CA Comparison to SoftPlan


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Hello,

 

I am trying to understand the available design products available. I am trying to design a retirement home and afriend who is now building his seventh home (7th) and was a commercial developer years ago recommended SoftPlan, however, in my research I came across Chief Architect and am wondering about it. Can anyone on the forum connect me with CA users who are familiar enough with both programs that are willing to give me their take on them. I am especially interesting in input from CA designers/builders that do design work for others.

 

Thank you for reading this and for any help you can provide in advance,

 

Robert

 

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Robert, are you just “trying to design” one house for yourself?  If so, wouldn’t it be smarter to just hire someone to design it for you?  I mean if you factor in the $2800 for software, another 2 or 3 grand for a souped up gaming computer to run the software and money you will spend to hire someone to “make” your design work so you can get it past the plan reviews... wouldn’t it be better...?

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Let me start by thanking you all for your time and input.

 

parkwest asked a question I have been giving a lot of thought to... wouldn't it be better to just to hire someone. I think it would be if I could find the right "someone".  I am open to the idea, but I haven't been able to take it past the initial stages. I am compiling a list of potential sources though. I have been a bit hesitant to pursue it too deeply because this home, I hope to be Resilient. I mean by Resilient the following... livable and useable after events that normally for people out of their homes or make them unusable. In making it Resilient I believe I will need to minimize the materials that are susceptible to water damage, fire damage, mold, mildew, termites, as well as other things, which probably means a very limited use of wood. In short there may need to be a lot of cementatious products/components. Still I am very open to the idea of someone with the expertise and an enthusiastic vision for Resilence being the Designer and Ideally the Designer/Builder/Engineer. Those are a lot of hats to wear well. Anyway, that is an attempt at explaining why I have hesitated going down that path. I will offer on emore anecdotal reason. My brother and sister-in-law are just finishing a retirement in Colorado (it should be finished in November). The had a beautiful idea they found in a magazine, however, the designer/builder they chose, who has a great reputation, steered them away from their dream and I feel they "settled". This is a bit sad in my mind as it was a dream they had and I think with the "right" designer/builder they probably cold have realized it. I hope not to be in such a position, but it may happen to me too. That all said, I wish I could find the right designer and I am still open to and prefer that direction.

 

In the meantime I am trying to learn all I can and trying to make sometype if preliminary decision as to whether SP or CA would be the best fit for this project.

 

ParkWest did mention the cost of a computer and I have thought on that too..... as I understand it most of the graphics and CPU power is need for rendering especially the rendering of lighting. I think what I have will be sufficient for 2D drawings.. I have a 2017 27" 5K Retina iMac with a 4.2GHz QuadCore Hyperthreading CPU with 64GB RAM and a Radeon Pro 580 with 8GB VRAM and a 1TB NVMe SSD (runs at around 2000MBs read and write) which is probably adequate for everything that CA can do since CA runs as a native Mac app. It is in running SP in a virtual machine that I see perfrmance issues and then only with rendering. If I run it in Bootcamp it improves, but the rendering demands a lot of GPU and CPU resources. I think if I wanted to eliminate that problem I would have to go with the NVIDIA 1080Ti or the new RTX 2080Ti. Anyawy for 2D plans ethier should work with my current machine. If I am wrong on that please let me know.

 

Ideally I would find someone in the area of the lot that is a Resilience enthusiast.

 

Right now in trying to learn with the trials I am trying to figure out what i need to create a plot plan that is accurate and usable and how to create a material that I feel is key to my goals, namely a particular brand of ICF that is 24" wide by 8 in high x 12" deep.

 

I haven't read all the replies yet so I will do try to get to that next. Thakns again.  Robert

 

 

 

 

 

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computer sounds fine to me , people are running CA on lesser Machines......

 

you could buy HD Pro , $495 , which is rebated against Chief if you Upgrade to Premier , or you could Rent Chief monthly ($200 ) too , there is a learning Curve though, and I wonder if you have Industry experience to let you design the Home of your Dreams? you maybe better off hiring someone local who uses Chief especailly if you want to expedite the Project.

 

M.

 

 

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What Mick said about industry experience really helps with Chief, I have/had a builders background doing remodel and new homes before getting into Chief and know just use Chief as the years have started to get to me and my body :), I use Chief daily for clients most of whom are builders doing CD to our UCC codes in my state, I don't have to advertise since if I can't build it I don't draw it or can do a section detail of that area and the builders like that and so do the clients of there since they get to see the 3d views, I did spend the money to try Softplan a few years ago thinking that might work better for me but it sits on a shelve collecting dust and haven't looked back using Chief, if you do get Chief there this is a good place for asking questions or join Chief Experts Acadamy to review and learn, there are Utube channels guys have and David Michael Designs has a lot of good information, so the information is out there for Chief users not sure what is out there for softplan since I have never looked back

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