Design Programs?

[crazyidea]

What kind of programs do you guys run to help with layout design? I'm having a lot of issues finding something that would work on a Mac and I'm not willing to pay for a program that I will likely only use for one project.

[Griff]

Sorry, I don't have a Mac so I don't know what's out there for it.

However, someone else here (can't remember who) posted a floorplan that he made using http://www.floorplanner.com and it looked very nice. As far as I know it's free for personal use, and may work for you if you want to check it out.

I prefer Home Plan Pro above the others I have and use, but sadly they don't offer a Mac version at present.

Here are some possibilities you could check out from download.com (I find all kinds of useful apps there) : http://download.cnet.com/1770-20_4-0...platform%3DMac

Wish I could be more help.

[Lady Franklin]

Hey, I use a Mac and I recently bought Punch Home Design Studio for Mac. It was $165 Canadian (so like 37 cents american) so it wasn't exactly cheap but its absolutely unbelievable. 3D and 2D transferrable to building drawings. I have a construction company so it was worth it. But there is also a program called Macdraw out there that is suppose to be pretty decent. Its only 2D though so I decided to go with punch. But check out Macdraw you may be able to find a downloadable old version. Good luck.

[Anomalous]

You might look into Google SketchUp. It may be more complex than you're looking for since it's used to make designs in 3D rather than floor plans, but it's pretty easy to use and there's a free version. It says it's available for OSX, though I've only tried the Windows version. You can find some useful video tutorials on how to use SketchUp at http://www.aidanchopra.com/tableofcontents

[crazyidea]

Thanks for the help guys. I just found a program called "Sweethome 3D" that is working rather well, but I'll check out the others just in case.

[crazyidea]

Originally Posted by Smitty

Paper, pencil, and scale

Smitty

Yep and that will be the final method. I'm just playing around on the computer.

[Redbear]

Paper, pencil, and scale

Smitty

Paper table napkin, blue ball-point pen and eyeball

[bus-bro]

Scratch 'n build.

[TygerCub]

MicroSoft Office's PowerPoint (2003 or earlier version only) is AWESOME for scale drawings. You can set the "snap-to" function in increments of 1/32nd inch. I'm always doing scale drawings on that puppy at work (my bad ).