I bought Chief Architect last December after 17 years of AutoCad and AutoCad-Architectural Desktop, and I am pleased with the purchase. I run a solo office and do custom residential design work. I have produced several designs and sets of construction drawings now with Chief Architect and really like working in this program. It was about half of the cost of a REVIT upgrade including subscription services. I found the program easy to learn, the online training/help videos are great, and they also have training webinars. It does 3D modeling of your building, and you can also model the site. The libraries of furniture, materials, textures, colors, and landscape materials are very useful. The 3D images are quite realistic and very helpful for residential clients to understand the design. It can export drawings to AutoCad so I can send them to my structural engineer. Before I switched, I tried modeling in Sketch-Up and producing CD's in AutoCad, but the double drawing time made me think that there must be a better way. I am quite happy with Chief Architect...
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Kimberly Marland AIA, LEED AP
Principal
Marland Architecture
Boone NC
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