Are you planning to build a home or add a room to your current one? Do you dream of remodeling a kitchen or fear rebuilding a deck? Or are you just trying to fit more furniture into that same small office space?
Turn to your computer and CAD - computer-aided design - software. Look for either home-design CAD if you're a beginner and want the maximum ease and help or more general-purpose CAD if you're more technical and want to create the actual working drawings yourself.Basic features should include: commands to create perfect lines, angles and shapes; "snapping to" points on a screen grid for accurate connections; "fill" or "crosshatch" patterns to color the shapes; "auto-dimensions" that measure lines; libraries of common shapes from which to cut and paste; and example drawings as starting points.
More advanced features include: analytical "bill of materials" to tell you just what a design consists of and what it will cost; intelligent shapes that stay connected even as you change their size and shape; warnings against drawing and building mistakes; explanations of actual building techniques; and 3-D visualizations or "walk--throughs" (also called "fly-bys" of exteriors) of the finished design.
If you're buying professional CAD software, make sure it reads and writes AutoCAD files - the accepted CAD standard. And if you're in a small office, get a program that works well with other business software because many phases of design demand presentation, project-management and other such tasks.
Some software to consider:
-Expert Home Design (Expert Software, 800-759-2562, $12 street) for PCs or Macs is a clear winner because it gives all the basics at an incredibly low price. Traditional drawing tools get you started. Then you use icons and dialogue boxes to add walls, doors and windows in the size and color you want. Add flexible text labeling and automatic dimension lines. The latest 3-D version for Windows, a CD-ROM, includes walk-through and fly-by views as well as 21 sample plans and narrated video tours. There are even video tips on construction subjects such as using tools. The only obvious drawbacks are that this isn't the easiest program to learn, and don't expect much tech support at that low price.
-3D Home Architect for Windows (Broder-bund, 800-521-6263, $70 CD street, $60 floppy street) doesn't have the largest library of predrawn parts to pull from nor is it as clearly labeled for easy use as some others. But it is the most flexible at turning your results into a 3-D image, with a "camera" you can position to set your viewpoint most anywhere. And where most of these programs only let you make changes in the 2-D drawing and then view them in 3-D, 3D Home lets you change colors and sizes in the 3-D view. The manuals are excellent, and the CD-ROM has detailed sample house plans. When you're done designing, it will run a "check" to see if you've made any obvious mistakes that would rub any building inspector the wrong way. Then it will list your materials and, if you enter prices, calculate total costs.
-Another inexpensive program, MyHouse (DesignWare, 800-536-2596, $60 street) for DOS and Windows, starts with comparable drawing and design features, from samples and libraries to drawing tools. It also has a 3-D view and can save and replay views as walk-through movies.
Some specialized home design programs target just one part of your entire estate.
-Design Your Own Home Interiors (Abracadata, 800-451-4871, $60 Windows or $100 Mac list) lets you draw and view interiors. But it also gives you freedom to select any of millions of colors or a wide variety of texture patterns to those interiors, so you can see what furniture or paint would look like in a virtual world. 3D Home and Expert let you vary colors, but not as easily as this; nor do they offer the patterns. The bill of materials is only available here as an option, when you buy the separate Design Estimator program for about $60 Windows, $100 Mac.
-3D Deck for Windows (Books That Work, 800-242-4546, $50 street) combines an electronic book of text, audio and video clips with a drafting program of deck-specific tools. (It used to be called Design & Build Your Deck.) You can choose basic deck elements and assemble them into nearly any size or style of deck, with stairs, rails and house connections. You view them from top, side or in 3-D, but all drawing is in the 2-D views. Then, print a report on what materials you'll need for building.
If you're interested in professional CAD products, consider:
-AutoCAD LT (Autodesk, voice 800-228-3601, fax 415-507-5595 document 100, http://www.autodesk.com, $500 list) for Windows 3.1 or Windows 95. You can operate LT using Windows-style menus and icons or by typing memorized AutoCAD command codes. But even with "cue cards" that explain steps and "tool tips" that pop up to define icons, learning LT isn't easy. It can't open more than one drawing at a time. Technical support lasts only 90 days. The software lacks the customizing language that helped make AutoCAD a standard, and it doesn't have the walk-through or bill-of-materials features found in the home-specific programs.
-Visual CADD (Numera Software, voice 800-956-2233, http://-www.-numera.-com, $600 list) which comes from some of the same people who challenged AutoCAD 10 years ago with "Generic CADD," a $99 program. Visual CADD is a better choice. It can read and write AutoCAD files and can open several drawings at once to cut and paste among them. It's easier to learn and use than AutoCAD LT. LT doesn't even have a macro language, but Visual CADD can be customized with any popular Windows programming language. It is designed to look like Microsoft Office and share information with it (and other Windows programs). The latest Windows 95 version is even "multithreaded," so several parts of the program can run at the same time for greater speed.
-Visio (Visio, 800-457-3335, http://-www.visio.com), if integration with an office suite is your focus. Unfortunately, the $50 "home" version is disappearing from shelves and won't be updated by the company. But the office ($300 list) and technical ($400) versions for Windows offer 2-D drawing with "smart shapes," drawing pieces that retain important links and positions even when you alter their appearance. Both versions can read AutoCAD drawings and support the latest Windows 95 and OLE technology. Most importantly, they fit intimately with Microsoft Office or other suites.
Mac users don't have as many new and powerful professional CAD choices.
-The venerable MacDraft (IDD, 510-680-6818, $449 list) includes all basic drafting tools as well as a bill-of-materials that links to Excel spreadsheets.
-If you can live without that data analysis, there's the fast and easy Blueprint (Graphsoft, 410-290-5114, $295 list) for 2-D drawing on Macs or Power Macs.
-If you're well-heeled, look at Ashlar's Vellum (800-877-2745, http://-www.-ashlar.com, $1,495 list) which has all necessary drawing features for 2-D and 3-D surrounded by the most intelligent "assistant" you'll find in any program. (There are also versions for Windows 3.1, 95, NT and Power Macs.) This assistant watches where you're mousing and anticipates what you might be trying to do, automatically showing you where intersections, tangents and other common drawing points are.
(Send Phillip Robinson e-mail at prrobinson aol.com on the Internet.)
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