But then, there’s another problem: somehow, the software now insists you want to add as many of that chosen item as you can click. If you can still see your 2D window you can drop the item there instead, then drag it to its proper location. Adding an item involves dragging it from that catalog onto your plan… except if you want to work on the 2D plan, even if that window is the frontmost one, the 3D window will pop up as you drag, vying for attention like a neglected pet. Most items have multiple options, like various basins, toilets and showers for instance. The catalog of items is better because you can double-click on an object to see a large preview of it, so that’s fine. With a little patience, you can add objects to your room, and customise each to your needs (Image credit: Ashampoo) The type of wall for instance (external, internal, load bearing, etc), how your roof is built (options which were shown thanks to our wizard above), and of course, utilities and furniture galore. Now as you’d expect, you have a myriad of options at your disposal. Many times we found ourselves inadvertently adding walls when all we wanted was select a different part of the build. It’s also not clear if your cursor is set to use a particular tool or just there to help you move through your design. The tools work well, but it feels like you need way too many clicks to get the job done. We didn’t encounter any “floating home syndrome” when building a house from scratch. Yes, you can hide the toolbars, but you still end up with windows competing for the same space, and you have to endlessly move them and resize them as you work. Either way, it doesn’t feel up to the task. ![]() Of course, they can overlap, with one being partially behind the other, but the fact they can’t even be displayed as different tabs to maximise the limited amount of screen real estate you have makes for very poor- or very antiquated - design. He 3D rendering probably looked amazing - 20 years ago (Image credit: Ashampoo) We tried to create another building and the door appeared in the right place… until we noticed that building was actually floating above the ground next to the other one! Maybe we shouldn’t have let a wizard design our house in the first place! There must be a way to fix this, but if this glitch appears the first time you give the app a try, and there’s no obvious and clear way to resolve it, how many potential customers will stick with the app, and how many more will venture into the arms of the competition? Since there was no first floor, they appeared within the roof. For some inexplicable reason, which we were unable to resolve, those doors and windows insisted on being placed on the first floor, not the ground floor. All of this was going well until we decided to insert some windows and doors. Once you’re ready, place your new home onto your terrain. You choose the overall shape of your house, its dimensions, even the type of roof you’re after. ![]() The steps you’re guided through are very simple and help you get started quickly and easily. and, finally, went back to old fashioned graph paper.The building wizard appears to make the initial creation process easy… (Image credit: Ashampooe) You're a wizard, home designer ![]() She eventually installed the open source Sweet Home 3D, download size currently around 43Mb. It's therefore not a program for casual toying with and especially not by those who, like my wife, have never experienced home design software before. Although Ashampoo has done its best to make everything as intuitive as possible, the learning curve here is as substantial as the download size. It's a point bearing in mind for anyone contemplating today's re-run. She found it to be an impressively comprehensive home design program, in much the same way that Adobe CS is an impressively comprehensive image editing program - for which reason, she uninstalled: not because the software was deficient in any way but because it was much, much too feature rich for her needs. My wife actually trialed this direct from Ashampoo last summer when we were in the process of moving house. Gargantuan download size of this software resulted in much frustration last September for some GOTDers hopefully this re-run will be less troublesome.
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