Open Source Software

Open Source Software: Home Sweet 3D
Description: Sweet Home 3D is an interior design Java application for quickly choosing and placing furniture on a house 2D plan drawn by the end-user, with a final 3D preview.

URL: http://sourceforge.net/projects/sweethome3d/#item3rd-1

Primary Directive 1: Sweet Home 3D is available for the Windows, Linux, and OS X operating systems. Once installed the program’s user-interface is very easy to use, having a list of items on the side panel to just drop into the work space for designing a room. The program also includes a help menu, which helps the user for more complicated projects, such as designing a household. The best part of the program is the 3D panel, which shows the user a first-hand image of how the design would appear in real life. This program is a very useful tool to any home owner or to any person wanting to decorate a room.

Primary Directive 2: The program is packaged into a setup.exe file, which automatically sets up everything for the user. It requires JRE 1.6, but is already included in the package, having no need for a separate download. The program itself did not come with any installation instruction. The only file that was required to be downloaded was a setup.exe file, which makes it very easy for a user to install.

Primary Directive 3: Home Sweet 3D’s source package is a separate download from the setup.exe file. Within the source package are the files to modify if wanting to make improvements or to fix errors in the program. From a software-developers view, the descriptions contained in the files are very helpful in determining its functionality. The coding is very clean and the comments made are very clean. The files packaged are also very organized. The folders and files are named precisely to what its function to the program is, making it straightforward to what file to modify.