Here it is with a chaise instead....easy as pie!

I "bought" and used Plan3D for designing my kitchen remodel a few years ago. I had previously purchased Broderbund 3D Home Architect (version 5) which was slow, buggy, and unusable to the point that I simply threw it out. One of my many complaints about it (3D Home Architect) was that you could only edit your design in a 2D overhead view, drafting mode, and to see the results in 3D you needed to wait 15 sec. while the program slowly rendered a single 3D view. Plan 3D pros: * Plan3D not only allows real-time 3D rendering including interactive 3D walkthroughs, but it even allows you to edit the design in the 3D view. * Well designed user interface that makes it fairly easy to do the common tasks that users are most likely to want to do, without also making less common user needs impossible. * If you are not happy with the textures available for the objects in your design, (for instance I wanted quarter-sawn oak) you can find use any image you want and easily used that as the texture for the object in question. * Although its kindof gimmicky, the ability to open and close doors on the models in the program allowed me to see whether the doors would interfere with one another or impede traffic flow when open. * Realistic enough rendering that you get a good sense of how the end result will look (see images below) Plan 3D cons: * Their wacky pay-as-you-go pricing model. * If your internet connection goes out, you cannot start the program. * Although their online downloadable distribution model allows them to easily push out upgrades, bug-fixes, and new models and objects, I never noticed any of the bugs that vewed me being fixed or any new models. * Very hard to make and edit complex shapes for floors and counters, especially when trying to approximate a curve. After finishing the remodel (mostly) and taking a bunch of pictures, I went back to the Plan3D design and took snapshots from the same view points:

The internet has changed how everyone buy goods and services and led to the commoditization of a surprising number of things. But good home design is not a commodity; it is a very personal and regional endeavor. It does not translate or travel well. I think that complication is demonstrated on this forum every day. I often find it difficult to work with younger clients because they want to design by email when the we are only only a few miles apart. I've designed large commercial projects from Minnesota to Manhattan but I would not design a home farther than 50 miles from my office (relatives excepted). I would also not design a home if construction phase observation was not included. The idea of designing a home on the other side of the world with no opportunity to meet the owner or visit the site or observe the work seems ridiculous to me. Its difficult enough to design a house with an architect in the same community where his/her work is available for inspection and building delivery methods are well understood. Why would anyone want to make it more difficult? I suspect any design fee savings would evaporate when the contractors open the bid documents. But the issue here is shills who post deceptive advertising. I've seen a lot of it on this forum in the last 9 years and I don't appreciate it any more than I do the tele-marketing calls that have forced me to give up my office land line.

Yes, you've verified exactly what I described: many university undergraduate engineering programs don't have an acutal design program for engineer students until their final senior (4th year). That's one, single design program for undergraduate engineers. Drafting programs are not design programs. Drafting programs are why we have so many "help me" threads on this forum, i.e., the house designs were created by drafters and CAD operators who have no design sense or design experience at all. They cannot design. They can only draft. Undergraduate architectural programs (which are 5 years) typically start actual design studios the second semenster of the freshman year, and continue to graduation after 5 years. That's 9 semesters of true design studios, ranging from small scale to large scale projects of all kinds. It's why one cannot compare the design knowledge and skill of engineer students to that of architectural students. Of course, architectural students likely know beans about higher math, physics and the sciences... Ask me how I know all this...