Home Design Software Features
Chief Architect
Professional 3D Architectural Design & Drafting Software
Chief Architect is specifically designed for the residential and light commercial design professional. Chief Architect makes it easy – use the 3D visualization to sell a project to clients and use construction drawings to be more cost effective in your design work. Move a wall, add a room, redesign a kitchen, change materials, estimate costs, create construction drawings.
– It’s Easy and It’s Powerful!
Powerful Building & Design Tools
Chief Architect has automatic building tools that use the typical building defaults – or you can define your defaults. For every automated tool you will find manual tools to customize to your specific needs. Some the tools include:
- Automatic Roofs: hip, gable, shed, saltbox, gambrel, gullwing, half-hip, mansard. Create any style with the manual roof tools including curved roofs
- Ceilings – flat, trey, coffered barrel
- Automatic Dormers and Roof Returns
- Materials Lists for cost estimating and bidding
- Material Schedules: Windows, Doors, Cabinets, Rooms, Fixtures, Furniture and Plants
- Dimensions for One-Click Auto Dimensioning™ , End-to-End, Interior, Point-to-Point, Baseline, Angular and Centerline
- Built-in wall types with layers: interior, exterior, pony walls, ICF, SIPS or design custom walls types
- Advance stair tools for curved, flared, split and straight
- House Wizard™ to quickly layout plans or for space planning
- Automatic Framing for walls, roofs and floors
- Electrical and HVAC tools
- Design with Smart Objects (BIM) windows, cabinets, doors, framing have properties and behave intelligently
3D Design and Modeling Tools
- Seamless and simultaneous editing in 3D or 2D
- Photo-Realistic 3D Rendering
- Artistic Rendering – watercolor, painting, line drawing, technical illustration, duotone and Glass House™
- 3D views for elevations, overviews, cross-sections, framing and Doll House™
- Material Painter™ – apply colors, materials and textures from any image or website
- Color Chooser™ – Choose manufacturer colors, materials or textures for your design – or from a digital photo
- 3D Model Maker™
- Record 3D views for virtual tours
Powerful CAD Tools
- CAD solids – to produce slabs, moldings, shapes for customizing and detailing designs
- CAD drawing tools for lines, polylines, splines, arcs, sun angles, shapes and points
- Convert CAD objects to architectural objects – draw a molding profile and save as a molding to apply to cabinets
- Visual CAD Snaps™
- Over 500 Built-in CAD Details
- "CAD-to-Walls" Import; import an AutoCAD®, DXF or DWG and easily map the layers
- Cross Sections & Elevations
Plan Sets and Construction Drawings
- Create construction documents with the Layout tool – send any view to the Layout – define scale and link to the drawing to update as your design changes
- Multiple Layers and Layer Sets – mask layers to create the view you need
- Use a PDF print driver to print to any size paper
- Electrical, Audio, HVAC and Plumbing plan tools
- Terrain Modeling, Landscaping Tools and Site Planning Tools
- ICC – International Residential Code Checklist
- Time Tracker™ to monitor time spent drawing on specific projects
Kitchen & Bath Design Tools
- Create any style of cabinet with powerful Cabinet Designer™ tools. Select from a library of hundreds of door and drawer styles – or choose from specific manufacturer catalogs
- Smart Cabinets – Design with Smart Objects (BIM) windows, cabinets, doors, framing have properties and behave intelligently
- Create shaped cabinets, custom countertops, back splashes, cabinet feet or choose fixtures and appliances. Over a 1,000 Styles or Choose from the Built-in Cabinet Library
- Create any custom cabinet including curved cabinets
- Curved Cabinets and Cabinet Hardware
- Block cabinets and other like objects together to create architectural blocks – for future use – a great time saving feature! Great for kitchen islands
Deck & Landscaping Tools
- Automatic deck framing
- Customize deck planking and materials
- Choose from a variety to deck railing styles
- Set the north pointer and define seasonal settings for realistic shadows
- Complete set of terrain tools – easily import or create terrain data
- Over 3,700 Landscaping Plants
- Plant Encyclopedia™, with detailed information about each plant including integrated Hardiness Zone Maps