Customer Reviews

Punch Super Home Suite 3.0

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

First off...this is a design program like Sierra, Floorplan, etc. and works well with the average person who wishes to create an "idealized home design" both inside and out. It is NOT a full CAD program to do every space and angle. None of the under $ programs will produce a "plan" to give to a contractor to take-off and build a home, no matter what they promise. That is left to the $++ professional architectural programs! That said, this is a super "design" program that has a simple, accurate instruction manual, and lots of Web downloadable features like "dormers" and tons of "objects" like dishwashers,chairs,etc etc. The mini-CAD feature called "3Dfurniture workshop" lets you create custom arched walls, tables, rugs all with neat textures.The great feature of this product is the ability to create a "cut out" MODEL of your finished home {to various scales! } that you print and assemble complete with colors and textures(like bricks and slate roofing). All the design programs I have tried{Sierra, Floorplan, Punch) are far from perfect and often require a TRICK to get it to do something that you feel should happen with a single menu icon; but Punch is a little better then the rest with fewer work-arounds than usual. BUT they are still present, and almost all programs have a tough time with todays complex roof and ceiling designs! No "design" program is as simple and complete as the sales hype promises, but the Punch program was the least so far to get me angry.

This program is absoulutely worthless unless you consider your "Dream House" a rectangal or square. I decided that after using using Broderbund 3D Home Architect Deluxe 2.1 for a couple of years that it was time to move, so I thought. into a program that appeared to have more function and features. Boy was I wrong! Try to design a Country Home with a Wrap around Porch with this program. It can't be done because of the inability to create shed roofs and walls that only have posts and railings. Last year I used the Broderbund 3d 2.1 to design a home remodling project. I'm not saying that Broderbund doesn't have a few quirks but I was able to create multiple roof lines with various pitches and shed roofs, open walls depicting posts, railing and balusters for the porch and tie them all together to get a very realistic portrayal of what the finish project would look like. I couldn't even get close with the Punch Super Home Suite. I thought wow!, Punch provides the Realmodel with all of the wonderful Roof and exterier texture options, the Autoframing, Landscaping etc....... Unfortunently they don't mean a thing when you can't even create,design a relistic protryal of the center piece of the project, THE HOUSE. Lastly, the package comes with what are so called professionly design plans by Wolfgang Trost Architects. It has to be a fictious company. If not they would be the but end of many jokes at their local building and zoning offices. None of the plans they provided in the package would get past design stage if summitted to any competent local building/zoning commitee for review. The flyby function showed rooflines that would be a structural disater if allowed to be built. The packaging of the product by Punch was wonderful with all of the pretty pictures etc...The application was anything but! If you want a resonably price application buy Broderbund 3D Home Deluxe. It may not be as pretty but it is FUNCTIONALLY SUPERIOUR.....

Kudos to the marketing and packaging gurus for Punch! products. As a veteran 3D modeler and animator, I purchased the product to help me do certain home design tasks more quickly. The pictures on the package made it look easy and fun. The reality was a little disappointing. First, the strengths. Laying out floor plans with quick drag and drop windows and doors was a pleasure. The landscape, deck, and furniture workshop features were useful (although the workshop had limitations, of course). Setting up my basic dimensions and floor plans were a treat. I was beginning to marvel at the simplicty of creating a home plan. BUT, only if you are designing a house with no crawl space! In light of the expenses of fixing bad plumbing in slab houses, I believe a crawl space is most sensible way to design any house, so I was a little put off when I realized Punch!'s software doesn't do that. Look at the pictures on the packaging, you won't see a crawl space. You may see a house that looks like it has one, but in fact it is a two-story house with a basement and landscaping. That's the key to "faking it out". Nor does the software allow simple placement of windows in a roof end-cap. The way to get around the crawl space limitation in RealModel would be to print an additional strip of brick (or whatever material) to paste on your foam board model, but you would have to do measuring on your own to figure out how to allow for the extra height of the ground floor wall. A simple remedy would be for Punch! software to allow wall heights to be customizable, just as the door and window sizes are. Then, of course, having a door height selection just like the window height ones would allow realistic placement. To get around the window placement limitations, try creating the desired feature in Furniture Workshop. The .dxf export function will allow me to send the floor plan out to my 3D modeling software, which is helpful to those of us who own them. The lack of .dxf import was somewhat irritating. Am I going to return it? No, because at the cost it is just barely useful enough to outweigh the trouble of returning it. Would I recommend it? I probably would only recommend a more basic Punch! product such as Home Design with none of the other modules, to create floor layout work only.

After spending the last three months designing the remodel of our home using the first (1997) version of Broderbund's 3D Home Architect, I was looking for something more up to date. The Punch software seemed to have everything the latest Broderbund software offered and more. Don't trust the box! 1. Punch does not import anything. 2. Lengthing, shortening or moving a wall is a real test of patience. 3. Getting true and editable dimensions is impossible. 4. And I don't know about you, but trying to resize any type of furniture on X,Y and Z coordinates is beyond my thinking ability when frustrated.

