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: Don't buy this crippled software.
Review: After I purchased Home Designer Suite 6.0, I opened the box, dropped the CD in the computer, and picked up the manual. But there was a problem. The manual that came in the box was for their $500 pro version instead of the Suite 6.0 version.
Now you have got to question the competence of a software company that can't get the right manual in the box, but while they clearly screwed up, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with a them selling a crippled version of their software with features removed, and a full version as long as they clearly tell you what you are getting.
Unfortunately they don't. There is nothing on the packaging of the Suite 6.0 version to let you know that it is the crippled version of the pro version.
Since I had the manual for the pro version, I fliped through it to see if I might want to upgrade to the pro version right away. Fortunately the "What's in the box" page at the front of the pro manual let me know that I definitely did not want the pro version either.
The pro version uses a hardware key that has to be plugged into either the serial port or the USB port of your computer or the software won't run. Hardware keys are a big cause of ulcers among computer users. They get in the way of your computer cables and they tend to come unplugged just before you want to save a really big file. If you ever do lose one, just try and get the software company to replace it.
If you'd like to give this software a try it would be a good idea to visit the company's web page to make sure that the features included in the Suite 6.0 version will do what you you need in the long run with no upgrade ever being required. If you think that you might need the features of the pro version later, it's my experience that using software that requires a hardware key is simply not worth the bother.
Rating:
Summary: Horrible support and customer service.
Review: After installing it I tried watching the tutorial video for getting started, but it didn't work and there was no error message. I used the email support option and received no response. After calling their non-toll-free tech support line I was told that even though I'm allowed to install on drives other than C:, I shouldn't. Now I have to root through the file system to find the videos I want. Second issue, I call customer support and ask them for a replacement CD. They say 'no problem, it'll be there in 3-5 days.' 2 weeks later, nothing. So I call them back and they told me they couldn't receive the fax I sent them so they didn't do anything. Apparently they have no record of my registration of the product, and didn't record the fact that I needed a new CD. Oops on my part for assuming they had a customer database.
Scott
Rating: 
Summary: It was very helpful, but limited in scope
Review: After reading each of the reviews for this product and competing products, and then purchasing and using this software, I would suggest to any potential buyer that they use an old statistical averaging method to get a fix on the Home Designer software. Read all of the reviews, and then throw out the "OMIGOD! THIS IS THE BEST SOFTWARE EVER INVENTED!" noise, and do the same with the slam reviews.
This is a three to four star product, depending upon how deep is the level that you want to go in configuring your project. The program is fairly intuitive and easy to learn on the fly, with useful help information and a user manual that allows for quick reference instead of tech-speak, however the available features and the library are very limited.
I needed a program that would allow me to visualize the essence of the remodel work that we are planning, and this product did achieve that goal. The various perspectives are a fun way to view your project after you have completed the setup work, and you can remodel in various ways and compare the views. This program would also be useful for someone who wants to provide a "sketch" of their proposed work to a designer or contractor and then let the pro take over from there, hopefully with a much sharper idea of what you are trying to achieve.
In a nutshell, it's a little pricey for a hobby software (check for rebates or discounts), but when compared with the overall cost of a remodel project or home building project it may save you significant costs in midcourse design changes and mistakes. It has some WOW factor with it's 3D, dollhouse and glass house, interior and exterior views, so you can amaze and delight your friends and neighbors, who will put you on the technology pedestal we all crave so much (yeah...c'mon...admit it). Sit down with a cold beer, plug it in, learn it, use it, enjoy it, just don't expect too much.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: After reading the reviews here I thought I was in for a real treat. To my disappointment, after I installed the software (which was painful to say the least) the product constantly crashed and was very unstable. Drawing walls is a joke. There is absolutely no accuracy in design. To create a nice image crashed my computer at every turn. Hope the rest of you have better luck than I did.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing lack of flexibility
Review: ART sells two versions of this software: the "suite" version for about $99, and the "pro" version for $495. I bought the cheaper software and have regretted it. The most obvious problem for me is the inability to customize wall thicknesses and layers. My house has a concrete block wall on the first level, with a thick layer of stucco on the outside, and then a layer of insulation on the inside, covered with plywood, metal lathe and then plaster. There is simply no way to draw a wall like that in the basic version: you are stuck with a handful of basic wall types and no real ability to draw the wall layers. Reading their help pages revealed that this is a feature that ART deliberately removed from the suite version in order to force people to upgrade to pro...
For what it's worth, I've also tried 3D Home Architect Deluxe 6.0 and it seems to have the same problem. Very limited customization for walls. I couldn't even get a stucco finish on the exterior walls as far as I could tell.
Anyway, despite my irritation at having forked out (...) for an unusable product, I figured I had no choice but to upgrade to the pro version. Unfortunately, I quickly discovered that there's no direct upgrade path, as far as I can see - to upgrade you have to fork out almost (...) for the Pro version and just throw away the earlier software. Oh yes, ART does offer a (...) rebate if you upgrade within 30 days, but this still leaves you $50 out of pocket. This rebate seems a little odd on their part, since they also offer a full money back guarantee within 30 days, which, needless to say, I am about to take advantage of.
In conclusion, I would jump either straight to the pro version, which seems to be a worthwhile piece of software according to reviews I've seen; or try something cheaper. 3DHA has a free trial that can be downloaded, and it'll give you a pretty good idea what's available in the suite version of Home Designer.
Rating: 
Summary: Perfection at last! The search is finally over!
Review: Chief Architect and Better Homes & Gardens did an absolutely wonderful job designing this software. I'm using it on Windows XP and it's running as smooth as silk. And guess what? No crashes or freeze-ups! The glass house and dollhouse views are incredible. And the tutorial videos can't be beat. I've been waiting for years for something like this to hit the market. Kiss all those other junky home architect programs created by incompetent designers goodbye forever. Yes, now you and I can actually have fun designing homes! Thank you, Chief Architect!
Rating:
Summary: Good product - followon to 3D Home Architect
Review: First note that 3D Home Architect V5.0 isn't usable. They did a rewrite with different programmers, it isn't related to earlier versions, see reviews of that product for some scathing comments! This product *is* related. It won't read in data from my old V1.4 program, but the controls and features are obviously similar and usable, so I've been re-entering data (wish I didn't have to, but its better than V5.0 which won't work). It doesn't do a lot of custom things, but will still do a lot. The 3D mode is quite nice, you have a huge library of colors and textures to get your couches or cabinets to look the way you want (even if is a little tedious to set each one). Also a huge library of objects. Spending some time searching through it you can find a lot things, many close to what I want. I've used this program (or the earlier 3D Home V1.4) to prototype several home additions now. I find it very helpful. I suspect you need a recent system to do the 3D mode with complicated objects. My laptop is new and not underpowered, so it has no problems, unlike other reviewers. An underpowered system might limit you to making floor plans and not seeing them in 3D...
Rating:
Summary: Home Designer Suite 6.0 --- Worth the money
Review: First, I am definitely a novice user of this type of software.
I had no idea what to expect. Bought a different home design software from another
vendor at first. Went for the lower price. That was a wrong
decision. Had all kinds of problem --- cannot instantiate
doors, cannot read supplied sample plans, etc. Finally gave up on that piece of junk and put up the
money for Home Designer Suite 6.0. What a relief...
Pretty easy to use. The included tutorial video helps a lot.
Within a few hours I was on the way to finishing up the
floorplan drawing. I am a happy guy now. :)
Rating:
Summary: don't buy this
Review: For all its hype, the software will not design to scale. Even had a CAD trained expert try. Found it to be worthless in designing our home addition... wasted $83. Don't buy it.
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