Features & Tools:  

3D Home Architect Home & Landscape Deluxe Suite is great for brainstorming interior design ideas as well as developing concepts to remodel existing homes. It doesn’t provide the tools to create electrical, HVAC or plumbing plans but it’s a lot of fun to dream with. Adding the ability to mix custom colors (paint specifically) as opposed to choosing from the limited color library contained in the software would be a big plus. Same goes for being able to import and use custom finishes. It would also be nice if you could import elements from Google’s 3D Warehouse. This would supplement the existing object libraries and enable you to create more realistic interior designs.

Ease of Use:  

To put it simply, 3D Home Architect Home & Landscape Deluxe Suite isn’t the easiest program to use. There’s no way to simply specify a size for many objects such as defining a cabinet width or depth. You first must drag ruler lines to the desired length and/or width and then resize the cabinet to match but you can’t constrain the proportions so you could possibly end up with a distorted cabinet. You also can’t view the interior layout of the home from any vantage point except the virtual walkthrough. We searched but there is no way to remove the roof for a dollhouse view of the interior. This makes it difficult to properly assess the interior design.

Look & Feel:  

3D Home Architect software uses portions of the Punch! software (mainly the object libraries, a few icons and Power Tools) but maintains its own look and feel. Viewing the 2D floor plan of a home is simply black lines on a white-gridded background. There isn’t any spit and polish wasted on aesthetics.

Help & Support:  

One of the best parts of 3D Home Architect is the included video tutorials. The tutorials are a great source of help in explaining the various aspects of the software. We referred to them frequently during the review period and without their guidance would have been hopelessly confused. A missing tutorial that would be very helpful to the user is a “Getting Started” or “Tips” that walked the user through the beginning stages of drawing a floor plan and offered tips to make it easier and more efficient to use the software.

One of the drawbacks to the documentation is the software’s box which states that there are sample plans included in the program, however we were unable to find any, even after using the application’s search feature.

While 3D Home Architect is entertaining, the interior design portion of the software is rather limited both in objects and elements and especially due to the inability to view the interior from the “helicopter” mode. If you’re looking for a more powerful interior design software tool, we recommend you see our top rated interior design software. Be sure to check out the reviews for this software if you're interested in using it to design and landscape a home.