Punch! Ultimate Deck and Landscape

Rating:
Summary: Thought it was easy.
Review: I worked with it without reading any directions, so for this I give it a thumbs up. I do however wish I could have drawn a little more accurate with it (I am an autocad design/drafter) so if it would have been more autocad friendly that would have been nice. The only thing else I wish I could have done with the program, that I was unable to do, was design a screened in porch. The system allowed me to design a deck and an all weather room, but I could not get the look of a screened area. Overall I felt it was easy to use, teach and quick to design/redesign. The files take up very little space. I give it 4 out of 5 stars but have no other deck design program to compare it to, it is the only one I have ever tried.

Rating:
Summary: DECK DRAFTING
Review: The only thing that I can say good about this product is that it has a nice live view. Other than that , I think the product is a waste of time buying. Now that I purchased this product from "PUNCH". I don't think I'll be puchasing anything else from them.

Rating:
Summary: Decent software but needs work.
Review: The software will be okay for someone who is just looking for ideas and wants to see their project through rose colored glasses. But if you want structural components for a do it yourself project.... No Dice.......

Rating:
Summary: Not Bad for the Money
Review: This is an inexpensive CAD program for home exterior, landscape, and deck design. I found it fun and relatively easy to use. In just a few hours I had a reasonable model of my home and it's decks entered. The walk-through feature works well and is great for viewing the plan in 3D easily from any angle. The instant 3D view as you change items on the plan is very nice for getting things like roof lines, railings, and windows set up and placed correctly. Landscape design options are pretty limited, like the small number of plant and fence options, but adequate to get a rough view of how something might look. Overall, it does what one would expect from a $30 program and is useful if you aren't too picky about getting the result to look exactly like the finished product. Punch seems to have a whole range of products, and given that this one works pretty well for what it is, I am planning to upgrade to something from Punch with a bit more flexibility, assuming that it can input what I have created so far. Overall, I would recommend this program for someone who wants to try out the concept with just a basic capability for landscape and deck design. If you are looking for something sophisticated I would recommend looking elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: Not impressed
Review: This is the second title from Punch! that I have purchased and I have finally learned my lesson. The graphics on the box are great, but they mislead you into thinking that this is easy to use and has a lot of functionality. I found that I could not do very precise measurements; on the plus side, it does a fair job for landscape layout and you can get a general idea of what your deck might look like pretty quickly. I know this is not much of a review and it probably lacks information, but that's the same feeling I get from Punch! Home Design and Deck and Landscape Design.

Rating:
Summary: Punch! Ultimate Deck and Landscape
Review: This software was okay. It was fairly easier than others similar to it. It did not do what we wanted. We knew the size deck that we wanted but we wern't sure about the supports and just how much lumber we needed. I wanted more of a blueprint program. I would recomend a book by Southern Living called Complete Deck Book. It had more instructions if you are a beginner. If you know what you are doing then you don't need this software.

Rating:
Summary: See your backyard today
Review: When my wife and I moved into our freshly constructed house about three years ago, we had little more than fenced in dirt in our backyard. The first year we did the basics such as, mowed down the weeds, and hired a contractor to put some grass in along with sprinklers and a border of rock. The second year, we just enjoyed what we had, and worked on growing it a little. This year, determined to make more progress, we began mapping out our backyard and putting it to graph paper.

The graph paper gave us a scale idea of how things would lay out. For example, if we put a deck in, would the existing spriklers sufficiently cover the remaining grass? And what of that deck, should it stop half way across the house? Where should the openings to the deck be, and how high should it be? Should there be shrubs, flowers or other greenery around it? And what of the rock along fence, and putting shrubs there? While it looked good on graph paper, we just couldn't SEE it. So we started looking for software.

Needless to say, the reviews on the various available softwares are pretty horrible to say the least. And visiting the few web sites of the vendors offers nothing more. But, completely by chance, while surfing the newsgroups on this topic I ran across Punch.

Punch Ultimate Deck and Landscape allowed my wife and I to sit down in front of our computer, easily install the software, and within a couple hours including walking through the tutorials in the manual, we had a picture perfect view of what we wanted our backyard to look like. Seeing the deck come together in front of our eyes was fantastic. And with a few clicks on the mouse we were able to see various configurations, sizes, and material textures.

Then there was the leftover space, and how to fill it. While the software has a pretty good variety of shrubs and flowers to fill in your open space with, and several ways to see how it would grow to fill out, the tools provided to designate fill areas (such as mulch to put your trees in) are extremely weak and frustrating. With a little practice you can get pretty close, but it should be much easier.

