Better Homes and Gardens Landscaping and Deck Designer [OLD VERSION]

by Chief Architect

Product Features

• Choose from a library of more than 4,000 items for your designs, including over 1,200 plants
• Plant Hardiness Zone reference maps helps you choose the most appropriate plants, and a
• Plant Chooser feature helps you search for plants based on climate, drought tolerance, deer resistance, and much more
• Layout sprinkler zones quickly and efficiently
• Design single or multi-level decks with Deck Designer

Product Details

Data Sheet [1.73mb PDF]

• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0007Z72OK
• Item model number: 045-200L
• Date first available at Amazon.com: March 9, 2005
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,846 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #42 in Software > Home & Hobbies > Gardening & Landscape
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Your yard has always been good to you, giving you space to play with your kids, barbecue, and even sun-bathe on those lazy summer days. But now you're ready to bring some creative elegance and flair to your outdoor living. And you don't want to spend a mint just to have a landscape designer or consultant tell you what you want. If you know what you want, but you just need a little help turning that vision into reality, the Better Homes and Gardens Landscaping and Deck Designer software package is just for you.

Design your new deck with Home Designer's tools that let you visualize and design with realistic 3D models.

Better Homes and Gardens, the number one home and garden publisher, has partnered with leading software designer Chief Architect to bring you the Landscaping and Deck Designer. This program can help you transform your yard space into the landscape of your dreams, at a fraction of the cost of what a professional would charge. Using the software's fun, intuitive, and easy-to-use tools, you'll quickly be on the way toward becoming the envy of your neighborhood as your backyard barbecues in the sun turn into elegant moon-lit affairs on your new deck.

With the Landscaping and Deck Designer, you don't need any design experience to plan your new landscaping, deck or patio areas. In a few easy steps, you'll be able to take care of site planning and cost estimating. The software will give you everything you need, from conception to planning to pricing.

With a huge library of over 1,200 plants at your disposal, you won't have to be stuck with the same old options the local home and garden shop offers. You can create beautiful landscaping with trees, shrubs, water features, and flowers of your own choosing. You can even import your digital photos and add your own custom landscaping features to your plans. To keep those plants thriving, you'll want to install a sprinkler system. The "sprinkler designer" feature can help you lay out sprinkler zones for optimal watering. A "furniture" feature allows you to project a wide variety of backdrops, objects, images, and textures onto your designs. It's never been easier to select the right patio furniture for your new deck or out by the swimming pool.

The software includes a library with a wide variety of backdrops, objects, images, and textures that can be used in your designs.

As you plan your new outdoor living area, the software can project 3D models of your plot and perimeter designs, giving you realistic images of what your designs will look like. A "terrain" feature can help you build fences and driveways, and the software will help you choose the best materials for the pathways you design through your gardens. You'll even have a special "fence tool" at your finger tips that will help you to choose from several different custom fence and gate styles.

In short, with the Landscaping and Deck Designer software at your fingertips, you can say good-bye to all those cookie-cutter yards that populate new developments. You can finally say hello to an outdoor living area that not only reflects your dreams and visions, but that also reflects how your outdoor area should be experienced, day in and day out, for years to come.

Features:

Landscaping templates designed by Better Homes and Gardens help you to quickly place your landscaping beds. Use the Better Homes and Gardens Design Planning Center to guide your designs with tips and advice. Choose from a library of more than 4,000 items for your designs, including over 1,200 plants. Plant Hardiness Zone reference maps helps you choose the most appropriate plants, and a Plant Chooser feature helps you search for plants based on climate, drought tolerance, deer resistance, and much more. Layout sprinkler zones quickly and efficiently. Design single or multi-level decks with Deck Designer. Assign the materials you want for your new patio design. Quickly lay out your deck, add stairs, then place and arrange furniture. Deck foundations automatically generate to match sloped lots. Design and visualize your areas in 3D. Import your own photos of houses, plants, people, and more. Produce realistic images of your outdoor projects. Easily create hills and valleys for custom landscapes. Automatically generate materials list to estimate costs. Includes free How-To Tutorial CD.

A database of more than 1,200 plants offers both detailed information and photorealistic models for your visualizations.

Terrain Tools help you create topographically detailed views in 2D or 3D.

What's in the Box
Landscaping and Deck Designer software on CD and instructional CD.

Product Description

With the Better Homes and Gardens Landscaping and Deck Designer, you can say good-bye to all those cookie-cutter yards that populate new developments. Say hello to an outdoor living area that reflects your tastes and interests -- an outdoor that anyone can experience and love as much as you do, day in and day out, for years to come. Assign the materials you want for your new patio design Quickly lay out your deck, add stairs, then place and arrange furniture Deck foundations automatically generate to match sloped lots Design and visualize your areas in 3D Import your own photos of houses, plants, people, and more

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

143 of 151 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is best consumer level landscaping software out there, April 25, 2005

By 

S. Bunker - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Better Homes and Gardens Landscaping and Deck Designer [OLD VERSION] (CD-ROM)

After extensive research, I eventually concluded that nothing really good existed in the low end consumer world of Landscape Design software, but I held out great hope that Better Homes and Gardens Landscaping and Deck Designer would be different.

