Looking for patio designs and ideas? If patio plans are on your agenda, you’ve come to the right place. Whether you’re building a new patio or renovating a patio, CAD Pro can help you create the perfect patio plans with these design ideas and practical patio decorating tips. Patio design software is a great way to help you create the perfect deck, shade arbor, pergola or patios that will be the envy of your neighborhood.

• Pergola Design Software Mac Free Download
• Draw A Patio Design
• Design Your Own Patio Free
• 3d Patio Design Tool Free

Downloading the design tool is a great way to get simple landscaping ideas and patio designs, but also to test a variety of different programs to see which one is right for you. A free download is offered by the majority of the most popular design programs including Punch!, Idea Spectrum, and Chief Architect. Use new patio templates and the deck design tool to create the perfect patio or home deck design. Our specially-designed patio and 3D deck design software streamlines the process and provides realistic views at every point. Refine your look with customized paint, stains and other finishing touches. Fast, Easy Landscape Design. Patio Design free download - Logo Design Studio, Autodesk Design Review, Web Design in Seven Days, and many more programs. Real-time landscaping plus is 3D and photo baxsed free landscaping software for Mac. It comes with a massive library of 10400 obxjects to choose from to do the designing of your outdoor spaces. Free Landscape Design For Mac It also offers a lot of plants etc so that you can visualize your landscape clearly.

Pergola Design Software Mac Free Download

Start with These Inspiring Patio Design Tips

Make A Bold Statement
One of the best ways to make a bold statement is to add a raised garden to create a wall of color along one of the sides of your deck or patio. Colorful annuals and tender perennials like nasturtium, bidens, and snapdragons ensure a no-maintenance show all season long design statement. A good garden size is a 12’ x 4’ area.

Implement a Vegetable Garden into Your Patio Plans
Creating a vegetable garden with a small footprint is perfect for planting next to your deck or patio where fresh produce is just an arm’s length away from your kitchen. A good vegetable garden size is an 8’ x 6’. Patio design software can help you accurately layout the space required for your vegetable garden.

Enjoy Perfect Fall Days Outdoors
Soften the edges of a deck or patio designs with a fall focused garden. Ornamental grasses are the stars of these types of gardens, with mums and asters playing supporting roles and adding a lot of color at the same time. A good fall focused garden size is a 14’ x 7’ area.

Soften Patio Designs with Curves
A gentle curving garden bed is a perfect border for any patio. The plantings can be low-maintenance, so the eye-popping impact of salvia, canna, and zinnias survives even the worst summer heat. A good curved garden size is a 14’ x 9’ area.

Make A Bold Impact in Small Spaces
A narrow garden bed is a perfect complement for any deck or patio. Easy-growing plants like ‘Knock Out’ roses, boxwood, and peonies create a big show you don’t have to slave over. A good small garden size is an 18’ x 4’ area.

A Charming Checkerboard Effect
A great way to add some special effects is to edge your patio with orange nasturtiums and white osteospermum in a pocket-sized garden. The annuals can be swapped out each year for a new color scheme therefore offering a new look each year for your patio designs. A good small checkerboard garden size is a 6’ x 10’ area.

Draw A Patio Design

Spring Blooms are Ideal
A long and narrow garden bed is an ideal way to add interest to the end of a deck or patio. As the spring stars fade, fill in your garden area with your favorite summer-flowering annuals to extend your gardening styles. A good spring bloom garden size is a 15’ x 6’ area.

Create a Shady Rest Area
A shady rest area can consist of large shrubs, decorative trees or shade arbors. This extra-easy-care garden area is the perfect way to dress up a deck or patio under the shade. A good shady rest garden size is a 18’ x 8’ area.

Patio Landscape Design Symbols
Common landscape symbols and their proper use can assist you in the creation process of your patio or landscape designs. CAD Pro includes a variety of pre-drawn symbols and landscape auto-shapes which save time and money. You can also create any type of custom symbols you may require and save them as patio symbols for future use, therefore saving time and money.

Patio Design Software Symbols

Free Shady Rest Patio Plans with Shade Arbors
A shade arbor is an ideal way to add drama and beauty to any deck or patio. Decorate the arbor with your favorite vines, honey suckles or any of your favorite plants.

