Sweet Home 3D Editor's Review

Design rooms, editions, upgrades and more for your home with this great, free, interior design tool.

One of the biggest problems with home renovations is the cost. Construction, contractors, permits, it all adds up too quickly. One of the easiest ways to help eliminate some of the costs is to draw up basic designs by yourself. While this isn't always the easiest thing to do, there are applications available to help get this done. Sweet Home 3D is an application that can help you do just that.

Sweet Home 3D allows you to draw your plans to scale with straight, round or sloping walls to precise dimensions. You can freely insert doors and windows in walls by dragging and dropping them from the shape selector to your wall. Sweet Home 3D will automatically compute the correct hole dimensions for the windows you use. The application will also import home blueprints and allow you to make direct modifications in both 2D, as well as, 3D.

When it comes time to add color texture and other attributes to your plans, Sweet Home 3D can handle all of this. You'll also be able to design in 2D and then view your plans in 3D, from a virtual visitor point of view. This makes it easier to see how things will look, as you view your plans from multiple angles. You can also easily make notes and annotations as well as insuring that your contractors know which way North is (in case you're designing with directional specific concerns, like sunrise/sunset angles).

Pros: Freeware, 2D design with a 3D overview, use the program either in your browser or via native client.

Cons: Java implementations can be quirky.

Conclusion: Freeware always goes over big, but when that software is also well written and easy to use, it just gets better. Sweet Home 3D is a great application for designing home additions and upgrades. With the ability to import home blueprints and make modifications to them, as well as create designs, the application is a sure winner.  Java is a bit cloodgy, so make certain you've got the latest version installed before giving this a shot.

version reviewed: 3.0