Home Design Concept to Reality Workflow

[lbuttery]

Ash:

Chiefers are downloading .SKP files from the Google warehouse and then "fixing" them and then exporting from SU-free so that the file can be imported into Chief

this is also necessary for older versions of chief as they can't import .SKP 8 files and it is necessary to convert them to .SKP ver 7 or .SKP ver 6 depending on which version of chief will be using them

Lew

[sicamore]

What computer and operating system are you using?

I think what you want is something that will let you play with your ideas and then see how it would look. I assume you also want to be able to make changes easily and try that out.

The professionals that said they would take your ideas and start over make sense, particularly if you have extensive requirements for codes, permits, etc. East Africa must have changed a lot recently if that is true..

Spot on GregB - yes, I fully expect my plans will just be guidelines and are really for me to flesh out what I want from the requirements list I have built. I fully expect then a professional will rebuild it from the ground up to follow correct architectural practices and building codes. The house will either be in SE Asia or the Carib. This part of the world has next to no building codes, which is actually in my opinion for home building a great thing!

Thanks to all for the great replies. I think I will go with Home Designer Architectural (win7) for the moment and upgrade if need be if I need more.

Is there any reason why I couldn't give the file to someone that has HD Pro who can then send it to Chief X4 to export as a 3ds / 3d dxf file for me to render in a professional render package? That would be really my only requirement for Chief.

On the thought of Sketchup - yes, I reasonably conversant in this package (I have pro 7) but it is seems a lot less architecturally focused and flexible than Chiefs packages.

I especially like this software for the fact that the community was so quickly supportive of my questions. That speaks volumes!

Shaun

[lbuttery]

Shaun:

no need to use HD PRO first

Chief premier can open AHD plans directly

the chiefer can even set the edit flag so that if they make changes to the plan you will be able to open/edit the plan they send back
(with some minor limits)

Lew

[sicamore]

Thanks Lew - I was looking at the comparison Matrix that said Architecural had only basic editing capabilities within X4. Probably getting myself confused ;-)

[lbuttery]

could be .....

my understanding is that most of the HD products can read and edit a Chief plan (with the edit flag set) up to the limits of their features

IOW - if the chiefer adds a feature that isn't supported by the HD product, it can be viewed but not edited

but I believe that going to PRO first probably won't offer any additional benefit


probably best to discuss with CA's customer service

Lew

[sicamore]

Thanks Lee, I have bought HDa. Looking forward to exploring and designing. You've been very helpful.

Shaun

[GregB]

Finally getting back to dshall about my experience with learning Chief and SoftPlan.

Chief seems easier to get started. When you are first learning, the basic fuctions seem more straightforward in Chief. If, or should I say when, you don't know how to do a function it is easier to find and more closely follows the functions that an experienced windows user would expect.

Chief seems to be more like Corel Draw or Designer and many other windows programs. It seems like $100 consumer house designer software that was developed into a professional tool. I mean that mostly in a positive way. You can quickly create a quick drawing of your house idea and then refine it later.

Softplan seems to be more like AutoCAD that was stripped of flexibility with many functions automated around homebuilding. I can also imagine that it would be easier to come back to Chief after not using it for a few months. I'm an experience AutoCAD user that struggled to get comfortable with the program again after not using it for a few years.

I want to be real specific that I have no opinion of the ability of either to be an excellent tool in the hands of a thoroughly trained user. I ran the demo and played with the training of each for about 30 hours. I'm still very uncomfortable with SoftPlan but made the decision to stick with Chief. I spent the next 10-15 hours producing a pretty good plan of my house, ready for minor cleanup and work toward remodeling.

To be specific, I was running a licensed copy of Home Designer Pro 2012 and the Demo of Chief X4. I may upgrade to Chief, but that is a bunch of money for what may end up being one house, even if I add an extra garage/shop and patio structures on a large lot. Chief seems to have more flexibility in importing Sketchup items and I'm probably going to need more realistic renderings particularly of the entire lot including landscaping.

[sicamore]

Greg - thanks very much. I have bought a version of Architectural and going through the programs now. I can say that I am very very impressed with the software and it's capabilities. You hit the nail on the head by saying it is easy to use but has detailed capabilities if needed. Just the tool that I was looking for and the ability to upgrade is great if I want to expand the skills or features.

cheers - Shaun