Customer Reviews

Complete Home Designer 5.0: Home Design & Renovation

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I have been using Complete Home Designer 4.0 and decided to upgrade to 5.0 a few months ago, and I am not disappointed! First of all, don't expect a no-brainer interface and don't think that an architect will necessarily be able to build what you've designed. This software is less about structural design (there aren't that many low-price programs that can handle that aspect) than it is about visualization. If you want to see your designs beautifully rendered, this is the program to use. Shadows and lighting are rendered very realistically and you can simulate light conditions of virtually any time of day as well as choose geographic locations. The new structural features in this version include polygonal free roof design - where there is virtually no limit to the complex roofs you can design, and a customized window designer. These, to me, are the two biggest advantages over the previous version. Whereas most home design software available is limited to three floors, Complete Home Designer 5.0 gives you up to ten, so you can design your dream apartment house if you want! There is a large library of furnishings and details you can add to your design and some additional objects are available for download on the Internet. As I intimated in the title, there are a few quirks in the program. The parent program on which this is based originated in Germany, so you will find some pop-up windows and menu items are labeled in German and not in English! This is odd but doesn't really interfere with the program itself. Also, the program crashes occasionally. This too is annoying but the program is set to automatically backup whatever you're working on every minute or so, so you can usually recover your file and pick up where you left off. If you want to have fun designing buildings as a hobby or want to get a great visual preview of a house project before consulting an architect and don't mind a somewhat steep learning curve, I would recommend this program.

Installed this software hoping to visualize possible deck designs for my house. I use a brand new really powerful computer. This software crashed so much I couldn't get through the process of building a model of my home design, much less dream up new deck designs for it.

Complete Home Designer lets you enter room dimensions, one room at a time, and then place the room on the grid. Placing the room on the grid is the trick. It is very difficult to locate room 2 with respect to room 1. As you try to move it, the dimensions change and the location changes with it. You get into an unending loop of moving and resizing. If you ever get your layout correct, the program dimensions the rooms very nicely, if a little clumsily. I never got much further because it took too much effort to get a simple plan entered.

I got this program a week ago and I've yet to figure it out. The floor plan modes are complicated and cumbersome. On many occasions the program prevents me from making walls at certain angles and certain lengths.

I purchased the Data Beck Home Desing and Renovation over two weeks ago, (still not operating). I have emailed the support center to tell them the download required from their site is not loading and is a glix necessary (as they say) to operate and to please advise.
Still nothing. As this is software and not returnable to the store. I am stuck with it....definately choose any other product than this one.
Save yourself the headaches.

This program is worthless, first and foremost because it will not install properly. Well, it started to install. During installation it generated a Direct-X error, but finished the install. When I clicked on the program icon it promptly uninstalled itself and removed all trace of the program from my computer. Strange. The documentation tells you to contact the company at their web site which no longer exists. Staples wont return our money because we opened the box. Microsoft says they're not responsible for problems with Microsoft Direct-X because it is OEM supported, and we should contact our computer vendor (HP) to get assistance. HP no longer supports our computer because it is out of warranty. Software companies require us to agree to EULA's, but they have no requirements to even provide us a product that works. Doesn't this all seem criminal?

This software is garbage. It's obvious that it was put together in Germany because a lot of the pop-up-type windows are in German! I can't read German. I was flying blind! If their QA process is so bad that they don't even bother to change the German to English (this is an American market after all) for basic functions, then I'm afraid to know what else is wrong. I returned it to the store where I got it because it's defective.

Do not buy. It crashed several times on a plain Dell 8600. Very hard to use, like for example to set up rooms, because (1) there are no anchor points; should be able to anchor a corner and then drag a corner; (2) we cannot lock a room in place; while editing a room, another room resized; (3) there is no alignment among rooms; rooms should align sometimes, because they may share a common wall; (4) while working with a room, we cannot specify the type of wall; and so on. It has some sexy colors and menus, but after trying to use it for several times and coming out with no results, the next step is 'uninstall'.

I agree with 99% of Luis's review. Yes, it crashes a lot. Yes the tech support is near zero. No online community to share files with. Undersold its own best features even. But...since I discovered the 4.0 version 7 years ago, this amature hobby 3D home builder churned out more than 100 house design on my home pcs, complete with landscaping, custom arched windows, and custom furnitures, odd shape roof etc. Prior to that I have experimented with similar, more popular home building softwares and I do't read manuals. CHD is intuitive and feature packed - way ahead of overhyped Punch and even relatively reliable Broderbund. I never expected too much of a $50 product but not only it's value for money, it was a DIY 3D architect tool way ahead of its time. You get to custom make simple furniture pieces with the included, handy o2C compression technology by Arcon, which alone costs probably 10 times or more in pro architect softwares. There's also a publish to web template that spits out complete html files you can upload to show your house creation online or email to your contractors. The user interface, preview screen and real time drag and drop feel is unbeatable among it peers - EVEN TODAY. I didn't even think twice and bought the 5.0 as soon as it was launched 3 years ago. These harsh reviews and possibly unknown corporate issues didn't help furthur improvement and developement of this potential gem. What a waste. Today I still marvel at some of the CHD features. And since I upgraded to XP recently, I can no longer run this fav program of mine. CHD is doing so well in Germany they have the 6.0 version. I'm now looking into the UK version 3D Home Designer by GSP, supposedly the 5.0 equivalent, which uses the same Arcon "core engine" and is XP compatible.

Despite its shortcomings, I think CHD 5.0 deserves a 3.5 star. I give a 5-star to offset the effect.