3D Home Architect Home Decor & Design

Good Gear Guide

  • Review
  • Specs
  • Images
  • User Reviews
  • Buy Online

3D Home Architect Home Decor and Design bears a striking resembelence to the two Home Architect products we have reviewed. The software has thousands of household items to choose from, manufacturer brands, animations and movie creation tools, a handy project estimator that keeps your eye on costs, as well as many customisable furnishings and fabrics to choose from.

Pros

  • Many elements from wide range of manufacturers, Many customisations.

Cons

  • Fiddly interface, graphical glitches, item placement problems.

Bottom Line

If you are looking for a program to help you design your new home, this program does a fairly reasonable job.

Would you buy this?

  • Price

    $ 49.95 (AUD)

The user interface is the same as the other packages from 3D Home Architect and it's just as fiddly as ever, but if have the time and you are willing to learn then the experience can be fairly rewarding.

A good feature across all three packages is the multiple cameras, which can be used to explore your development from a variety of different angles.

We recommend you get this product over Landscape and Patio Design or Kitchen and Bath Design as, when you buy this product it comes with the other two for free. For the same price of $49.95 you get all three products!

The house builder wizard isn't too bad either. You specify your basic needs such as one or two floors, a garage, what style you want the house built - contemporary or country etc. Once built, you can modify the features, add extensions, put in rooms, furniture, a bathroom, kitchen - the works.

However, it isn't without its flaws. While it is relatively easy to place furniture and add walls, fine tuning it will take a while. For example, when we placed the phone on the coffee table it appeared to hover a few feet in the air. A puzzling glitch wouldn't let us put a TV on the TV stand. Also, you need to be careful when placing walls near doors as accidentally deleting a door is painfully common. We tried putting in a spiral staircase from the basement and of course, it wasn't high enough to reach the wall. There was no obvious way to extend the staircase to fit.

The same positives and negatives we mentioned in Landscape & patio and Kitchen & Bath Design exist in this package. We recommend you read all three reviews and then decide which to buy based on your needs.

Keep up with the latest tech news, reviews and previews by subscribing to the PC World newsletter.

Be the first to comment.

Post new comment

Users posting comments agree to the Good Gear Guide comments policy.

Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.

Most Popular

Tethering tutorial: How to use your iPhone as a modem
Capacitive vs resistive touchscreens
How to pick the right size TV for your living room
LCD vs plasma vs LED TVs buying guide
The most disturbing YouTube videos of all time

Best Deals on PCWorld

Software and ServicesView all »
SecurityView all »
Servers & StorageView all »
Desktop PCsView all »
NotebooksView all »