So I took a chance and bought it from Amazon in April. and After some initial delays in actually getting the product, it was worth the wait! This software has blown me away after using it just two days now!!

This is the newest 7.x version of the landscaping modules first introduced in the BH&G 6.x home designed suite. The new version, just recently released in Mar/Apr 2005 by Chief Architect for BH&G is now standalond landscaping and deck design product. I suspect a 7.x home designer suite will eventually follow.

It is clear that this software has inherited many good things from its more professional rooted product line at Chief Architect.

This latest Landscape and Deck designer is really easy to use. It comes with a program CD and tutorial CD. After a quick and easy installation process ... I found myself able to use this software quite quickly.

This worked for me, since I despise reading confusing manuals and going through endless tutorials ... this software was easy enought to "figure out", with a little help from the tutorial videos and the help subsystem.

Each video clip on the tutorial CD is only 2-4 minutes in duration and shows how to do several useful things at a time. This "show and tell" approach to learning really worked for me. I watch a quick video -- then I go do it myself.

Unlike other tutorials, this one is quick and to the point. You won't spend more than 30-45 minutes to watch all of the videos included. I reccomend watching the first 1-3 videos, then go try the program yourself, then come back to the tutorial videos a finish them off after you have an initial grasp of the program.

There is also a more comprehensive help utility where you can look up individual topics by topic or search for things within the help system ... very good overall.

This program is easy to use and the 3D capabilities are very impressive. I had my new home' irregular shapes lot laid out and my new home located on that lot to within half foot precision in the first night of use. You almost fool yourself into thinking this program is more than just landscaping, but there are certainly limits, but reasonable ones.

I was zooming around my lot and house in 3D on the first night of use. The house roof wasn't exactly correct, but very close ... and thats where the landscaping program meets its limits ... you can't really make the house architechturally correct from top to bottom, but very accurate dimensionally and certainly good for planning your landscape and/or deck.

You can even take an actual picture and mask out the surrounding and paste that picture onto your 3D model of the house. That really makes the product yield realistic looking models. And I did that one side of the house on my first night of using it.

You can save pictures of your 3D drawing to files, you can even make a motion video tour of your landscape ideas. I was blown away by the capabilities. I can't wait to get home and see what else I can do.

I didn't get into the landscaping till day 2. By the end of Day 2, I had an initial landscape layout 80% completed. This program is very usable and probably could be used by a pro if they didn't have the budget for the $1000+ software out there.

I can't say enough good things about this software. It should be a top seller within 1 year, if others feel the same as I do. My hats off to BH&G and Chief Architect -- "home run" guys.

179 of 194 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Professional Calibre Software But Easy to Use, April 1, 2005

By 

Jay Palmer (New York City) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Better Homes and Gardens Landscaping and Deck Designer [OLD VERSION] (CD-ROM)

As a designer and general contractor who has for many years relied on Chief Architect professional level CAD software, I nevertheless decided, when it came time for me to research consumer-level home design and landscaping products (as I am frequently asked to recommend these products), that I would evaluate those by other companies, as well.

I'm happy to report that the BH&G products won out. I was amazed to see how much Chief Architect capability has been incorporated into its consumer level products, marketed under the illustrious Better Homes & Gardens name. I am thoroughly impressed with how useable these programs are and how quickly non-professionals are able to learn them. The quality of the output is stunning and, as far as I'm concerned, the Chief Architect based products far surpass the competition in terms of integration and useability.

The unexpected outcome of my evaluation is that I deem these products, despite being consumer oriented software, to be of sufficiently high quality that I can use them in the office as ancillary products for interns and short-term employees to use. The output from Home Designer Pro can then even be opened in Chief Architect for further work by professionals. The Home Designer series is a boon for the consumer and the professional alike. In this day and age it's nice to see software developers who take their craft seriously and who are responsive to their customers, and to acknowledge that rare quality I've taken the time to write this review.

Jay Palmer
New York, NY

78 of 82 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Decks yes, landscapes no, September 9, 2005

By 

Aleksandar Totic (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Better Homes and Gardens Landscaping and Deck Designer [OLD VERSION] (CD-ROM)

I've bought Landscaping & Deck Designer to play with what-if scenarios in our back yard. It is a simple yard, with a lawn, patio, retaining wall that doubles as a bench, and a few plant beds on the side.

The program worked well for architectural-type tasks such as specifying rooms, decks, doors & windows. It was quite cumbersome for any landscaping tasls. For example: you couldn't easily specify a foot-tall retaining wall. I had to resort to hacks such as hidden wall creation with a mystery polygon overlay to create an illusion that the wall is there.

To lay down a patio, you'd create an room in your backyard, and paint it with flagstone texture. There was no tool to help you lay down a path, or a couple of stones, everything was a "room".

The designers obviously grafted a landscaping module onto an house design software. It works well if you'd like to see how a few trees & bushes will look next to your house, but is not suited well for detailed landscape design, with curvy paths, flagstones, fountains, or retaining walls.