Customer Reviews

Punch Software Home & Landscape Design Studio for the Mac with NexGen Technology [Old Version]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

Honestly, I bought this to replace it's bigger brother -- thinking it would be easier and more intuitive and friendly with their new nexGen technology. This product has a steep learning curves and a thick, but useless user guide that explains each tool but not how to use it. I've tried (in vain) to design my upcoming remodel. In both programs, I stopped, just plain overwhelmed and discouraged.

I've used professional CAD packages like Cobalt that are far, far less frustrating to use. Very un-Mac-like behavior, very limited ability to edit existing walls, slow 3D performance on my iMac.

Wish I could recommend another home design package for Mac, but at least I can say, "Stay away from this one, folks!"

It doesn't work. At least not on my MacBook Pro w/Leopard. I had high hopes for the program, but after several calls and e-mails to Punch! support we don't have a solution. Worse, the Punch! techs appear to have given up. On top of that, Punch! is refusing to refund the purchase price.

The good news is that Punch! actually has toll-free tech support and I was actually able to reach them fairly easily. And to a certain extent they've tried to help. Maybe some of you will have better luck than me. Or maybe not. Good luck.

*****************
UPDATE: Somebody at Punch! figured it out. HDS is incompatible with the Mac's "case-sensitive" disk format and that's what I had. Don't know how I got that way or why it matters (Apple didn't know, either), but a complete erase, reformat, and reinstall later and the program is working with all objects and tools available.

so I would give it 3 STARS. It's a decent program - probably best at this price - but this hard drive format thing needs to be fixed.

For some reason I thought that Punch would have learned a thing or two in the past couple of years and so decided to purchase the upgrade to this software. Astonishingly it was as bad as before, and the new features they included are as poorly designed as the existing software. Very little about this software is intuitive, and you must read the manual from cover to cover to even begin making sense of its ridiculously bad interface. The only problem is that the manual itself is almost useless, so getting anywhere with this software becomes an exercise in frustration. After spending the better part of a day attempting to do a simple plan for a sunroom I am building, I finally gave up and did it using a simple drawing app for the Mac (Acorn)... in less than half an hour. It's really criminal that a company can get away with selling software like this.

This program is extremely user friendly and is great for designing a basic floor plan. However, I was trying to design my dream home, a 3500 sq ft house on a half acre lot, and after only designing the house and backyard (and not furnishing/decorating the house at all), the program transitions EXTREMELY slowly from 2D to 3D views. I simply solved the problem by creating 2 separate files, one is just the house, the other is just the backyard, and this seems to keep the program transitioning faster.

After you spend two days fine tuning with your drawing, there are only two possible way to print. One is to print an unreadable, small sized print with spaces all over the paper. Or, print to scale with 24 pages. Cannot print partial, cannot size it, cannot do anything about it.

I've worked with CAD software before, but it was Windows based and I needed a program for my Mac (running Snow Leopard). Buying this was a costly mistake, in terms of both money and time.

It took hours to enter a basic floorplan, due to inadequate help and a less-then-friendly interface, and then my Mac froze and the work was gone. This is the first time in three years my Mac has frozen. When I called tech support, I reached a recording which ensured a return phone call "within 24 hours". I can't really stay in one place all day awaiting their phone call.

The second attempt to use the program resulted in a freeze after about five minutes.

Obviously, this program has not been adequately tested. It should never have been put on the market.

I bought this thing to design my remodel project.
It is not intuitive. I haven't had to go to a users manual for anything in 5 years, and I'm constantly in this manual. It doesn't work intuitively. The manual doesn't show how - just what. I thought there would be a video tutorial... all I've found is the short marketing video on their website. No basement. You tell it you want to measure in inches and it only allows you to lay out in feet.
I haven't figured out how to zoom in.
The cabinets in the kitchen designer are insufficient... very limited.
I wish I could return this stupid thing.
I was using Google's free sketchup, and found it to be a whole lot more precise, powerful, and easy to use.
I thought this would be a step up - providing shopping lists, blueprints, and such. I thought it would be better for submitting plans to the local permitting office, I just expected to have a good usable tool.
Warning: the shopping list is for everything, not just the remodel. Like, buy a slab of concrete, studs, etc.
If there is a way to enter precise measurements in this thing, I haven't seen it.
I hate it. That said, anybody want to buy a used copy?
If this is #1, then the bar is very low.

I like Punch! Home Design Studio for MAC.

I put off buying the package for 6 months because the reviews for the product were poor. Likewise I have delayed reviewing the product for several months to be sure I can provide my own, independent assessment.

First, the package is complex, lots of features and lots of details. This could be daunting for someone looking for an instant design but one quickly learns the features of the software package simply by using the product.

There is a quick start mode that enables you to layout a basic design in minutes, just like they say in the product information. The rooms on the quick start list are very generic but can be easily edited to the dimensions you need. Very handy for a quick sketch to start things off.

