Builders can explore a slew of CAD-related products, perhaps with a direct correlation to their projects.

CAD tools have slowly gained popularity over the past 20 years and have become integral to most residential architects, designers and builders. Most people in the industry are fully aware of traditional CAD products such as AutoCAD. These products, still the most widely used today, are almost exclusively for 2-D production drafting.

The needs of residential design professionals have brought forth many residential CAD-related products and utilities, which can boost productivity and increase service offerings. Some can be used in conjunction with traditional CAD drafting products, while many others can be used independently.

Whole-Home Design Software

Whole-home design software, the most visible and advertised in today's residential marketplace, offers 3-D visualization, automated working drawings and some form of a bill of materials, and typically accomplishes a whole-house design reasonably well. Usually, a few other production and sales utilities are included, and some are capable of general framing and panelization.

The toolset offered by whole-home design software is more specific to the job of residential design, typically with a smaller learning curve than traditional drafting packages. Whole-home design products often incorporate intelligent objects such as walls, doors and windows, which reduces design time.

The 3-D building model and fast 3-D visualization offered in these products provide an invaluable sales tool. Walking clients through a 3-D model of their home before construction begins can increase sales and set better expectations for clients.

Many whole-home design products have the ability to save drawings to AutoCAD's DWG format -- an important feature for sharing files with other designers in the industry.

Matt Macarewich of Capistrano Beach, Calif.-based Matt Macarewich & Associates uses Cadsoft Envisioneer. "People see a set of 2-D plans, and they don't really understand what's going on," says Macarewich. "Using Envisioneer, I can actually walk people through a house, and by adding objects like people and beds, it really puts the house into perspective and allows them to see the space they're going to have. For them to be able to see the project done is critical."

Specialized Industry Software

Industry-specific software is geared toward professionals who specialize in specific aspects of the home such as kitchen, bath and deck design. These products are usually fairly expensive, but they provide the most detail about the user's specialty.

Specialty software usually offers a catalog or database of industry-related items such as manufacturers' information. Due to the intense depth of such software, training is usually recommended.

Project-Specific Software

Project-specific software focuses on completing project-centric tasks, like building a deck, shed or fence. These packages are ideal for the consumer or small builder who doesn't have a lot of time for designing.

Functionality usually includes a series of easy-to-use wizards, which guide the user through the basic steps of designing a project. Once these wizards have set the project's basic parameters, they can be edited to suit the builder's needs and achieve the desired level of detail.

However, one must be careful not to expect too much from these products, as their ease-of-use sometimes dictates a lack of detail in the project. For example, a product designed for building a shed may not have the tools necessary to create a backyard.

Project-specific software is ideal for fast and easy conceptual design, and the results can often be used to obtain a building permit.

Framing and Structural Software

Framing and structural software address a niche market that can increase productivity of a company's construction business. There are a limited number of products on the market that are stronger in framing and detailing than anything else. Because of the complexities of framing, these packages tend to have a large learning curve.

These products completely frame the floor, ceiling, walls and roof of a 3-D model, and can do so in wood, steel and a variety of composite materials. Many programs offer the ability to panelize the frames and automatically annotate them with dimensions, tags and an associated schedule. Framed panel detailing information can then be sent through to panel machines for manufacturing purposes. Some software can even structurally size the framing members and include actual manufacturer's materials and parameters.

Terry Covington, owner of Construction Advice Central in Hoschton, Ga., is an avid user of Cadsoft Build. "Working with a 3-D framed model has actually increased the demand for our services, while the cut list generation and interface to estimated software has decreased our time to market," says Covington.

CAD to Estimating

Most of the software products discussed so far are able to calculate some form of a bill of materials from a 3-D digital building model. Many can also export the results to different formats that can be imported into leading estimating and accounting products.

There is, however, a separate category of products that does not require the user to create a 3-D model. These products can extract quantities from a set of plans or from digital data in an existing 2-D CAD file.

Most of the industry-leading estimating software support digitizers, which can digitize a paper plan. By designating the type of object being defined (wall, door, window, etc.), an estimate can be created. Other products can open an electronic CAD data file and manipulate the data directly.

Worth A Closer Look

Whether you are currently CAD-literate or not, it is definitely worth taking a closer look at the range of residential CAD-related products available. The technology in these products can be far superior to that found in traditional drafting tools. Brad Finck is vice president of product development for Cadsoft Corporation (www.cadsoft.com).