We were also displeased with features we found on some objects we placed, but not on others. For example, we could specify that the deck needed to be 6" off the ground on one level and 1' off the ground on the second, but there was no way to put the sliding glass door opens onto the deck at 6" off the ground as well (which is how most houses are built). So instead we needed to pretend by setting the deck's first level to 1" off the ground and the second level to 7" off the ground. And in the end this gave us a very solid representation, it would have been nice to know that it was physically accurate.

Note that if you're looking for a piece of engineering software that will allow you to exactly represent the architecture of your house and deck, than this is not what you want. But if you have a blank slate to work with (or a nearly blank slate) and are looking for direction, than this is exactly what you want. It won't give you accurate costs of materials, sizes of materials, etc., but it will provide you with a view of the future backyard you'll be hosting BBQ's in.

This software may also present problems for those already having a substantial portion of their backyard complete. I would say that this software works really well for the homeowner whose house is freshly constructed, but nothing too much more advanced. And if you do decide to get this software, I suggest that you measure out your backyard and put it to scale on graph paper first. This will save you countless hours running back and forth between your computer and your backyard. As an additional recommendation, you can put some velum over the graph paper and put in the various additions you are thinking of. Once you have it all together, this software makes for a great way to see it come togther, and to fill out what will most certainly be your backyard heaven.

Rating:
Summary: See your backyard today
Review: When my wife and I moved into our freshly constructed house about three years ago, we had little more than fenced in dirt in our backyard. The first year we did the basics such as, mowed down the weeds, and hired a contractor to put some grass in along with sprinklers and a border of rock. The second year, we just enjoyed what we had, and worked on growing it a little. This year, determined to make more progress, we began mapping out our backyard and putting it to graph paper.

The graph paper gave us a scale idea of how things would lay out. For example, if we put a deck in, would the existing spriklers sufficiently cover the remaining grass? And what of that deck, should it stop half way across the house? Where should the openings to the deck be, and how high should it be? Should there be shrubs, flowers or other greenery around it? And what of the rock along fence, and putting shrubs there? While it looked good on graph paper, we just couldn't SEE it. So we started looking for software.

Needless to say, the reviews on the various available softwares are pretty horrible to say the least. And visiting the few web sites of the vendors offers nothing more. But, completely by chance, while surfing the newsgroups on this topic I ran across Punch.

Punch Ultimate Deck and Landscape allowed my wife and I to sit down in front of our computer, easily install the software, and within a couple hours including walking through the tutorials in the manual, we had a picture perfect view of what we wanted our backyard to look like. Seeing the deck come together in front of our eyes was fantastic. And with a few clicks on the mouse we were able to see various configurations, sizes, and material textures.

Then there was the leftover space, and how to fill it. While the software has a pretty good variety of shrubs and flowers to fill in your open space with, and several ways to see how it would grow to fill out, the tools provided to designate fill areas (such as mulch to put your trees in) are extremely weak and frustrating. With a little practice you can get pretty close, but it should be much easier.

We were also displeased with features we found on some objects we placed, but not on others. For example, we could specify that the deck needed to be 6" off the ground on one level and 1' off the ground on the second, but there was no way to put the sliding glass door opens onto the deck at 6" off the ground as well (which is how most houses are built). So instead we needed to pretend by setting the deck's first level to 1" off the ground and the second level to 7" off the ground. And in the end this gave us a very solid representation, it would have been nice to know that it was physically accurate.

Note that if you're looking for a piece of engineering software that will allow you to exactly represent the architecture of your house and deck, than this is not what you want. But if you have a blank slate to work with (or a nearly blank slate) and are looking for direction, than this is exactly what you want. It won't give you accurate costs of materials, sizes of materials, etc., but it will provide you with a view of the future backyard you'll be hosting BBQ's in.

This software may also present problems for those already having a substantial portion of their backyard complete. I would say that this software works really well for the homeowner whose house is freshly constructed, but nothing too much more advanced. And if you do decide to get this software, I suggest that you measure out your backyard and put it to scale on graph paper first. This will save you countless hours running back and forth between your computer and your backyard. As an additional recommendation, you can put some velum over the graph paper and put in the various additions you are thinking of. Once you have it all together, this software makes for a great way to see it come togther, and to fill out what will most certainly be your backyard heaven.