A final design drawing can be as complex as you wish. I am not trying for an exact set of plans, ready for construction, rather I use the package to produce intermediate designs that convey the general size, shape, and orientation of a potential house design. In engineering we call that the 60% design. A final construction design that efficiently utilizes materials and conforms to local building codes is best developed with the cooperation of a contractor and/or trained architect.

For my 60% designs, I particularly like the auto dimensioning and 3D display features. Dimensions are rendered as you go and a square footage calculation is readily available. Using the 3D screens, you can rotate around the design and do walk throughs, both are immensely useful in understand what your design will actually look like.

After 6 months, I'm still finding useful features and learning how to use the large catalogue of interior and landscaping details that are available. I can layout useful floor plans in minutes. The inevitable modifications and adjustments in the design process are just as easy.

I run the software on a MacBook Pro with Mac OS X 10.6.5 and have had absolutely no problems. No hangups, no sudden terminations.

Design of any structure is a complex process; there are many, many details and decision points that must be addressed along the way. I believe design complexity is the real issue in using this, or any, software design tool. It's confusing; how big should the doors and windows be? How far down the wall to the first window/door, how big should that wall actually be? Which way should the doors swing, what style doors? One can quickly become overloaded and frustrated by the decisions of design rather than the design tool itself.

In retrospect, I should have ignored the negative reviews and bought the Punch! Home Design for Mac early on. I could have spent the months of indecision becoming adept at actually using this robust design tool.

I purchased this software in order to create a 3D model of my new house. My background is techy so I am probably better positioned than most to learn and use new software. That said it took about 3 weeks to reasonably master the product. I would describe the product as functional but in need of additional features. Some examples of problems I encountered:

1. Slow 3D Rendering
Once your plan grows beyond a relatively small size 3D rendering slows way down....especially when you add objects (furniture, landscaping such as bushes and trees)....especially if added objects have curves. My mostly completed and furnished, landscaped plan takes an hour to render on an iMac Pro. One is forced to keep multiple files of the design each with one room furnished in order to render in a reasonable amount of time. Likewise a separate file with landscaping but no interior furnishings is the only way to get 3D renderings of the outside. Even with the multiple file strategy the renderings can take 10 minutes or more. And as you can imagine synchronizing versions is a nightmare with all the files.

2. Clunky Zoom
No way to quickly zoom in on an area of the plan. Every time you change the zoom the product re-center on the entire plan forcing you to scroll horizontally and vertically to get to the spot where you were working.

3. Snapping is Hit or Miss
When you draw or re-position a wall the product snaps the end of the wall you are working to other nearby walls not always as you would like. There appears to be no way to over-ride the snapping. The only solution sometimes is to draw off to the side well away from any walls and then drag and nudge your new wall into the plan. CLUNKY to say the least.

4. 3D Rendering Unstoppable
Once 3D rendering begins there is no abort option except to force quit...which means if you didn't save the plan before the rendering starts you must wait until the rendering is complete or lose changes. If you work in the combined 2D-3D mode (meaning you have both the 2D design view and the 3D view open at the same time so that you can see your 2D edits rendered "instantly") it's easy to inadvertently set off a complete re-rendering forcing you to wait or Force Quit with loss of edits since the last save.

5. Not Enough Punch Objects
One must resort to importing SketchUp objects to furnish the interiors because the Punch library is weak. To use a SketchUp object you will need to learn SketchUp if only to resize the object before importing into your plan. The resizing is a trial and error process as follows: You search the Google 3D Warehouse for the object. You open the object in SketchUp and resize it using the Scale Tool. You then save the SketchUp object as a Version 6 SketchUp object (Punch won't import Version 7 SketchUp Object files) . You then check the object's size by importing into a Test plan with a single wall of known height... using a test plan will allow you to render quickly. If the size is still wrong you re-do the process. If the object appears to be of the correct size you can then import the object into your actual plan which once ladened with objects will render slowly.

6. Trace Feature Flawed
The product allows you to trace a floor plan from an existing set of blueprints. However, getting tracings of different floors to line up is not simple. Also, as you complete the trace of a room the product opacifies the floor of the room so that you no longer see the plan being traced....meaning you cannot see where to add the doors or windows. The only solution is leave a gap in the walls (for example don't join walls in one of the room's corners) so that the product thinks the room is not completed.

7. Only 3 Floors Allowed
No dedicated Tool Set for drawing a basement which must be your first floor. If Floor 1 is your basement then you can only really have 2 floors in your design....meaning no way to have attic floor plan in the typical 2 story house design.

8. Basic Drawing Tools Lacking
There are no tools to align objects or to distribute object in an evenly spaced manner.

9. No Down Spouts or Gutters


On the Plus Side the product did deliver photo-realistic renderings of rooms and landscapes and was invaluable tool for "seeing" how a room would work/look in real life. I made numerous improvements to my architect's 2D design as a result of viewing 3D renderings of furnished rooms. I found the product to be stable (no crashes) and support to be adequate though not always responsive. Don't expect to be tutored.