This MacNews Category Review looks at home planning and design software for Mac OS X. Products covered include AC3D, EasyDraw, Archibald BAU, HomeCalcX, HomeLoan Companion, HomeWorks, Interior Design Collection, Liqud Ate Here, Live Interior, LoanVision, MacLoanPro, Mortgage Maker, Mortgage Manager, Power Amortize, Quick Amortize, Savings & Loans, Simple Houeskeeping Book, SketchUp, Sweet Home 3D, VectorWorks Architect and VersaCAD.
AC3D
AC3D is 3D software for creating imaginary models and virtual landscapes and cities, design buildings, home projects, land, sea, space, and air craft, and more.
EasyDraw
EasyDraw is a vector-based drawing application for Mac OS X. It offers a tool for technical drawings or illustrations. You can use EazyDraw to create illustrations, logos, floor plans and elevations, technical diagrams, flow charts, maps, web graphics and more.
Archibald BAU
Archibald BAU is a Mac OS X business project planning/calculation tool for architects, engineers and general project organization.
HomeCalcX
HomeCalc X is a mortgage payment calculator for Mac OS X.
HomeLoan Comparison
HomeLoan Comparison is software for comparing different loans simultaneously or variations of the same loan. You can view monthly breakdown tables, graphs and more.
HomeWorks
HomeWorks is a home finance program that's designed to reduce the time spent keeping records. Your records are kept in a document file and viewed much like a word processor document, and you can keep more than one document open on your desktop to work between them without having to load and reload files. With HomeWorks, you can keep your check transactions, cash transactions, and charges together in the same document, or in separate documents at your whim. Move complete records (or groups of records) between documents with simple cut/copy/paste operations. What could be easier? Do it your way!
Interior Design Collection
The Interior Design Collection for LightWave/Inspire 3D/Strata Studio Pro/Infini-D is a collection of over 500 real world scaled LightWave 3D and Inspire 3D Objects. They can be used to create complete and furnished home environments.
Liquid Ate Her
The Liquid Ate Her (no, really that's the name of the company) offers several home design products (Design Your Own Home 3D Walkaround, Design Your Own Architecture, Design Your Own Landscape, Design Your Own Home Suite, etc.).
Live Interior
Live Interior is software for designing a house, apartment, office and other interiors with a virtual walk-through. The program enables you to visualize your home or office layout in either 2D or 3D views. The program comes with 1,000-plus 3D objects including brand name furniture and 50-plus editable interiors and 2D plans. The program integrates with Google 3D Warehouse and can import Google SketchUp objects. The program allows you to switch between 2D and 3D modes to preview interiors. Objects can be added and edited in both modes.
LoanVision
LoanVision is a mortgage origination, calculation and processing application. It includes the Uniform Residential Loan Application (1003) and Transmittal Summary (1008) as required for use by both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. LoanVision also includes a new plug-in interface that allows its developers to create custom forms and databases for their customers, Loan Prospector interfaces, a oan Overview report, support for Advantage Credit credit reports and other tweaks.
Mac LoanPro
Mac LoanPro is a banking and lending package that features master calculator, custom schedule, loan comparison and more.
Mortgage Maker
Mortgage Maker lets you play around with the variables in a mortgage loan to find a combination that qualifies. The program is free for personal use. It computes the "qualifying ratios" that the banks use to rate loans. Its Backsolve feature answers questions like "how much house can I afford on this income?" or "How much does my spouse/partner need to make for us to get into that house." It also handles refinances and estimates closing costs. For real estate or mortgage professionals, the program offers a way to print quick estimates for clients.
Mortgage Manager
Mortgage Manager is a mortgage tracking application whose functions include estimating deductible interest for any year, savings in interest in relation to extra principal payments, tracking payments made, and printing all or part of a loan schedule.
Power Amortize
Power Amortize is software for calculating loan payments; it also prints amortization tables.
Quick Amortize
Quick Amortize is a Mac OS X amortization tool for quickly amortizing loans.
Savings & Loans
Savings & Loans is calculating software that will allow you to compute interest rates, payments, and more. format that will answer your financial planning questions, enable you to maximize your savings, and learn how to best plan for your future, say its developers.
Simple Housekeeping Book
Simple Housekeeping Book is a Japanese housekeeping book that offers a schedule of payment, credit card payment, accounting, budget and more.
SketchUp
SketchUp by Google was developed for the conceptual stages of design, and allows for 3D form creation, modification and communication. You can build models from scratch, or you can download what you need. People all over the world share what they've made on the Google 3D Warehouse. It's a huge, searchable repository of models, and it's free.
Sweet Home 3D
Sweet Home 3D is a is a free interior design application that helps you place your furniture on a house 2D plan, with a 3D preview.
VectorWorks Architect
VectorWorks Architect is designed to streamline every phase of the design and production process. With it you can create dynamic 2D and 3D designs, glide through your projects with a streamlined interface, and access various features and resource libraries.
VersaCAD
VersaCAD is computer aided design (CAD) software for architects, engineers, designers, illustrators and educators. It models in real world coordinates with automatic scaling to paper.
