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Chief Architect Architectural Home Designer 9.0 | 
| From: Chief Architect Category: Software
List Price: $199.99 Buy New: $169.00 as of 9/9/2010 05:45 CDT details You Save: $30.99 (15%)
New (7) Used (1) from $169.00
Seller: DataVision Computer Video Rating: 16 reviews
Format: DVD-ROM Platforms: Windows 7, Windows XP, Windows Vista Media: DVD-ROM Operating System: Windows Vista Shipping Weight (lbs): 0 Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: A90-SN-NXX1 Model: A90-DN-0AZ1 UPC: 750839061184 EAN: 0750839061184
Release Date: July 1, 2009 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Chief Architect Architectural Home Designer provides an advanced yet easy to use set of tools for Home Design, Remodeling, Interior Design, Kitchens, Baths, Decks, Landscaping, Site Planning and Cost Estimation | | • | Artistic 3D rendering techniques for Watercolor, Glass House and Technical Illustration views; 3D Design Tools and Virtual Walk Thru Tools | | • | Powerful automatic building and design tools like one-click automatic roofs and automatic dormers, material painter, color chooser, deck designer tools and more | | • | Choose from over 7,000 built-in library items or import your own for unlimited possibilities | | • | Over 3,200 realistic landscaping plants with plant encyclopedia data |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Product Description Architectural Home Designer 9.0 is the latest release from Chief Architect, the professional software design company and the software of choice by more builders, architects and designers. Architectural Home Designer leverages the same professional quality from Chief Architect making it the most powerful and easy to use home design, remodeling and landscaping software. Create your dream home with powerful and easy to use home design, remodeling and landscaping software. Click to enlarge. | Design the Kitchen of your dreams--move walls, create new cabinets, and add appliances to design your perfect workspace! Click to enlarge. | Powerful deck and patio tools allow you to design and visualize your new deck. Click to enlarge. | Design in 2D and 3D. 3D Views are automatic with a point-and-click of the camera tool. Click to enlarge. | Glass House View provides a full translucent view of your design. Click to enlarge. | Choose from over 3,600 plants with the Plant Chooser. Click to enlarge. | Exclusive All-in-One Home Design Solution - Choose from over 2,500 Sample Plans
- Choose from built-in home style templates, create your own custom home design or use the House Wizard
- Powerful building tools like automatic roof generation, dormers, stairs, framing and foundations
- Artistic rendering techniques for Watercolor, Glass House and Technical Illustration
Get Started Quickly and Easily - The Quick Startup Options Guide will help you begin with "How-To" tutorials based on the type of your project
- Use the House Wizard for quick and easy layout of your rooms
- Select from the pre-designed Home Design and Landscaping Style Templates complete with colors, cabinets, decks and more
- The online help system provides detail information on all types of building projects
- Includes over 40 easy "step-by-step" tutorial training videos that will quickly get you started on your next home design project
Kitchen and Bath Design - Design the Kitchen of your dreams--move walls, create new cabinets, add appliances--Design your perfect workspace!
- Plan the new layout of your bathroom with custom cabinets, sinks, showers and garden tubs. It's easy to visualize your ideas in 3D.
- Create custom cabinets in minutes by choosing your own colors, countertops, door styles and more
- Design your new kitchen or bath using the Cabinet Designer Tools
- Use the Cabinet Designer tools to create unlimited cabinet styles. Choose your own colors, countertops and door styles.
Interior Design - Material Painter lets you apply colors and materials quickly and easily
- Choose from thousands of colors and textures or create your own materials using a digital photograph
- Design for your lifestyle and personality--change colors, add lighting and choose furniture to accent your new room
- Choose from a variety of interior items--including chairs, tables, sofas, fabrics, accessories and more. Resize, change colors and materials to meet your exact needs.
