Hello Homestylers!
I have something of a mystery on my hands. Homestyler's floor plan export feature is a great planning tool. However, the feature seems to be consistently miscalculating the dimensional markings. This could become a point of confusion when sharing floor plans with builders.
Admittedly, I am using the free version -which is more beause I am afraid to get into an open-ended monthly payment arrangement, than a reflection of my perception of the value of the software. For the record, the software is wonderful as it allows novices to work within a CAD-type of environment to design and share conceptual architectural drawings which is just a fantastic benefit for do it yourselfers. Even the Homestyler interface requires a pretty steep learning curve... but nothing like the CAD software.
The Export as DWG feature is also a great benefit as users can then seek DWG viewing and mark-up software to produce extremely precise working drawings for builders. This, however, introduces a bit of difficulty as the DWG software environments -as I mentioned earlier are extremely complicated for beginners. Also, the free DWG viewer and mark-up software more often than not appear to all come with limited file saving and printing functionality. This means that users can import their Homestyler DWG files, adjust them to create final building plans -in my case I am attempting to create a foundation plan to communicate where the footings will be placed -but they cannot save and print them.
I have downloaded FreeCAD -which is awesome, but it is a full on CAD design environment and it comes with the emmense learning curve issues.
If I were able to figure out how to make Homestyler's floor plan export dimensions generate accurately, I think I could easily create footing plans by saving a new copy named footing plan, and increasing the wall sizes, adding features where necessary, etc.
When I generate floor plans, however, the dimentional markings are consistently betwenn 3" and 4" smaller than the design measurements. I have searched this topic on the internet to no avail, and combed through the various menu trees in the software to see if there is some setting which can be adjusted. But so far, I haven't found any way to do this.
Am I missing something?
Chris Marchi
617-417-2093
