I postponed 2 bids I was doing just to give the homeowners simple floor plans and some generic elevations. I was drawing with it after fooling around less than a day. I haven't registered it yet but I want to say its very user friendly. They said I needed a letter from the original owner to transfer it and more money. was good and asked them what I needed to do to register it. I called softplan and made sure the key no. I actually purchased softplan 11 off of Ebay for 1100.00. Thanks for all the good info, I had a hard time deciding between the 2 programs, I sent for demos from both companies and got softplans in 2 days and recieved Chiefs 2 WEEKS after I purchased softplan.
CHIEF ARCHITECT VS SOFTPLAN SOFTWARE
That saves you about $500, although nobody really knows what they will sell the software for, it seems to vary. Now that I've warned everybody off, I'm willing to sell my copy of SB version 15 with tutorials, for $1000. So I figure that SB would be best used by remodelers or house builders, or log builders. But if you want a cut list for roof sheathing, SolidBuilder will print it out for you, and it might even work. So you can draw an arrow, but not as easily as with a real drafting program. And you can't move it, because it retains its insertion point, and just stretches. Just to give an example, to place an arrow (such as to indicate a roof pitch or stair direction) you have make a note with just a spce, then the arrow can come from the note to wherever. It lets you model an excellent 3D building, but I don't really need the 3D cross section of a vanity top. It is probably good for takeoffs, but lacks the ability to produce sophisticated working drawings without driving you nuts. I bought SolidBuilder this year because it was fairly cheap, and I hate it.
CHIEF ARCHITECT VS SOFTPLAN UPGRADE
I'm a long-time DataCad user, but haven't paid for an upgrade for a while. Also have done several new house drawings too. We do predominately remodeling so most of what I draw is addition, kitchens, deck and bath drawings. I'm actually thinking to upgrade mine this year to get the new roof and cabinet features. The newer versions have better ease of use for some of the details you'd probably be drawing. I would recommend going with a new version though. Or if you want more detail you can draw in 2D with a "pencil" any design shape etc that you want. For instance the walls would have exterior, interior and internal details drawn with one click. You can draw in 3D CAD with complete blocks of the units you are drawing. The program is easy to learn and is great if you are doing an occasional large project or small projects. Then last fall I purchased the Chief Architect and have been using it alot since. I started out with 3D Home Architect which is a homeowners version of the Chief Architect that we got at Walmart, I think. I don't really know anything about the other program but am using the Chief Architect. I could go on forever so I’ll stop now. Softplan simply gives you the tools you need to do the job and nothing else. Autodesk gives you five million features that you have to figure out first how they work and then figure out the best way to use them. I just don’t see why you would spend all that money on ADT and have to spend another $1500 for a residential add-on. If you are using Autodesk Architectural Desktop, you should look at VisionRez which is an add-on for residential work. If they were so great, why didn't their products ever take off? I'm still a little skeptical from my experiences with them many years ago. Remember the saying "Believe nothing that you hear and only half of what you see". We went with ARCHT as an Autocad add-on back then. They were also very pushy and practically gave the product away so they could get their foot in the door. It was interesting but the interface and usability was terrible. About 10 years ago while I was a cad manager at a large architectural firm, I had an opportunity to evaluate their products. Personally I think the next release of Softplan should be a major improvement in 3D if they plan on keeping up with Chief.Īs for Digital Canal (use to be Eaglepoint), I haven't used their products. If I need a nice rendering, I like to take the model over into Autodesk VIZ. While Chief does some nice quick 3d, Softplan is the better tool for construction documents. Basically I came to the same conclusion that Joe wrote above. This is also coming from someone who never thought he would leave Autocad! I feel Softplan does twice as much for half the price. I worked with both Chief Architect and Softplan and decided that Softplan was right for me. I did some research to see what was out there before I bought. I had planned on using Architectural Desktop or Revit for residential work. I used Autocad for 13 years and was with Autodesk for the last 6 before I went out on my own.