Customer Reviews

Punch! Home Design Architectural Series 3000 v12

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Designed a deck and blueprinted existing house. Easy to use and has a lot of features found in much more expensive CAD programs.

We purchased and recieved the punch home design software a few weeks ago, and how you rate this company's products appears to be directly attributable to what you need it to do.
Firstly, let me just say, if you want to decorate a room or see how new curtains will look, you should probably not put this product high on your shopping list - there are cheaper items that will take less time to get what you need.
We bought it with the idea of designing our dream home - there just weren't any plans we liked that fit our needs (which are unusual).
This software is very intuitive if you simply spend a few hours (yes - it will take hours) wandering around the menus.
There are power tools that allow designing of individual rooms and adding to plans - or you can just draw the foundation outline and start filling in the blanks yourself.
The graphics are good - not perfect or outstanding - but more than adequate, the update speed is excellent, rendering is fast and reasonably accurate, images and libraries are decent in both terms of content and complexity. There is the ability to use CAD to create your own, but most are possibly unlikely to go there. Library components are, for the most part easily editable.
One of the nicest features is the ability to see your mistakes and fix them as you make them, before you compound issues to the point of complete frustration - just use the split screen and build on one half while observing the build in "real" modelled view on the next.
So why 4 of 5 stars - because it's not for everyone but is truly versatile. If you think you'll design your custom house an hour after opening the box - forget it! If you want that something special though, and are willing to invest a week or three of spare time to get what you truly desire (whole house plan - other things are much shorter) then it just might be the product for you.

I have designed many houses for family members with this program. I love how detailed it is. Make sure your processor and ram matches up to the specs. The only issue I have with this program is it won't allow me to make tilted walls. Slanted walls, yes, but all walls must be vertical in the program. I have read the manual many times and can not find anything about that.