Customer Reviews

Cadpro Platinum Bundle

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

 

 

My husband and I talked about putting up a barn next to our house for years, but the commitment of hiring a professional architect seemed intimidating - as well as expensive.

CADPro is not just a listing of standard house plans that maybe you will like (or maybe not), it's a real blueprint design program. Yes, it does have some ready made plans, including a pretty cool tree house and outdoor kitchen - but this was not what I wanted. I started by installing the program - with so many buttons and features (over 8,000) I was not sure where to begin. Luckily, CADPro includes a separate training CD (with sound and video) in the box. I watched the individual video lessons while I had the CADPro program open on my computer so I could go back and forth to practice. This is not a program you will fully master overnight.

I still have not used all the features, but I was able to quickly access the tools I needed to design my barn in detail. One of my favorite features is the pop-up photo. By dragging and dropping the camera icon from the toolbar onto the floor plan the program automatically opens My Pictures. Since I wanted a post and beam look on the inside I took a digital photo (taken while eating at my favorite restaurant) and saved it in My Pictures. I also scanned in some photos from a post & beam brochure and popped these in too - there is no limit to the number of photos you can include. The photos show up on the floor plan as little camera icons - by clicking once on the tiny camera the photos open.

Although my intent was to just design my barn using CADPro, I found I could redesign my great room (or other rooms) by using the existing dimensions of my house and creating images of the furniture I already have (with their size to scale). I can now rearrange my furniture to see if it will fit - before I move my sofa 10 times.

I am still waiting to see if the town will approve the building permit for my barn, but I feel better knowing I only invested 70 dollars, and I know exactly how it will look, and what the materials and estimated labor will cost, before they pour the foundation. I would highly recommended this program for anyone who wants to design their own renovation (or house) exactly the way they want, with blueprint results that a contractor can work from.

I first bought a box of Punch software to design my new home office. Some cool 3D features, but for practical purposes, contractors couldn't work from the design I created. That was why I bought CADPRO: I needed a design contractors could use to build from. I never called their tech support, but I did play the training video CD to get a basic idea of where to start and figured out the rest for myself. Installed without a hitch and worked just fine on my Dell PC using Windows XP home.

I started with the exterior walls - dragged them out to 18' x 22', then dropped in the exact size windows and doors I wanted. The software recalculated all my wall measurements automatically. By playing around with the toolbars, I noticed I could plug in electric outlets (never enough), light switches and ceiling lights. I never used the pop up feature or the other floor plans they include. The one feature that made the purchase a done-deal for me was the viewer. I emailed my final design out to 6 local building contractors with a link to the download viewer so they could open the file - without buying the software. Four responded back - I am still deciding on which one I will hire.

You need to watch the video and play around with it to get an idea of how it works. But if your intention is to design a custom plan your contractor can build from - this is it.

We bought this product as a tool with which to do space planning and facilities management. We've used other CAD programs - CadVance, AutoCAD LT 97, AutoSketch v. 5-8, but were looking for something more intuitive that our maintenance guys could actually use. After some research, CadPro4 seemed like a reasonable choice.
We were impressed by the glitzy and professional packaging, and the promise of an online user forum and good technical support. Sold!
Sadly, the reality is that there is NO user forum online, technical support is by e-mail and never have we gotten a return e-mail, and the program is unable to rotate doors and windows - a critical FAIL bug that precludes even using it. We tried loading it on another machine to see if it was some hardware interaction, but it did the same thing on both machines.
Steer clear, folks - until the bugs are fixed, the program is not usable. We could forgive the lack of technical support if the program actually worked, but it doesn't even do that. It just rubs salt into the wound that you can't even talk to them about it.

Tom Curley

I would love to say how this product performs, but we are unable to get it to download onto our computer. We got the demo CD downloaded, but the actual product.....no way. What CADpro fails to say in their ads is, there is ZERO tech support! They have a fax number to use and an email address, but they do not answer them! The only number we could find is if you are having trouble ordering. So, if you have money to throw away and no real use for a CAD program, let me suggest this one! Their online forum only takes you to an order form to sign up for their newsletter. I am not at all pleased with this!

I have searched for reviews on the Cadpro software line and did not find very many so based on the ads and the web site I decided to order the software (Cadpro6). At first things went smoothly, but as I began using the skew, rotate, and fillet functions the product repeatedly crashed. I also found that the 'fill' function occasionally did not work.

Attempts to contact tech support from their web site went unanswered for over 2 weeks. After sending an e-mail stating I would file a claim and a complaint with the ICC, I received a response stating that my requests for assistance was accidentally filtered as 'spam' and asking for more info which I responded to within a few minutes of receiving their e-mail. Again no response to date. I wonder if all requests through their web site are treated as spam?

I have been using and programming software since 1984 and have never met with anything like this. If your considering a CAD program, or any program from Delta Software, you may want to look elsewhere.

Manual does not work in some cases. Customer Support is email only, they respond with a same "not working" part of the manual. Due to a poor customer support I have returned the product.Cadpro Platinum Bundle

I downloaded Cadpro based on the promise of an easy to use program. They have no tutorial the manual is basically a dictionary. There is no support and nothing showing you how to use it. They have no telephone number listed and they do not respond to emails......
Worst on line experience to date. They do not issue refunds if product is downloaded!!!!!
Liz

Maybe I'm spoiled at work with AutoCad and Visio 2007, but I think this piece of software really needs work. I bought it to use as a item to do light work for home projects. The library looks as though an 8 year put it together.

I realize that for what it costs it wasn't going to be much, but this program really lacks. If this is what you get for the price I would look around for something else. I bit the bullet, put this on the shelf, and swung for Visio for my home projects. Hopefully, I can keep Visio going for some years to come.

It's too bad. My suggestion for anyone wanting to buy this dollar value level of software? Try before you buy. I wish I had.