If anyone is seriously interested in pursuing rendering a Home Designer plan file in a third-party rendering program like Kerkythea, a Chief Architect user can export your HD file in a usable format (usually .3DS). I would be willing to do this for people for $60 a file. I would not fix your HD file or alter it in any way, simply import it into Chief and export as 3DS. You would need to take it from there in terms of learning how to import the model and use your rendering program.
I'm not willing to do it for free, since it does take a bit of time on my end, but it's cheaper than upgrading your software if you're not ready to do that.
The desire for photorealistic renderings is exactly the reason I decided to bite the bullet and upgrade from Home Designer to Chief Premiere eight years ago. :-)