CAD Pro offers free do it yourself patio design plans and projects that you can customize to fit your specific needs, this is one of the easiest ways to start any weekend patio project. Free Plans include; Outdoor Kitchens, Deck Plans, Detached Garden Sheds, Tree houses and Shade Arbors, just to mention a few.

Award Winning Patio Design Software
Patio design software can make creating the yard of your dreams much easier. CAD Pro’s award-winning design software, lets you design, visualize, and document your landscape ideas clearly and efficiently. Quickly design residential or commercial landscape plans.

CAD Pro offers a full set of easy-to-use landscape design features that allow you to create any type of landscape or garden drawings for outdoor living areas. You can design complete landscape projects and quickly add them to your floor plan or plot plan.

“…CAD Pro is excellent for quick and efficient work.”
Emily K., Sacramento, CA

Patio and Landscape Design with Interactive Web Features
Share your patio designs and drawings on the internet with linked photos, detailed notes, or voice instructions. CAD Pro is the only landscape software that offers these interactive features.

• Record your ideas and incorporate voice instructions into your landscape designs.
• Add pop-up text memos to support areas in plant, trees and shrub details.
• Pop-up photos will transform your ideas into designs you can visualize.
• Share your designs as a PDF.

Custom gardening and landscape plans from CAD Pro have helped thousands of nurseries, landscape contractors and custom home builders streamline their workflow while producing professional results for clients and colleagues.

CAD Pro has helped thousands of homeowners, professional designers, builders and contractors plan and design all types of patio design plans. CAD Pro is used by NARI professional remodelers and contractors and the NRCA roofing contractors. CAD Pro is also used by NHBA home builders and contractors as well as the National Association of Landscape professionals.

Cad Pro software is an affordable and easy alternative to other design programs. Cad Pro is great for creating custom home plans, building plans, office plans, construction details, and much more.

At my college, I teach a course named “Computers in Landscape Design” where I train landscape design students in AutoCad and Adobe Suite Programs, among others. These programs are tremendous for landscape designers who wish to use industry-standard software like regular landscape architects; however, they can be very expensive.

Design Your Own Patio Free

Students often do have access to free trials of the software, but for anyone interested in continually using them for the purposes of their professional business, eventually they will need to pay for the programs. To provide some perspective, currently the subscription for AutoCad software is around $200 per month. Unfortunately, this is just too expensive for many new business owners.

Students often ask me if there are any free landscape design apps that work well for professionals. Over the past several years, I tested many free landscape design apps on various projects. In this article, I will review the pros and cons of the market’s five main free landscape design applications.

First, I won’t keep you guessing – my recommendation for the best free app is iScapes. The iScapes app is by far the best free landscape design app among its peers, having quality graphics, a solid user-interface, and a good plant library. In the table below, I provided a breakdown of some of my ratings for each of the five design apps. In case the image is too small, click here to download the pdf version. I will provide some helpful insights of each app in the sections that follow, along with some common issues that may influence your decision before downloading. But before you head off and just download the iScapes or PROLandscape app, I want to give you a little piece of wisdom I’ve accrued over my years of design. There is no substitute for a poor knowledge of landscape plants or design. If you are new to gardening or landscape design, before you purchase any app, I would highly suggest picking up a copy of The Essential Garden Design Workbook along with some essential drafting supplies and learn the old-fashioned way. Not only will it be fun, but you will be a better designer by doing this.

Okay, that’s my word of warning – now onto the reviews

Finally – before I diveinto each application – I must state that noneof these free programs compare to the professional industry standards ofAutoCad, Vectorworks, PROLandscape, or Dynascape. Although these programs dohave some good features – they just simply cannot match the quality of theprofessional software. But for those designers that are looking for a cheapoption that can get the job done, some are worth checking out.

iScapes (Rating: 16/20 )

The iScapes software offers a free and paid premium subscription service. The paid service offers a larger plant library, along with additional image downloads, and project archives; however, the free version is very useful for a beginner landscaper or do-it-yourselfer. The biggest disadvantage of the app is that it is currently only available for iPhone or iPads. For Android users, they will need to find a substitute. To try iScapes, click here.

Pros: The biggest advantage of this app is the graphic quality of the three dimensional landscape elements. The drag and drop interface, along with the visual characteristics of the app make it very useful to professionals doing quick designs for clients on-site.