- Import your own symbols from 3D files types including .SKP, .OBJ and .3DS
- Smart Design Objects, Drag-and-drop from thousands of design objects in the built-in Library organized by category
Decks and Landscaping - Powerful deck and patio tools allow you to design and visualize your new deck with 3D models and can help you estimate the costs
- Design single or multi-level decks complete with automatic deck framing
- Quickly lay out your deck with stairs and arrange furniture
- Deck foundations automatically generate to match sloped lots
- Plant Encyclopedia to learn more about the plants in your designs
- Choose from over 3,600 plants with the Plant Chooser
- Plant Hardiness Zone reference maps
- See what your plants will look like in 0 - 20 years
- Pathways--Use the Pathway tool to design curb-appealing landscaping using stone, pavers, or sidewalks--line with trees, shrubs, flowers and more
|  Chief Architect Product Comparison Which Chief Architect product best suits your needs? Review this product comparison matrix (PDF file). | 3D Models and Virtual Tours - Design in 2D and 3D. 3D Views are automatic with a point-and-click of the camera tool.
- Glass House View provides a full translucent view of your design. Choose other Artistic rendering techniques for Watercolor and Technical Illustration views.
- Planning of furniture placement and traffic flow
- Create a Virtual Tour--draw your record line to Automatically Generate; or record your camera movements
- Visualize your home with day and night views
- Assemble a scale model of your design with Model Maker
- Generate shadows from the sun for realistic 3D views
- Point-and-click to remove wall surfaces, or use 3D Cross-Section Elevation Slider to quickly create a 3D slice of your desired view
Site Planning & Estimating - Use Automatic Build Terrain and Terrain Perimeter tools to create flat, irregular shaped, or sloped lots--use a GPS to import or enter elevation data
- Create plot and perimeter plans; automatically generate a 3D model of your actual terrain
- Make your backyard design come alive using several easy-to-use terrain and landscaping tools. Add a pool or pond and visualize in 3D.
- Sprinkler Designer tools to easily layout sprinkler zones
- Fences and Driveways--With the Fencing tools you can choose a variety of fencing styles and custom gates. You will also find driveway, sidewalk and curbing tools
- Hill and Valley tools make it easy to add gardens, beds and slopes that automatically appear in 3D views. Choose from landscaping style templates or create your own.
- Cost Estimating--Don't be surprised by the cost of your project. Automatically generate a complete spreadsheet for your project costs, broken down by category. Calculate the amount of lumber for your deck or concrete required for that new patio.
Product Description Architectural Home Designer 9.0 is all-in-one Home Design software and includes: Home Design, Remodeling, Decks & Landscaping, Interior Design, Site Planning & Estimating. It leverages the same professional quality from Chief Architect making it the most powerful and easy to use home design software. Quickly place and arrange walls, windows, doors, and cabinets. Choose colors, place furniture, create decks and landscaping. Powerful building tools like standard CAD tools, automatic roof generation, dormers, stairs, framing, foundations, and Plan Check make it easy. Choose from a Library of more than 3,600 plants and 7,000 items including windows, doors, lighting, furniture, interior/exterior fixtures, cabinets, and more. For home design, choose from thousands of styles, colors, wallpaper, flooring, and materials. Move a wall, change a color, add a room, redesign a kitchen, create your own cabinets, and estimate costs before you build. For remodeling, experiment and create models and virtual tours. Arrange walls, windows, doors, decks, and automatically generate 3D models to visualize at any angle. Powerful building and remodeling tools include automatic roof generation, foundations, stairs, and more. For interior design, Choose or import thousands of items to customize your design. Point-and-click to change wall colors, flooring styles, countertops, and more. Choose from name-brand colors and materials or create your own. For decks & landscaping, there are over 1,500 botanically accurate flowers, trees, and shrubs. Create gardens, pathways, hills, valleys, ponds, and more for your outdoor living area. Powerful deck tools allow you to design, visualize, estimate, and build your outdoor living project. For site planning & estimating, design your lot and plans with easy terrain tools. Identify your costs and materials for your next project before you begin. Design in 2D or 3D. Add, resize, and automatically dimension your plans.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 16
Helpful But Cumbersome May 21, 2010 David H. Williams (OH, US) 6 out of 7 found this review helpful
My wife and I wanted a consumer level software program to generate illustrations that might help us refine our notions of what we actually want before we engage an architect. We hope this will improve our ability to communicate with a professional designer and save time when our project advances to the stage where time costs money. The software produces amazingly detailed illustrations that more than satisfy this need and is actually fun to use.
