Software for designing a house

tinkerbell

Hi

Wasn't exactly sure where to post this so if this is the wrong place, feel free to move to wherever

My folks asked me to locate some software that lets you draw up house plans, etc. Does anyone have any name that they could recommend? I've did a bit of a search of my own but have come up with nothing so far.

Any help at all would be very much appreciated, thanks in advance everyone

Nukem

What like AutoCAD? Thats the most used for plans!
Try the Engineering Forum as well as there might be a few Civ Eng heads around. Or do you mean just the basic furnishing? There is software for everything,just have to find it:mad:

mp3guy

The Sims 2.... sorry i had to

godtabh

AutoCAD would be used by the structural engineer to show walls, beams etc

MircoStation (Windows) and Vector Wars (Mac) is used by Architects (eveil backstards!) for buildings etc. They would show out line of furniture etc but it would be in 2D. There is 3D stuff out there but it would be high end stuff and I haven’t used it.

jozi

AutoCAD would be used by the structural engineer to show walls, beams etc

And we use it here to do up house plans, site layouts and the like for planning purpose.

Jozi

godtabh

I know it can be used for that as well but I was trying to make the distinction that in general engineers use AutoCAD and Architects use MircoStation. So depending what he wanted to do exactly he might have a better idea of what software he was looking for.

I've used both and thought MircoStation was better but it’s much more expensive so my current company uses AutoCAD

Fallschirmjager

well, i bought a product called punch home design. i bought it from the UK suppliers for europe but u could check out amazon.

here are the good points
it is easy to use
it is very powerful design and building tool
you can even put furnioture in your house to give you an idea of dimesnsions, doors etc
you can design 2d and get it to build 3d imge

negatives

the following is from memory so you will have to give me a bit of leeway.

when i bought it they had only converted it for european measurement. now apparently the conversion from US measurements to UK/EU measurements was not exact which meant the software would work but you would not get the benefits if you built the house because you would never have standard window and door sizes from the EU, therefore the builder could not use it. As i recall the problem of the software was around these type of issues. also it was aimed at US regulation wooden house building, again no one was sure where that left you in the EU. as a result we used it to give us an idea of what our house would look like, and they also (would you believe) had a garden design tool that would show you what yer garden would look like taking into account approximate growth rates of the plants. that was pretty cool.

so if you want an idea that you could pass to an architect and say, 'HEY, this is what i have in mind', i suspect it would save you some time and effort...but to avoid architects althogehter might be a bit risky. altho -- people in the US have used it to build their houses -- so it can be done.

i would add, what i am saying here is 2 years old....not even sure this software now exists...

jozi

kearnsr wrote:

I know it can be used for that as well but I was trying to make the distinction that in general engineers use AutoCAD and Architects use MircoStation. So depending what he wanted to do exactly he might have a better idea of what software he was looking for.

I've used both and thought MircoStation was better but it’s much more expensive so my current company uses AutoCAD

Maybe that why we use cad.

tinkerbell

Hi all,

Sorry for getting back to ye so late but I wasn't too sure of what kinda software they were on about / needed.

mp3guy wrote:

The Sims 2.... sorry i had to

Ha ha, funnily enough, I thought of that as well when my dad mentioned it to me!

I think my dad has AutoCad already somewhere. All he needs it for is to draw up the plans and be able to have the measurements in there. It's not for professional use, my folks are just thinking of building a new house and would like to mess around with plans a bit.

So do ye think AutoCad would be the best thing for that? I've no idea where he put the CD now, I'll have to have a route around for it.

Thanks again for the advice

Nukem

Dont quote me on this but i think you can download some of the AutoCAD xx LT for free (LT is light)
It has nearly all the features but the licence is cheaper so goes outta date faster. Use 2000 at my desk in work,2005 at home and 2004LT in the drawing office and compatability is a b!tch. Can go back but no forward when saving files so be careful.Might need a compatability patch; depends on the plans format.Could download a trial too.

Nukem

karltimber

do a search for "home plan pro" - basic but very good for getting ideas across to architechs/builders

see what you think

Ri_Nollaig

my sister is an architechs and uses MircoStation and had autoCAD aswell at some points
another nice program that she had was called SketchUp not as powerful but can give nice 3d and textures and stuff linky

ocallagr

For designing almost anything I use software called SmartDraw 7. It can be used to design almost anything (houses, software, crime scene diagrammes etc) and is simple to use. It does lack some of the bells and whistles that a dedicated CAD programme would have but for an amature such as myself it's great.

It can be downloaded from www.smartdraw.com. You get a fully functional evaluation copy so if you just want to do one drawing it won't cost anything.

I love it so much that I wrote them an email to tell them. :eek:

scion

i use 3D Studio Max, its amazing