Cons: As with most of the apps you will see on the list, the major disadvantage is that if you want additional quality add-ons, you will need to pay. A more extensive plant library, along with additional project storage is available with payment.

Home Outside (Rating: 10/20)

I originally had high hopes for the Home Outside app, as the average app review was 3.8/5.0 with many positive comments. After having used the app in many different types of projects, I was disappointed in the lack of three-dimensional perspectives and the limited plant library. To test out the software, click here.

Pros: For plan graphics, the renderings are quite nice and the app allows for the importing of google maps of your customer’s property.

Cons: The biggest downside to the app is the lack of any real plant library. The plants are categorized by “tree” or “shrubs” with no indication or availability to specify the planting in the free version. The paid version does offer some extra features.

Home Design 3D (Rating: 5/20)

Home Design 3D was an intriguing app that had very distinctive reviews when I originally had downloaded it. People seemed to either love it, or hate it. Unfortunately, I was one of the latter. The app is very useful for interior planning and design, but falls short for any realistic landscape design applications. To try the app, click here.

Pros: The only thing the app has working for it is the 3D aspect. The three-dimensional rendering capabilities are better than I would have expected for a free app.

Cons: The user-interface is very poor and the app itself is not intuitive. This combination makes for a very difficult experience for a designer, especially when there are other options available. I would hope that future updates provide pop-ups or a tutorial at the beginning to help designers navigate the platform prior to starting a design.

PROLandscape Home (Rating: 5/20)

I will start off with a disclaimer. In one of my classes, I train designers on the PROLandscape Professional Softwares (Planner, ImageEditor, and Proposal). These are good (but expensive) programs that are very useful for design. I believe it is a great marketing strategy by the developer Drafix to provide this free app to showcase some of the basic features of their paid programs.

With that being said, I found it difficult to provide an honest review of the free version because I kept remembering the full functionality of the paid programs. In any case, I did my best to realistically provide good feedback on the user-interface. Overall, there are many elements that can be improved. To test this out app, click here.

Pros: The free software has many similarities with the overlay perspectives of Home Outside, but with a greater plant library. The biggest drawback of the software is that most of the plant database is only offered for the paid version.

Cons: The app is not very intuitive and there is very little within the program to provide help or support. Also, there is a limited availability of plants, with poor customization, and relatively no ability to modify the existing library.

Sketchup Viewer (Rating: 5/20)

I had originally downloaded the Sketchup Viewer because I had received a recommendation about the app from another designer. I already have extensive knowledge in Sketchup, along with a variety of other 3D Software programs including three-dimensional CAD, Rhino, and Revitt, so I figured the Sketchup Viewer was worth a try. In general, it was a big disappointment as the viewer does not really offer anything valuable for a designer that does not have access to the base-program of Sketchup. To test out the viewer, click here.

Pros: If you have the ability to work on a regular computer to complete a great 3D model in Sketchup, the Viewer is useful -essentially just a tool to view the model and show it to your client on site. Other than that, the viewer does little else.

Cons: It is not a design software and offers no specific landscape capabilities. The app is obsolete without actually using Sketchup to generate the landscape model.

Final Thoughts

If you are looking for the best free landscape design apps that also offer some assistance in designing and showcasing designs to clients in a professional manner, then I would recommend iScapes. If you do not have an iPhone or iPad, use Home Outside.

None of the free apps have great functionality when compared to their paid counterparts. If you are starting out in the design profession, the free apps might be worth exploring but you will quickly find better value from some of the other paid alternatives.

If you haven’t already – check out my article on Gift Ideas for Landscape Designers – you can use the money you’ve saved on some nice things for a fellow gardener, or yourself.

3d Patio Design Tool Free

For more articles on Landscape Design, please be sure to check out our Design resources and landscape Business articles.

____________________________________

ImportantLegal Disclaimer: This site is owned and operated byDraftscapes. We are a participant in affiliate marketing programs designed toprovide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to participantvendors. Affiliations include Utrecht Art Supply and Amazon Associates.Draftscapes is compensated for referring traffic and business to thesecompanies. Recommendations for products or services on this site are not influencedthrough the affiliation.