All promise to make deck design quick and easy-to find out how well they live up to that promise, I rounded some up and gave them a try.įairly or not, I compared the programs with the CAD software I'm most familiar with, Realtime Landscaping Architect ( ).
In addition to their functional and practical purposes, the plans provide new sources of marketing materials in the form of stylized renderings, screen captures, walk-throughs, and one of my favorites 360° spherical images.If you want to dip a toe in the CAD waters before investing hundreds, or thousands, of dollars in software you're not even sure you're going to like, you could experiment with one of the many free deck design programs online. They are also great for both new and experienced users as references for ideas and as resources for reverse-engineering techniques and functionality in the software. The finalized plans are sometimes used for training materials and sources for video content. In the end, the houses may be nothing similar to the original structures featured in the inspiration photo, but this is one of the reasons I love home design… there are many different solutions to a design problem.
We don’t want the effort of creating these scenes to go to waste, so we flesh them out with a more complete exterior and interior (including walls, rooms, and some decorations), and the resulting editable plans are posted to the Home Designer Sample Gallery for you to download. The rest of the home design is a mystery that needs solving. The fun doesn’t end when the artwork is done, though! The project’s state in this phase is nothing more than a pretty face essentially a shell of a floor layout that is detailed only from the angle necessary to match the photo.
This gives us a “Beauty Shot” that becomes the final render for the box artwork.
Leveraging the tools in the software, we do our best to reproduce the scene, considering scale, materials, view angle, and lighting. Once we’ve settled on an image, the design fun is underway! We use the product to start building a house. If you click on the images below, you can see that we create our version of the scene using the software and then display the rendering as an inlay on the product cover.Ĭonnie Anderson Photography image for Home Designer Essentials 2018 For the Home Designer product line, separately featuring 5 unique packages is no small feat! The goal this year was to utilize a photograph of a residential design that is well suited to the functionality available in the product. With each new release of software, Chief Architect’s Art Department develops a new look for the products’ packaging. There are many new features offered in the product line that you can view here however, today I want to share our process for creating new downloadable sample plans and shine a light on the sources of our inspiration. Now that the latest Home Designer product line has been released, we are excited to offer another set of great tools for DIY designers and Home Enthusiasts to showcase their talents. A variety of plans are available on both the Chief Architect and Home Designer websites. Downloadable Sample Plans are a great resource for experiencing the features in Chief Architect’s software hands-on and in real-time.