Rating: 
Summary: Good Software Gone Bad
Review: If you have been a satisfied user of 3D Home Architect, versions 1.0, 2.1, 3.0, and/or 4.0, you will be very disappointed to find out that Broderbund has decided to switch to a new CAD software developer for the latest version (5.0). Version 5.0 is nothing like previous versions. It looks surprisingly like FloorPlan 3D, by IMSI rather than 3D Home Architect. In the change, this product lost its ease of use, the one thing that set it apart from other home design software packages. New users will find it difficult to learn and old 3DHA users will just be frustrated by the cumbersome interface. If there is one redeeming feature of this software, it is that it comes with a 90 Day Satisfaction Guarantee. I'm taking advantage of the return policy after the program crashed for the third time in the first 20 minutes of use. No commercially marketed software should be that bad! If you are looking for a good version of 3DHA, go ... and buy a 3.0 version .... Or if you want version 4.0, wait awhile and it may show up on ebay.
Rating: 
Summary: Home Savvy.com
Review: I used this and found it so helpful when remodeling my home. The contractor even said that he used it!! I recommend this to anybody, even if you're not remodeling. It's fun just to design your dream house. Buy it now...you won't regret it.
Rating: 
Summary: Harder than it should be
Review: I've been spoiled by the ease of use of Microsoft products and am about to give up on trying to use this software. Very difficult to alter designs of walls and roofs. You need an advanced CAD degree just to figure out how to make a roof. Probably good for the seasoned professional, but not a good product for the "do it yourselfer".
Rating:
Summary: No substantial support, product does not perform properly
Review: In installed this product on a Dell Optiplex GX110 (admittedly not the latest, but still a very standard machine) running Windows 2000 with 512MB of memory. In spite of spending literally hours with the software I was unable to get it to produce an outline or dimensioning of a wall being drawn by dragging the mouse, as clearly illustrated in the accompanying video. Without this feature it is virtually impossible to efficienctly produce exterior or interior walls. Multiple emails to Broderbund have produced autoreplies suggesting that I refer to their Website for help. This site is essentially worthless for all but the most fundamental problems (like not being able to read the install CD).
It would also appear that this product is picky about the hardware it supports and also the version of driver. Be prepared for possible frustrations with this product, with little support from the manufacturer. I cannot report on other features of the software because I was never able to produce even the walls of a structure!
Rating:
Summary: CRASH
Review: I've used CAD programs written in the 80's that are better than this. I'll go back to Drawing Board 1.0 over this thing. Not user friendly. I can hardly draw a few walls without it crashing. JUNK
Rating: 
Summary: Corner cabinets, how to make?
Review: Having trouble figuring out how to make a corner cabinet for sinks. Any help will be appreciated. Krohr
Rating:
Summary: 3D Home Architect 5.0 is really awful, sorry to say.
Review: This product doesn,t support Windows 98
unless you have Windows 98 SE
I have never bought a product that supports
only 98Se and newer operating systems.
I guess Broderbund wants to be on the bandwagon
when 98 goes away but that will be a long long time
since about 90 percent of the world is still using win98.
Rating: 
Summary: Leaves much to be desired
Review: A few years ago, when designing 2 rooms at my office, I became fluent in most of the off-the-shelf, under $100 design programs. I recall switching between 2 applications that each had great features, and would have made a perfect product if merged. One was 3D Home Architect 3, the other (which I can't recall the name) had some similarities to Home Designer 6. Having just tried 3D Home Architect 5 & Home Designer 6, I still have the same feeling: each has very strong & very weak points.Having now sampled both applications, I can't seem to figure how so many people posted hate for 3DHA. I think it's a tie between the two. My big criticism w/ HD6 is that you cannot manually change wall dimensions. It was incredibly tedious to recreate rooms based on the dimensions I had. Apparently, the pro version ($500) allows this function, but I wasn't going to pay that for my little project. When you click a wall you've created in 3DHA, it displays measurements to every other nearby wall. You then can click any of those measurements to resize it manually. This is the absolute most logical way to get exact measurements. In HD6, the library of items is pretty skimpy compared to 3DHA. 3DHA easily allows custom items to show in the 'library' so it's easy to reuse them. As for the 3D rendering, 3DHA really sucks. It is incredibly difficult to get the camera view into custom positions. This is where HD6 is best. You can arrange multiple cameras in your layout, each corresponding to another rendered window. You can also double-click the camera in the layout & it brings up other view settings such as height & field of vision angle. As for working w/ your layout, 3DHA allows you to drag a selection tool over multiple items, creating a multiple selection. You can then move all of those items at once, or select their properties. For changing the color of multiple items, this is great. HD6 does not allow you to select multiple items & then change characteristics of them. Imagine having a room you want to change the color of all of the cabinets. According to my findings, in HD6 you'd have to change each cabinet one by one. In 3DHA you would just hold the shift key & select all of the cabinets, then make your changes. Maybe I'm asking for too much from <$100 programs, but it sure seems both programs make it much harder to do things then they have to.
Rating:
Summary: How I long for yesterday...
Review: I bought this before seeing the other bad reviews. I can easily believe this is a complete rewrite, instead of being based on the previous program. I had an old version, maybe 1.0, and it was far more usable! Hard to do:
- selecting an object to move or delete. I keep clicking, it keeps not selecting.
- cameras - can't figure out how to view through them. My old version was quite usable, I could see neat 3D views of a room.
- the rotation stuff very hard to view in 3D. Graphics may be nice, but it's impossible to go where I want, without getting motion sick.
- Couldn't make stairs the right width. No apparent settings. They either were too narrow, or stuck through a wall, not allowing me to use the wall on the other side in another room. I could adjust lenght, tread, etc, but not the width of them I'm giving up, now that I can see its just a badly designed rewrite, not a real upgrade. Sigh! I really liked the old program!
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