Can you tell me a good software for wood deck design?
Question:preferably free or low cost. Thanks
Answers:
You'll get it here:
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=ho...
You have to register in the site first.
Marcelo
AUTOCADD, (used) on ebay!! Works great for any architecture and design plans, inside and out!
Google Sketch Up is the best product of its kind. It's free, but it will take a little while to learn it. However, the results are amazing. You can design 3-D images down to the last millimetre of your deck. It's definitely worth the learning curve and will help you eliminate errors.
there are many available, from many sources stay away from auto-cad, it's too big and too much to learn for your needs, I have one called home-styles, and it was pretty cheap. I lets you do decks floor plans and 3d modeling.
I think what you want from deck design software is the ability to visualize your deck, and then generate post and joist layout and a bill of material. The problem with the "free" design options (like Lowes) is that you are pretty limited to what they offer for design (pick a basic design) and you can't play with the post layout (geeze, I can't put a post there!). Stuff like autocad is way to complicated!
I haven't found the one that I'm looking for, and willing to spend the money for, yet. I've done my design on a piece of graph paper, then did the post and joist layout by looking up some load tables. The only thing I haven't been able to do is visualize the deck (except in my own head).
You can find a review of some packages here:
http://www.consumersearch.com/www/softwa...
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