Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Software for Room Planning and Design?

Posted by Cliff on from the previewing-a-room-BEFORE-all-the-heavy-lifting dept.

anandsr asks: "Hi everybody, I am looking for a software that allows creating 3D models of house and furniture etc, to see how a house would look before building it, and populate it. What would you all recommend, are there any that amateurs can use." I've seen these in use in stores like Lowe's and Home Depot, but is there anything out there geared and priced for the home user?

2 of 26 comments (clear)

  1. Photoshop by kxr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've been working out how to redecorate my flat, and I found the best way is to take digital photos of the rooms, import them into Photoshop, and go nuts! Sure, it requires a modicum of artistic ability (I started out studying architecture, so I can just about manage this), but it's enough to work out your colour schemes and stuff...

  2. Quality just isn't there by dschuetz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've looked high and low for a good home modeling program, and just haven't found it.

    I've got something (at home, though, so I can't tell you right offhand what it is -- it uses a .psh extension) that's not too bad. But problems I've run into (with this, and with other demos I've played with):

    * Very difficult to draw the floor plan -- snaps when I don't want it to, doesn't when I do; sometimes walls get totally screwed up; difficult to draw angled walls
    * Limitations to the built-in objects -- doors, windows, etc, are "take it or leave it" -- use the ones they've got, and if it's the wrong size, you *might* be able to stretch it to fit.
    * SLOW
    * difficult to switch between floors
    * 3-D walkthrough is a "through walls" flythrough that's difficult to use -- you choose FOV, and direction, and then sort of move your pointer around and you kinda walk through

    All in all, good enough to play with, but I gave up trying to put in my new house after two weeks of frustration.

    Why we can't have a simple floor-plan editor that's as easy as Visio (or easier, since Visio suffers some problems, too), with a game-engine walkthrough so you can actually, well, WALK through (and go up stairs, etc), is beyond me.

    I'm going to try out some of the other packages suggested in this thread, but I'm not holding my breath....

    I've run into the same problem with "home CAD" stuff. The home design program I described above also does landscaping and simple furniture design, but it (like other "home cad" software I've tried) is extremely difficult to use. CAD software all seems to be based on volumes, simple shapes, and kinda-sorta managing to manipulate those items in a 3-D space.

    I'd like to find a "Wood CAD" program that lets me grab a 6' 2x4 from a pallette, chop a foot off the end, nail it to another, etc., etc. -- so that I'm not only 'building' something that starts with standard dimensional lumber components, but it'd be within the realm of possibility for the software to produce, based on what I started with and what I ended up with, a step-by-step set of assembly instructions.

    I've got a lot of woodworking I have to do for the new house (finishing a basement, shelves and desks for a server room, closet organizers, etc.), and I'm going to be doing all the design the way my father did -- on quadrille paper with a sharp pencil. At least it'll look professional, even if I can't do a realtime 3-D rotation on the paper.