3D Home Landscape Designer

by Riverdeep

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0000639WT
• Item model number: 385032
• Date first available at Amazon.com: February 20, 2002
• Average Customer Review: 1.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #16,170 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #76 in Software > Home & Hobbies > Gardening & Landscape
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Easily design your ideal landscape around a virtual image of your home with 3D Home Landscape Designer 4.0. View your creation over time and through the seasons, all in 3-D. Use the extensive plant encyclopedia to select the perfect plants for your garden and expand your botanical knowledge. The encyclopedia features 7,500 plants with 9,500 photos. Find facts on growth zones, climate, soil, and more. View 100 plant-care demonstrations and look through 600 illustrated solutions to garden problems. The software also features instant 3-D viewing of your designs with onscreen plant growth and seasonal changes and slope and elevation modeling. Even view your garden during the day or night or add 3-D garden objects like gazebos, fences, lighting, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

75 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Against my better judgement, I bought this program, June 4, 2002

By 

Carla (Pacific NorthWest, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 3D Home Landscape Designer (CD-ROM)

I read the reviews, but I was desperate for a landscaping program. You may be ok with a simple, rectangular lot. Most of the plants and trees that I have are not in the plant encylopedia. The program is not user-friendly.

54 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I Could Not be More Disappointed, April 1, 2003

By 

R. W. Taylor "hope-this-helps" (Woodland Park CO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 3D Home Landscape Designer (CD-ROM)

Do not purchase this software. Unless you have already designed a house using 3D Home Architect (a wasted process if you already live in a house), then you should be able to add landscape design with this product. If you want to add landscape design to the house you already own, using this as a piece of stand-alone software, simply do not waste your time.

- This is really a companion product to 3D Home Architect, it does not stand alone well.

- I'll bet you are looking for a product in which you can 1. Draw your lot (fairly straight forward with this product), and then 2. Add the house you live in (forget it, you can only pull from a library of houses, or import the house you designed in 3D Home Architect); then 3, add landscaping (perhaps that's doable, but with effort).

- Forget using the Tutorial. It is on-line and a fairly robust product, however, the tutorial is not for this product, it is for 3D Home Architect. You have to wade though pages of stuff that does not apply to what you want to do, then the portion dealing with Home Landscape is weak at best.

- The documentation is impressive, IF you purchased 3D Home Architect. Out of a 396 page book, 3D Home Landscape is not treated until page 259. Then you are presented with a gillion tools to define terrain, create hills and valleys, create plateaus, create slopes, create paths, create pads, create fills, insert edging...the list goes on and on, but is very short on 'create a flower bed,' 'plant a tree...' etc.

- I asked for on-line help. I sent an e-mail. The web site said I would be answered in 4-6 hours. 20 hours later, I got a canned answer to a question I did not even ask. It was as if someone cut and pasted an answer related to my question, but with no personal interest in my problem. My question was: "Can I draw in a plan view of my house on the property?" The answer was, "we have a lot of sample houses you can import from a catalog of houses..." Bottom line, is No, you cannot start out with your house.

Wish it could be better news. Broderbund needs to put this in the hands of a software designer who has just moved into a new house which has no yard. It is fixable.

54 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Please read before you buy this product, July 11, 2002

By 

Mike Drumm (Concord, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 3D Home Landscape Designer (CD-ROM)

After many hours of frustrating work I finally gave up on this product. I couldn't even find a way to draw a plot plan that wasn't a rectangle. My wife tried also and gave up. The manual is very sketchy and of little value. There are a limited number of objects to place in your design so you have to substitute token items for real structures. I highly recommend you do not buy this product. Look for something that has reasonable documentation and enough capability to describe something more than a rectangular patch.