represents good value for money, and should certainly be on your short-list if you need a way to produce attractive architectural models and plans and are prepared to invest the time required to master the features and develop methods of avoiding any short-comings. My firm recommendation would be to investigate the free trial version available from the Chief Architect website prior to purchase. Expect to have to invest a good few evenings to thoroughly put it through its paces, but I think you'll find it a worthwhile exercise.

Amazing software for the renovator and semi-pro
This software is really great for helping you to model a house without professional CAD experience. The user interface is easy to use, and there is a collossal number of alterations you can perform to make the virtual house exactly as you want your completed house to look like.

For someone doing regular building work such as a property developer this piece of software is excellent to help you explore all the options and come up with the best scheme for your property. Even for just the one project this software could enable the more talented user to create their own project exactly to their requirements. The software even has built in estimating tools.

It is quite easy to pick up, however to really learn to use it in depth there are some excellent tutorials.

The main negative of this piece of software is that it requires a pretty powerful computer to use. Also while the software has built in estimating its all in American and not to British standard building requirements, however this can be customised.