In the old days, an architect had to draw his visions on a piece of paper. He sure had to be a heck of an artist if he wanted anybody to even look at his drawings and understand them. And for a couple designing a new home, these drawings were not very awe inspiring. Was their home going to look like a bunch of black lines?



Well, those days and long dead and gone. With the rise of the computer and the power of today's modern PCs, architecture will never be the same. There is software that is so powerful and so scary that it's unlikely that your actual home is going to look as good as what you're going to see on the screen.

The leading software in this area, hands down, is Turbo CAD by IMSI. Even if you're not a designer, this is software so amazing and breathtakingly beautiful that you may want to get it just to see what kind of home you would design if you were an architect. And yes, it is that easy to do. Sure, it would help if you had some training in the area, but if you have any kind of an eye for design and have lived in a house for any length of time, you should have very little problem designing a home that somebody would want to live in. Yes, it is that easy.

Turbo CAD of course starts with the very basics in design, the foundation and structure of the home. This is where you designate how large the home is going to be, the shape of it, how many floors, etc. This is all made very easy with an interface that is simply point and click and drag and drop. Naturally, with this much power, you can end up creating a home that is physically impossible, but if you use just a little common sense, that is not going to happen.

After designing your structure, the next step is to decorate the inside of the home. The software comes with tons of interior designing tools for furniture, floors, ceilings and a number of other things. The whole thing is set up for 3D view so it's like you're really in the room. You can view each room from a variety of levels and angles. Want to get a view of your floor from the ceiling? No problem. Want to know what your front door looks like from the room across the way? Piece of cake.

Turbo CAD is one piece of powerful software. Naturally, that kind of power is going to require a mighty processor and a ton of disk space. So don't try running Turbo CAD on your dad's PC. Most likely you won't even get it to start up.

There are two versions of Turbo CAD depending on the power that you need. You can get either Turbo CAD Deluxe or Turbo CAD Professional. Also, there are add-on packs that you can get for either of these.

Even if you're not an architect or designer, you can have a blast playing with these tools. After all, there's no harm in doing a little fantasy designing.