Customer Reviews

3D Home Architect Design 6.0 Special Edition (Jewel Case)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I have had several $9.99 "home design" programs in the past and they actually saved me money when working on remodeling projects. Yes, for $9.99 they weren't "architect" or "professional" level, but they worked quite well for my needs. Unfortunately, they didn't work on Windows XP. In my search for an inexpensive home design program, I researched several and, after visiting Broderbund's own site, decided to try 3D Home Architect Design 6.0 Special Edition.

To my great disappointment -- and only after breaking the seal of the box, unwrapping the jewel case, and installing/running the program -- did I find out that this edition has NO ability to place cabinets, appliances or furniture in the design. No where on the Broderbund site did I find that these features are missing from the "Special Edition" version. In fact, they didn't specify clearly what set this off from the other version, so I figured it was probably due to lack of written documentation (manual) and "extras" like landscaping and deck design. WRONG.

Only after searching for an hour trying to figure out this program did I get into the "Help" file and find the notations that cabinets, furniture, etc aren't available in this edition. Very frustrating considering Broderbund's site touts this version as being able to assist with interior design... I don't know how that can be. Of course, you can change the wall colors and texture, but you just can't place anything in the rooms.

Amazon's return policy prevents me from returning "jewel case only" items, so I guess I just "donated" $9.99 plus shipping to Amazon.com

I wasn't expecting a top of the line program, but this thing is lousy in comparison to the many inexpensive programs I've had in the past, especially from Sierra, that did a very sufficient job in designing and decorating.

Add me to the list of people who were disappointed by the lack of kitchen, bathroom, and furniture symbols in this version--after wasting hours trying to figure out how to get them to show up. No where on the packaging does it indicate that these items are absent. In fact, it mentions its "complete selection of tools" several times on the box. What a waste.

This program is useful if you have an idea for a building and want to do a floor plan to get an idea of what it might look like. That's what it's good for: walls, windows, doors, etc, simply a layout. Forget furniture or fixtures. Forget landscaping. Want construction details? Forget it. This program is strictly layout for idea purposes. The 3D rendering is cartoonish as people say, but it's fast. There's no five minute rendering process. 2D to 3D takes a second or two because it's low resolution, but if you make a change and want a quick 3D look then poof! It's done. Why one would want photo quality rendering is beyond me, and for 10 bucks how could you expect that? My program never crashed once. I found placing walls down and having them snap together was easy. There are easy handles on walls and such so that you can move a wall and all attached walls move as well. Very easy. Definitely turn off the auto-save feature -- it won't work; use SAVE or SAVEAS on the menu for different versions of your project. The only big gripe I have is that there is no furniture/fixtures at all, not even generic ones ... like a toilet or a bed or a generic cabinet. When designing a bathroom, say, it's nice to know how much room is left after basic fixtures are introduced. Another smaller gripe is that the default roof style is not a gable -- the type that almost ALL simple structures use. You can change the offered roof style into a gable but it does take a few steps; read the help carefully; it's there. Overall this is not a bad product for 10 dollars.

I had exactly the same problem as the viewer before me. Many of the items in the catalog are disabled for some reason, with no warning. I found that while trying to place a cabinet. There were other problems as well. Skip this product and look for another. I haven't found one yet that won't cost me hundreds of dollars.

We could not get the program to work as advertised. It seemed to only do very minor things and the screen never appeared on our computer as it looked on the advertisement on the internet and on the cd case. In the ad, it showed that there were about four tabs to choose from (ie: interior, exterior, etc.) and the when the cd opened and loaded onto our computer, it only showed one tab and thus, we could not really do what we wanted to do with it.

I was disappointed in the architecture program I purchased because it apparently is an outdated program that does not allow for furniture placement in a room. There were no downloads that I could find to insert furniture and what was in the program was limited to windows, doors and types of walls and flooring.

This program is deceptively packaged so that it appears to do a wide range of building and designing tasks. In truth, the only thing it does is draw a basic floor plan-- no interior design, no interior remodeling, no landscaping, nothing. No where on the product is this stated. In fact, the tutorial TELLS you that the program has landscaping and interior design capabilities. And, it cannot be returned because it is a computer program. So I am complaining to the company. I encourage others who have been mislead to do the same.

This is not what I wanted. It does not work with Autocad like version 4.0. Yes you can import the drawing into Autocad but you can not use the drawing. It appears that after version 4 3D home stop working with Autocad. Great for 3d work and independant designs but I need to get software where I can start a drawing easily and complete the difficult task in Autocad.

I have used this program for several years to create plans for add-ons and homes, including our parade of homes winning house a few years ago. I came back here to order it again because I needed to re-order the program after breaking my first disk.

For creating layouts and blue prints it is a great program. Down to the point and not much extra crap getting in the way. Set you wall thickness, then click and drag... Done... You can place furniture and appliances, but I can see why some people are upset by the lack of selection. A user might want to place a side by side fridge for the 3D preview instead of the upright fridge in the inventory. But when you are creating homes, you don't care what the model is. As long as it has the correct size and scale you are set.

We used this program start to end to design additions. When creating a new house blueprint we were able to take the drawings generated from this program the cad engineer, he was able to read it easy and turn around the code approved drawings very fast. The program could also export out the DFX drawing. I know on most cases, he just imported that to CAD and use it to generate the drawing.

This program is simple & great for getting the job done.

if you want to do much with this program it requires you buy more stuff for it to get to a complete design. it is only good for walls and outlines and not that great at that.