All I really wanted was to view my whole two-story design with the right roof pitch and some important furniture for size. Don't buy more program than you really need.

The happy ending: After using the program for three days to no avail, I called Punch and left a message. That afternoon I got a call back and was emailed a return authorization. I'm buying Broderbund's 3D Home Architect now.

Although the level is for amateur designers, it is a very good starting point for people interested in building their own home. The FloorPlan Trace feature permits to users to convert a scanning of a floor plan in a traceable template, facilitating the designing tasks. The RealModel feature automatically creates all the components to build a real 3D scale model (using foam paper). The software has also integrated a spreadsheet cost estimator, where you could enter the unit cost of the building components (walls, doors, windows, etc.) to obtain an approximated total cost. Other features are 3D navigation trough the house, 3D landscaping, 3D furniture design to customize your furniture or build new models. The software also has the typical features of other softwares such as a variety of: roofing, doors, windows, stairs, floor, pathways, etc. I'm satisfy with the product and I would recommend it. Drawbacks: It needs to add more designs to doors and windows. It also should have some drawing features needed for design, i.e. drawing reference lines, very useful for walls or objects alignment. These lines would not be part of the design.

This product builds you up with alot up marketing. It then shuts you down after needing answers not supplied in weak user's guide. Call Customer service. I did. Send them an email. I did. No response from either attempt at contacting them. Hey? Take a chance if you don't believe me. This is just my personal experience. I'm taking my copy back for a refund. That my punch!

This has got to be the easiest home design software I have ever seen (and yes, I've seen a great many)! Having NEVER used, or even seen this product before, I have managed, in less than 10 hours, to design and completely finish a very professional looking, 2-story 32' X 24' Garage/Loft Apartment. And I never even cracked open the instruction manual. You'd have to be a total idiot to not be able to use this software.

The only limitation I have found (so far) is that it won't allow you to insert a door of any size into the side, support-framing of a staircase which I would have liked to have been able to do in my garage/loft project. It does, however, leave the end open underneath the stairs for this.

If you're hard-to-please and expect to get more than you're paying for, this software may not be for you. Otherwise, I very highly recommend this software... even to those who just want to have fun. I had a ball just learning what all it can do!

OH! By the way... for those of you who are into small scale modeling of various sorts INCLUDING model railroading (as I am), this software also allows you to print templates in both architectural scales AND Hobby scales including HO, S, G and O!

I recommend a PC with at least a 500+ MHZ processor for the 3D pan-viewing, but my 233 will handle it... slowly.

While the box looks pretty good, it mostly delivers confusion. Like any 3D program it will take a lot of computer to run the program quickly in 3D, which can be annoying after spending an hour designing your house. The symbols for furniture, fixtures and cabinets often insert at odd angles and are almost impossible to get squared up with the walls. I have even had a bug where it will not display all colors in the 3D mode (you enter you roof and wall colors). Looked good in 2D, but everything was shades of green in 3D. My advise: save your money and buy some graph paper and a pencil. This is a sketching program only, and it doesn't do it very well.

After careful consideration of all programs in this price range and of this calliber, I decided to go with this particular one because of some of the features incl Real Model, ultimate Deck, and autoframing. Well, as is generally the case when you think you maybe getting alot for your money, you usually end up finding out they sacrficied in other areas.

I used the product for a full intense 2 days and became quickly bored and frustrated with it's limitations and haven't touched it since. Amazing how they can sell us anything based on the pretty pictures used in their ads: a few of my major complaints about it were:

the furnishings were so limited and just plain tasteless - looks like cheap pressed fiberboard furniture out of a mobile home.

the textues available were just plain cheesy looking and no pizazz at all and also very limited - all of this had to be designed by some group lost in a 60's time warp - the cheesy siding, etc. and what about a tin roof? what I wanted - nothing even close! Most of these programs have an online library of thousands of textures, colors, furniture, etc.. something they left out for such a loaded package. beware of this, can be very frustrating.

guess I had my expectations up just a little too high for a little bit more cutting edge look - great for those designing retro modular homes.

I plan on returning this thing.

I was very disappointed with this product. Not only was it the most expensive home product, but it was the largest waste of money. Forget 'designing' the interior of your house! NO paneled doors, no arched windows, no french doors, only one type of shower, no washer or dryer to be placed in the house just to name a few things missing from their 'large selection.' The 'furniture design suite' is not easy to operate. The so-called instruction manual fails to give any instructions. My computer is a Pentium 500 and I have 64 megs ram-the program still would not let me do 3-D walkthrough-it was 3-D standstill. The paint,fabric,floor options were from 1960 (all 10 of them). This program is terrible! I will be purchasing something else for sure! A plus side: lets you scan in a plan and trace it. After you trace the plan, the fun is over. Forget doing anything but outlining you "dream home."