20 20 design software

Merbs said:

Is anyone using the 20 20 design software for kitchens and baths? I can't find many reviews so I figured I'd ask here. Using Chief but am looking to try something new. Wondering if it's worth buying. Thanks.

Click to expand...

Depends. 20/20 works best if you have cabinetry lines and don't want to price everything by hand and your cabinetry lines have a 20/20 catalogue. For simple design, it's quick and fast, but not great for specialty custom.

It's always been glitchy and prone to errors. I use it because it's industry standard, but bleh, I'm almost at the point where I'd rather draw in Chief and price by hand. This is from a user of 20/20 since 1986...

Leo is right but you don't have to be a cabinet shop to get it. I am a GC here in CALIF. and I got a license from ECabinets. Very good software for cabinets.

The UI is a bit clunky though, not near as user friendly as Chief.

I need to work with it more though.

Andy.

20/20 is a pain in the butt. Its an extremely expensive, complex and bug-ridden program. Expect to spend upwards of $1500 per user on training in most cases, and $500/year for maintenance/upgrades. The included tutorials are very basic, and the technical support is terrible. Yes, we can render some great images and our layouts are easy to follow, but in my opinion the program is not a good value at all.

What will you be using it for? 2020 is not worth having if you are not a cabinet dealer. You wont be able to get the catalogs unless you are, and and designs done with the default catalog would have to be converted to the products catalog you are purchasing and/or priced by hand.
If you are building cabinets, Planit Solid Design or Cabinet Vision are good and can give you 3d renderings to shop drawings.
If it is presentation drawings for sales you are looking for Chief may be the way to go, plus you can use it for much more, as say you do remodeling and renovations.

I've been using 2020 for quite some time and despite the bugs,(that they send you free patches for), I find it to be a great program. The new Version 10 has the capability to generate almost photo-quality renderings and THAT is an extremely great sales tool.
I have my clients come in for a "design review" and display their new kitchen, bar, etc. on a huge flatscreen, with all kinds of killer details, and they absolutely FLIP when they see how incredible their new room is going to look like. I'm super detailed in my presentations and using 2020, for me anyway, gives me a tremendous advantage to seal the deal.
Good luck.

Tommy D.

DESIGN_PRO_7 said:

I've been using 2020 for quite some time and despite the bugs,(that they send you free patches for), I find it to be a great program. The new Version 10 has the capability to generate almost photo-quality renderings and THAT is an extremely great sales tool.
I have my clients come in for a "design review" and display their new kitchen, bar, etc. on a huge flatscreen, with all kinds of killer details, and they absolutely FLIP when they see how incredible their new room is going to look like. I'm super detailed in my presentations and using 2020, for me anyway, gives me a tremendous advantage to seal the deal.
Good luck.

Tommy D.

Click to expand...

Interesting first post... Timothy D., do you work for or have any relationship with 20/20?

I'm still on version 9 because version 10 isn't back integrated with 9, and it's still too crashable to confidently upgrade. 20/20 is the 2000 lb. gorilla of software. They do what THEY want, buggy or not, and whether anyone else cares what they do. If the plug in catalogs from the actual cabinet companies didn't make the ordering a heck of a lot easier, everyone would ditch them. Even then, I've had to use the printout with ALL of the descriptions in every field to double check the order before it's submitted. Sometimes, they have the wrong things indicated and you can order the wrong size without meaning to when it shows the right size in the design. But, it's still better than handwriting a 18 line description of a single cabinet and all of it's options, and then doing that for all 21 cabinets in the order. And that's why they are still around. ProKitchen is gaining ground though, and plenty of manufacturers are starting to support it.

You should be able to find 2020 version 10 rendering pics on any web search. Or search 2020 kitchen and bath design, version 10 tutorials on YouTube. The only "formal training" I got from the 2020 rep, was a 3 day crash course in the basics. So I watched all the tutorials I could find and basically mastered the software in under 3 months. It's quite simple to learn, honestly. I've been designing professionally for years now and am also studying autocad.

You don't wanna put up a pic of a design you've done?

I'll put up one in version 9. You can see some of the bugs here. Who cares if I can put in a dining table with just the right color seats or put their super special Red Dragon granite behind the vent hood? It won't let me put on the crown or light rail correctly, and that's more important. To me, anyway. The nuts and bolts ARE more important than the window dressing.

Did you ever get the patch for V9? It's now V9.1 . I used to have problems with the crown not going on right here and there. Usually you can just edit and add line and it works. Kind of a pain to have to go through that, I know. Im not going to upgrade to 10 just yet either. It's just a matter of personal preference with the software you choose. You must have a software key and if you open your V9 and take a pic of your license code, 2020 support will send you the patch that will stabilize your current V9 and upgrading it to V9.1.
I'll see if I can find a design and post it later. Ive been responding to these posts from my phone. Servers down at our showroom.

Proof in renderings....

I hope this works.
If you can see these renderings, V10 vs. V9 is like night and day!!


ACTUAL RENDERINGS!!!
Of course you want your software to work properly. The "nuts and bolts", that is. And look and the difference in the quality of the renderings!!!

This is the kind of detail,(and this is pretty basic), that keeps the people in my community coming back and referring friends...all day long.

It's not bad, but the person at the helm needs to do a bit better on a few things. The granite is obviously patterned and the rails have the grain going the wrong way. A few other minor details. They should pay more attention to the design end of it though. They don't need to be concerned about the pretty pictures more than they need to fix some things on their product.

It's not bad though.

Totally agree with you on that, Kent.
It is what it is and really just a matter of personal preference. I've always found the user interface quite friendly, but in V10, they changed it quite a bit. Tried to condense lots of options under very few icons and ended up making the new U.I. more complicated than it needs to be.
I suppose, just like most things, the more you use it, the more familiar you're gonna become with it and it'll become "the norm". I still primarily use V9.1, as I am still learning new things on the new version.
The autocad software I'm training on is CRAZY, but in a good way. Really looking forward to expanding my knowledge and talents to design homes and commercial buildings.

Have a great day and I hope your business is thriving.

Tommy D.

AutoCAD has been the standard for quite awhile and has microvellum to do Cabinetry and woodworking. Plain acad can do the same as well. It all depends on your application.

If you are a designer only, acad might not be worth the trouble. If you are in a custom shop then acad is good, but even better would be inventor. Same company, but true parametric.

2020 is good for a kitchen design for the most part. Not so much for other things. Not sure why they went in the rendering direction. They do look nice, for a consumer.

For designing homes and commercial, I would seriously look into Revit. Forget AutoCAD for that.