ᐅ Which software do you use or would you recommend for house design and planning?
Created on: 13 May 2020 11:14
A
AleXSR700A
AleXSR70013 May 2020 11:14Hello everyone,
I wanted to ask which software you use for floor plan design and possibly site planning? Maybe you have tested several and can share their pros and cons?
I have tried Sweet Home 3D and Avanquest Architect 3D Gold 2018 myself.
Sweet Home 3D advantages:
- Free
- Very intuitive (I created a complete house with it within an hour, not including interior design). It can be operated very quickly.
- Excellent user interface including 3D view.
Sweet Home 3D disadvantages:
- You cannot simply scroll right or left without drawing a wall or similar. The drawing area is basically limited to 2m (6.6 ft) around the house (a disadvantage when placing garages, but can be circumvented with little effort).
- You cannot rotate buildings/objects (for example, if you want to move a garage from one property boundary to another). However, you can rotate the entire plan with a plugin and, indirectly, also single objects that way.
- No dimensioning available. The biggest issue, in my opinion, is that Sweet Home 3D does not show any measurements. You have to click on each wall and window individually to check their dimensions and then write them into the plan manually.
Avanquest Architect 3D Gold 2018 advantages:
- Dimensions are entered automatically
- Quickstart feature allows you to create and adjust entire rooms very quickly and easily
Avanquest Architect 3D Gold 2018 disadvantages:
- I haven’t found a way to return to Quickstart after finishing it, making it hard to easily modify or add rooms later
- The program is not intuitive at all. Everything seems very complicated, even adjusting a staircase.
- The 3D view is cumbersome and not enjoyable to use.
- In the first hour, I couldn’t figure out how to remove a room’s ceiling to create an open space to the floor above.
- Creating floors, ceilings, and the like without defining a whole room seems awkward.
As you might guess, I gave up on Avanquest Architect after about 60-90 minutes. It was no fun. I suspect it can do everything, but if everything is very complicated and counter-intuitive, you simply don’t want to work with it.
Maybe newer versions of Avanquest are better. Maybe you have had good experiences with it. Or maybe you know of a program that combines Sweet Home 3D’s ease of use with Avanquest’s dimensioning capabilities.
I’m curious to hear what you use or can recommend, whether free or paid.
I wanted to ask which software you use for floor plan design and possibly site planning? Maybe you have tested several and can share their pros and cons?
I have tried Sweet Home 3D and Avanquest Architect 3D Gold 2018 myself.
Sweet Home 3D advantages:
- Free
- Very intuitive (I created a complete house with it within an hour, not including interior design). It can be operated very quickly.
- Excellent user interface including 3D view.
Sweet Home 3D disadvantages:
- You cannot simply scroll right or left without drawing a wall or similar. The drawing area is basically limited to 2m (6.6 ft) around the house (a disadvantage when placing garages, but can be circumvented with little effort).
- You cannot rotate buildings/objects (for example, if you want to move a garage from one property boundary to another). However, you can rotate the entire plan with a plugin and, indirectly, also single objects that way.
- No dimensioning available. The biggest issue, in my opinion, is that Sweet Home 3D does not show any measurements. You have to click on each wall and window individually to check their dimensions and then write them into the plan manually.
Avanquest Architect 3D Gold 2018 advantages:
- Dimensions are entered automatically
- Quickstart feature allows you to create and adjust entire rooms very quickly and easily
Avanquest Architect 3D Gold 2018 disadvantages:
- I haven’t found a way to return to Quickstart after finishing it, making it hard to easily modify or add rooms later
- The program is not intuitive at all. Everything seems very complicated, even adjusting a staircase.
- The 3D view is cumbersome and not enjoyable to use.
- In the first hour, I couldn’t figure out how to remove a room’s ceiling to create an open space to the floor above.
- Creating floors, ceilings, and the like without defining a whole room seems awkward.
As you might guess, I gave up on Avanquest Architect after about 60-90 minutes. It was no fun. I suspect it can do everything, but if everything is very complicated and counter-intuitive, you simply don’t want to work with it.
Maybe newer versions of Avanquest are better. Maybe you have had good experiences with it. Or maybe you know of a program that combines Sweet Home 3D’s ease of use with Avanquest’s dimensioning capabilities.
I’m curious to hear what you use or can recommend, whether free or paid.
Hi, I also use Sweet Home 3D.
As a downside, I would add that sh3d doesn’t really handle stairs well. They are always 3D objects that get distorted when you change the dimensions. You can only modify them as a whole, not distribute individual steps differently at the start and end.
Roof slopes get really complicated, and the automatic room height measurement doesn’t work.
As an advantage, I want to emphasize again that SH3D not only creates 3D views but also allows a virtual walkthrough of the rooms you have designed. That has often helped me better estimate room sizes and effects. You just have to be careful not to take “impossible” positions, like standing inside walls, because in reality you obviously can’t view the space from such angles, and that would give you a misleading impression.
