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kitchen design (simple 2D floorplan-type) software for MacOS?


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kitchen design (simple 2D floorplan-type) software for MacOS?
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malcolm
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Canada
 
2008-02-20, 14:53

Hi there,
Can anyone recommend any easy-to-use floorplan design software, that works on the Mac platform?
I googled, and found stuff for windows, which aren't any good to me. Ditto for the free design software that IKEA provides... I need to design a kitchen/dining-room extension... don't need fancy 3D; I'm picturing something that uses something graph-paper-ish as the starting point. Need to add counters, etc.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Malcolm
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Kickaha
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2008-02-20, 14:59

I used OmniGraffle to blueprint our apartment before we moved in two years ago, and then used that template to figure out where the furniture was going before we ever loaded the truck several states away.

It does auto-measurement, the works. Love. It.
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psmith2.0
Mr. Vieira
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tennessee
 
2008-02-20, 15:05

I actually saw a commercial on TV for this a while back:

http://www.punchsoftware.com/products/mac_pro.htm

Shocked to learn it had a Mac version, since a lot of this stuff doesn't. And I actually saw it in my local Office Depot two weekends ago.

Seems pricey, but it seems to have modest system requirements and looks like it does quite a bit. I guess if you were going to be doing this sort of thing, it might be worth that $250 outlay?

But it might be a little more 3D/full-featured (and expensive) than you need?

For my most recent three home re-do projects, I did it all myself, in terms of layout/planning. I used Adobe Illustrator, took accurate measurements, drew everything to scale and used that as a guide. I did floorplans, elevations and angled/isometric drawings. Probably took longer, but I wasn't looking to shell out money for software, or deal with a "new application learning curve", so I just used what I knew (worked on it a few hours each evening for about a week).

Surely there's a cheap, floorplan-only type of OS X product out there...
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ezkcdude
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
 
2008-02-20, 18:56

Quote:
Originally Posted by malcolm View Post
Hi there,
Can anyone recommend any easy-to-use floorplan design software, that works on the Mac platform?
I googled, and found stuff for windows, which aren't any good to me. Ditto for the free design software that IKEA provides... I need to design a kitchen/dining-room extension... don't need fancy 3D; I'm picturing something that uses something graph-paper-ish as the starting point. Need to add counters, etc.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Malcolm
Have you seen the Google Sketchup 3D? There's a free version. Maybe that would do the trick.
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Gargoyle
http://ga.rgoyle.com
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: In your dock hiding behind your finder icon!
 
2008-02-20, 19:32

http://www.jordans.com/roomplanner.asp

Who'd of thought of searching google for "flash room planner" eh?
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malcolm
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Canada
 
2008-02-20, 21:00

Hi,
Thanks to all of you for your suggestions. Kickhaha, I think I recall you recommending OmniGraffle once before (when I was trying to draw a plan for how the different parts and pieces of my editing gear connect), and I got it... thought it looked great... but struggled with it. I confess I'm not patient. I just reopened it now, and drew a room outline and a wall. But then I looked everywhere to have it draw on a “graph paper” background, and couldn't find it; neither could I see how to get it to measure in feet and inches instead of centimetres. Arghhh! I'm sure it's simple, and I just can't see it.
ezkcdude - - same thing happened to me with Sketchup. (my ego's really taking a beating tonight).
Gargoyle, I liked the look of the jordan on-line planner... very neat, actually (and easy to use) - - I'm going to test it out. (what's the downside, I wonder - - are they going to bombard me with advertising?).
Lastly, pscates2.0 - - this one looks really good... (and actually, there's a slightly cheaper version $150 instead of $250, that, I'm sure, would do more than I need). It seems the company doesn't let you demo it (problem for me - - what if I can't convert from metres to feet!!!?). I've emailed the company to ask if I can try it out somehow - - if they let me try it, and if it's good, I'll let you know.
Thanks again everyone.
Malcolm
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malcolm
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Canada
 
2008-02-21, 08:53

Just to add... I came across this one as well (also for Mac OS)... 'Live Interior'. Looks promising:

http://www.belightsoft.com/products/...r/overview.php

Malcolm
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Kickaha
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2008-02-21, 10:54

Quote:
Originally Posted by malcolm View Post
Hi,
Thanks to all of you for your suggestions. Kickhaha, I think I recall you recommending OmniGraffle once before (when I was trying to draw a plan for how the different parts and pieces of my editing gear connect), and I got it... thought it looked great... but struggled with it. I confess I'm not patient. I just reopened it now, and drew a room outline and a wall. But then I looked everywhere to have it draw on a “graph paper” background, and couldn't find it; neither could I see how to get it to measure in feet and inches instead of centimetres. Arghhh! I'm sure it's simple, and I just can't see it.
Turn on the grid. Inspectors -> Grid

What I did was to set the grid to 12 minor ticks per major (ie, 12 inches per foot), and then scaled the large ticks to be 2 per inch. Voila. 1" on screen = 2', and you have inch demarcations as well.

To have a line auto-measure, double-click on it to start editing the label, and enter <%LENGTH%> (or Edit -> Insert Variable -> Line Length) After that, it will show the length of the line. (Note that this shows the length of line *on screen*, not scaled to the grid. Looking into how I did that - my blueprint is back home on the other machine.)

Oddly, I can't seem to find where to switch from metric to Imperial measurements - I'm assuming since you have your location as Canada, that that's what your country is set up as in the general OS. That's what OG uses to determine if it should measure in metric or Imperial. Heck, go with it - I'm stuck with inches and feet.
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ghoti
owner for sale by house
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Charlotte, NC
 
2008-02-21, 11:12

You can right-click on the canvas and then use the Ruler Spacing option to change between metric and imperial units. The grid then updates its measuring units to the same. I guess it defaults to your system default settings for units.
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Kickaha
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2008-02-21, 11:18

AHA! Got it. Thanks ghoti, that led me to the right place.

Turn on the Ruler (View -> Rulers). Set the Ruler Scale to something like 1in = 1', and the units to feet ('). Now your auto-measured lines will show up in feet and inches.

Note that you can manually edit the Ruler Scale in addition to selecting the presets from the dropdown menu, so if you want 1.5 in = 9.3 yds, you can do that too.
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malcolm
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Canada
 
2008-02-21, 11:36

Thanks for the help, Kickaha... I've chosen Inspector-Grid now - - that's great. And you're right, Canada officially adopted the metric system away back when (in the 1970s I think)... I'm used to centigrade for temperature, and kilometres instead of miles, but for the life of me, I can't give up feet and inches. I'll keep trying.
Thanks again,
Malcolm
P.S. the Home Design Studio people got back to me to say you have to buy it to try it, but they give you a money-back guarantee in case you don't like it.
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