Punch! Professional Home Design Suite Platinum Version 12

I've been using 3D Home Architect, which is easy, but not very robust. I wanted something with more features. I bought the Punch Home Design Platinum. It does have lots of features and is very… customizable, but in the end, I found it too difficult to use and ended up buying Plan3D, which works very well. With Plan3D, I was able to complete two bathrooms in an hour. Whereas I've tinkered with Punch for days and finally gave up. Aside from being a bear to use, the Punch software's rendering engine did not work at all on my Vista computer. I had to hold the mouse down, otherwise the 3D scene was black. I've used AutoCad for many years, and I'm not a novice when it comes to software. It takes a long time to learn how to properly use Punch. If your looking for a serious CAD package and are willing to put the time in for training, then Punch is a good choice. If you want something less robust, but quick and easy, then I would not recommend Punch.

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If you're looking to spend a few hours designing a home with a few click and drags and plopping windows, cabinets, and furniture into place, this software is NOT for you. The word "Professional", should… imply professional-grade software, not "you need to be a professional user of our quirky software to make use of this correctly". Alas, it means the latter. You see the sample 3D images in the sample area? How long do you think it should take you to do that? You're probably hoping about an hour or two, right? Wrong. Unless you're a seasoned expert at this software, it will surely take you DAYS. My overall impression is that you're not going to find an "EASY" button on this software. I would almost believe that the programmers were determined to make my life difficult. The interface looks like it's from somewhere between Windows 3.1 and 95, and usability floats around that area as well. In general, many tasks seem undoable, quite often illogical, unforgiving of mistakes, and just plain difficult. Perhaps if you're an expert CAD user, this might be usable, but this will surely prove to be a challenge even for a seasoned computer user. Bugs: First, and foremost the buggy software. If I try to move a wall, half the time, it'll go crazy and connect it to another wall segment, or make the current wall twisted. When applying colors to portions of a wall, it will often color something else not even remotely close. What's worse, because you can't keep a handy tool with your favorite colors, once you find that you painted your floor, in order to undo it, you have to go dig for the correct color again. When attempting to insert 3D models, even when viewing in wireframe mode, the program will hang for 30+ seconds on a modern-day, 8CPU, 4GB RAM, 1GB video system. Wizards: The program relies on various wizards to make the workflow easier. Unfortunately, all of these wizards are external processes that you cannot go back to to make minor modifications. Instead of it being interactive, it's a one-way road to major commitment. For example, if you make a floorplan in the floorplan wizard and import it, but realize that you accidentally set the wall height to 8 feet instead of 9, you cannot quickly "change all walls to 9 feet". You can either click on every single wall segment and change it to 9 feet, or go back to the wizard, set the default wall height to 9 feet, and do it all over again. Personally, I expected to be able to select all walls by a click and drag and make a bulk modification, but I was not able to. UI: The UI is just plain frustrating at times. When entering window height, width, installed height, etc, you are given a form to fill out. I would have expected to be able to quickly type, tab, repeat, and hit enter to produce a window. Unfortunately, when I hit tab, it creates a visible tab between the feet and inches, which is completely useless. So, instead, I am forced to enter text, move the mouse and click on the next window down, and repeat. This isn't a dealbreaker, but just goes to show that everything requires more effort than it should. I hope that this review helps someone avoid the pain of buying, spending a week on trying to get it to work, and getting frustrated and writing a review.

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I have used a number of home design software programs over the past 15 years. I started with Visio and never had a question on how to "break a wall" or create a "wall opening." For some reason who ever… created this program had the intention of wanting to create an immense amount of stress for the user. This Punch! Home Design Platinum Volume 12 is by far the most difficult program to use and I even found out that it is not acceptable to my builder of my new home! I wish that I could return it because I wasted so many nights attempting to figure out how to create an opening in a wall and have become very ill from lack of sleep. It has caused me to put off the building because we must start with the floor plan which is causing me to lose money. Secondly, when using the template of the rooms, how do you put the rooms together and delete one of the duplicate walls? When reviewing the cost of drywall, it shows that the cost is including all the extra walls from using the template of the square rooms which have been placed together. All in all, I am throwing this program in the recycle pile. Not worth the head ache!

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I was hesitant to try this software based on some of the reviews but I went ahead and got it along with the Punch University subscription (on-line videos). I have just finished the 6th lesson and I can now… create a multilevel building with rooms and custom roof. I find the product pretty straight forward once you get used to how they do things. I guess there is a learning curve if you've never used home design software before, and I think they could clean up some of their UI to make it more friendly, but overall I like it. I'm looking forward to the rest of the classes and then re-modeling my house. One thing I do question about this is the 'feasibility' of my designs, knowing nothing about mechanical/structural engineering I suppose a real architect or engineer would have to review any designs that come out of the program for safety and local building codes.

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After being tortured by Total 3D Home Design Punch was like drinking a glass of cool water! The program runs without a glitch on Windows XP Pro and is as detailed as anyone wants to get. I've had no… problem working with it and contrary to other opinions do not find it too complicated. However I do use Photoshop CS3 so it's all relative. If you're looking for a great Home Design Product Punch Platinum won't clean your wallet and is all most people will need. The one con is it's addictive but maybe you can convince your wife and kids it's all for them!

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