The learning curve is steeper than expected. The program is graphically oriented and intuitive. At a rudimentary level, it is usable straight out of the box. Refining the drawings to achieve precise dimensions and add detail is trickier. Written instructions and on-line video tutorials provide enough instruction to accomplish most tasks but the methods described rely primarily on the program's graphic capabilities which aren't always the most expedient way to accomplish a task. By trial and error, we are learning that the program is flexible and can be adapted to the user's preferred working methods but getting there takes time. The more we use it, the more I am convinced the program is actually capable of delivering more than the advertising promises.
Waaaayyyy More Complicated April 22, 2010 Shelby Dunn 4 out of 7 found this review helpful
First, there is no reason that it took 2 weeks for an off the shelf product like this to get shipped to a customer.... me.
Second, this product is WAY more complicated to use than it seems, or it is portrayed. If you don't have at least a 22" LCD monitor, forget it. The enlarge and fit-to-screen options are fine, but it is difficult to do the initial steps in a floor plan with stuff running off every side of the screen.
Second, if you are using this on a high powered laptop, it gets real annoyed when you are not connected to the net. As a matter of fact, it keeps shutting the application down. A new feature?
Third, after watching the video tutotials twice now, I will have to go back and do it again. I am not an engineer or architect, so there must be something wrong with the way I think. The tutorials seem to assume that they are "intuitive" but I got to tell you, for me they are anything but.
Finally, overall I think this is going to turn out to be an OK purchase and worth the money. Chief Architect needs to think about who is using this stuff and really work through making it more understandable AND more intuitive (really intuitive). I think I'd puchase it even if I knew all this... and now I do.
Great product for the price April 9, 2010 GEOFFREY LEGALLAIS (Novato, CA) 4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Great product for the price. Easy learning curve if you're reasonably software savvy. After learning some quick tips I laid out a room and furnished it within minutes. Make sure you have enough video memory (256mb) for rendering. That's the one thing I failed to confirm prior to my purchase (my bad) but I was still happy with the product knowing what it is capable of with the appropriate system requirements. Newer machines will most likely be fine with video memory capacity. Also, if you want to create custom ceilings I would recommend the Pro version but besides that this is some cool software.
Overpriced for the feature set March 3, 2010 D. Rowland (Morgan Hill, CA) 17 out of 19 found this review helpful
This program shows great promise at first until you dig into it deeper. I bought the software primarily for its landscape capabilities but also because of the home design software. It can easily create single story homes quickly and easily but multilevel homes are much more difficult. If you plan to replicate your existing plan you will be quickly be frustrated because all homes have features which are not automated in the feature set of this version. I have a 20 year old home with lots of roof hips and cathedral ceilings which proved very difficult. I eventually gave up after many, many hours (days) because I moved on to the exterior landscape which is why I bought the software.
I was really disappointed with the landscape capabilities. Again if you're trying to replicate your existing landscape forget it. It's just not that flexible. Duplicating my existing landscape took days. I had to find workarounds for everything. For example you would think making a pool would be easy for a landscape program but it's not because there are no tools for it. There is a ridiculously tedious work around detailed on the Chief Architect website but it's a total afterthought. I also have a simple wrought iron fence around the pool that was nearly impossible to replicate. The user will also be frustrated with the plant libraries. I live in California where oak and redwood trees are common. The depiction of these species is unrecognizable. The library seems east coast centric.
One of the more frustrating problems was the software's inability to rotate my plan 90 degrees. When I rotate the plan it rotates the first floor leaving the foundation and second floor in place. You can individually rotate these layers but they never register with each other. When I contacted tech support about this they offered to sell me a $400 upgrade to a pro version. I have experience with a less capable program from a competitor but I'm definitely no pro. If you plan on becoming more than an advanced beginner you will probably need the $500 version. I gave it three stars because I eventually succeeded replicating my existing landscape and creating a newer renovated one.
Buy it! Buy it! Buy it! January 14, 2010 Peter A. Lamb (Sterling, CT United States) 9 out of 10 found this review helpful
Absolutely wonderful software. I am new to a PC (former MAC user) and new to design software, so I had a lot to learn. I was quite intimidated when I first opened the software (intimidated enough to place a frantic call to Chief Architect). Thw woman ant the other end of the phone calmed me down, gave me a few tips, and encouraged me to join the 'live class' that was set up for the following day. FANTASTIC! I spent about 5 hours on my own just 'playing', then listened in on the class. I learned so much in that one hour. So... support is fantastic, software is amazing.. what more can you ask for? Buy it!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 16
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