Well, you can move them if you select all building parts (hold Shift and click). Rotation is not possible, that’s true. However, you can flip objects vertically and horizontally (which is called “flip” in the context menu). Can you tell me which plugin you are referring to? That would interest me.
No automatic dimensioning, that’s correct, but there is a dimensioning tool available.
I think SH3D is fantastic for a free tool. I haven’t seen any other software that is nearly as powerful. Sure, some features require workarounds and can be annoying. But hey, it’s free. Also, I believe the learning curve for semi-professional paid tools is much steeper.
As a downside, I would add that sh3d doesn’t really handle stairs well. They are always 3D objects that get distorted when you change the dimensions. You can only modify them as a whole, not distribute individual steps differently at the start and end.
Roof slopes get really complicated, and the automatic room height measurement doesn’t work.
As an advantage, I want to emphasize again that SH3D not only creates 3D views but also allows a virtual walkthrough of the rooms you have designed. That has often helped me better estimate room sizes and effects. You just have to be careful not to take “impossible” positions, like standing inside walls, because in reality you obviously can’t view the space from such angles, and that would give you a misleading impression.
AleXSR700 schrieb:
- You can’t rotate buildings/objects (e.g., if you want to move a garage from one property boundary to another). But with a plugin, you can rotate the entire plan and thereby, indirectly, individual objects as well.
Well, you can move them if you select all building parts (hold Shift and click). Rotation is not possible, that’s true. However, you can flip objects vertically and horizontally (which is called “flip” in the context menu). Can you tell me which plugin you are referring to? That would interest me.
AleXSR700 schrieb:
- No dimensioning possible. In my opinion, the biggest problem is that Sweet Home 3D doesn’t display measurements. You have to select every wall and window individually to check their dimensions and then write them down manually on the plan.
No automatic dimensioning, that’s correct, but there is a dimensioning tool available.
I think SH3D is fantastic for a free tool. I haven’t seen any other software that is nearly as powerful. Sure, some features require workarounds and can be annoying. But hey, it’s free. Also, I believe the learning curve for semi-professional paid tools is much steeper.
I use MagicPlan
Advantages: - free of charge - easy to use
- the first 3D floor plans are free - displays all measurements upon export - room names can be customized - rooms can be fully moved - furniture size can be adjusted and much more
Disadvantages: - it is not possible to create exterior views
Advantages: - free of charge - easy to use
- the first 3D floor plans are free - displays all measurements upon export - room names can be customized - rooms can be fully moved - furniture size can be adjusted and much more
Disadvantages: - it is not possible to create exterior views
A
AleXSR70013 May 2020 11:34@Tolentino
I’ll look up the link for you tonight. If I can’t find it, I’ll post the plugin instead.
Manual measurements are possible, yes. But I find it really cumbersome, especially since you have to recreate all of them whenever you change a single wall or adjust a layout somewhere.
@Jucruzlo
The downside of MagiPlan is that it’s unfortunately not available for Windows, only as a mobile app. Or have I missed something?
I’ll look up the link for you tonight. If I can’t find it, I’ll post the plugin instead.
Manual measurements are possible, yes. But I find it really cumbersome, especially since you have to recreate all of them whenever you change a single wall or adjust a layout somewhere.
@Jucruzlo
The downside of MagiPlan is that it’s unfortunately not available for Windows, only as a mobile app. Or have I missed something?
AleXSR700 schrieb:
@Jucruzlo
The downside of MagiPlan: unfortunately, it’s not available for Windows, only as a mobile app. Or did I miss something?Ah, right, I use it as an app on the iPad.
The downside of SweetHome3D is that it costs money on Mac—$14.99 to be exact. I just tried to download it.
AleXSR700 schrieb:
I’ll look up the link for you this evening. If I can’t find it, I’ll post the plugin. Links are not allowed here. Just posting the name of the plugin is probably helpful for others as well.
AleXSR700 schrieb:
Manual dimensioning is possible, yes. But I find it very cumbersome. Especially since you have to recreate all dimensions if you change even a single wall or adjust a layout somewhere. Yes, I thought so at first too. But actually, it makes sense to first "draw" the dimension and then adjust the corresponding wall if you want to apply the target measurements.
Because SH3D always uses the center of a wall as the "anchor." It doesn’t know if you want an inside or outside measurement. For automatic area calculations, you need overlapping walls. So yes, it seems annoying at first, but you quickly get used to it and even use it during the drawing process.
There is also quite an active community. Maybe you can ask for tips there, or someone could be inspired by the questions and suggestions to develop a suitable plugin (I unfortunately can’t do that).
I still think it’s really great for a free tool.