Grand Designs 3D Design Software Reviewed

I spent much of my Sunday this weekend getting to grips with Grand Designs 3D Self Build & Development.

It’s an enormous bit of kit, and is virtually all you’ll need if you’re planning an extension, self build project, or, like me, you still harbour long-failed ambitions of becoming a world-famous architect.

The kitchen of the Ross-On-Wye Barn Grand Design

The first thing I should stress is that this is the real deal – unlike freebies such as Google’s Sketchup, Grand Designs 3D allows you to meticulously plan everything in your project, from exterior wall textures to what type of taps to fit in the kitchen. There’s loads of furniture options, countless doors and windows, excellent garden planning tools, and the sheer size and scale of what’s possible is quite overwhelming. Once you’re done, you can even take a 3D walkthrough of your creation, and see how the shadows will fall at different times of the day.

The Belfast Roman Villa Grand Design

This blog post is in part illustrated with pictures of my favourite feature, from a non-self builder’s perspective – the program comes ready-loaded with real Grand Designs houses that you can play around with, alter and deconstruct (yes, I mean ruin). On a serious note, if you are planning a major project then it’s well worth considering shelling out for this type of software.

By me: a quintessential Grand Design (open-plan glass-walled box, half finished!)

You can win a copy of Grand Designs 3D Self Build & Development on 4Homes (RRP £195.73), and the publishers have also kindly provided a 4Homes reader-only offer of 15% off – details as follows…

Reader Offer
To celebrate Grand Designs Live, Eleco Visualisation Software, the publishers of Grand Designs 3D home design software, are offering visitors to 4Homes a 15% discount on their Grand Designs 3D software range. To receive your discount, enter coupon code ‘4hom1′ when prompted during your purchase at www.3darchitect.co.uk

Find out some of the key features of Grand Designs 3D Self Build & Development here.

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