Rating: 
Summary: Built a VR model of my new home
Review: I found the Punch 18 interface easy to use. First, I scanned my first, second, and elevation blue prints into a picture image as a file. Next, I imported the both the first and second floor designs into punch; using the ruler, I redimension the floor plan designs to scale; next I added exterior walls, interior walls, doors, windows, tiolets, tubs, sinks, and mirrors; punch allows you to switch between floors and see only the working floor or all floors; using the custom wizard, I added furniture, entertainment centers, tables, and appliances - additionally, the custom wizard allow you to create user defined objects; next, I used the cabinet wizard to design the kitchen cabinets full, bottom, and top to dimension. Punch allowed me to add staircases, porches, and landscapes. Textures for the exterior such as siding, rock, and stucco were also available from a drag and drop capability. I was also able to add different types of roofs and control their elevation and the exterior walls were pitched up to match the roof angles. However, I did not find a turret type roof which I needed.Features I found difficult, the 2D navigation control was ok. You have a dot and arrow to control movement of the 3D tour, it requires two clicks, one to move, and one to orientate. If you have a computer graphics accelerator card, the running man mouse navigation is two fast even at the slowest setting. I have a VR home exportable to VRML for the internet. I've seen my home before it was built. The control of size and portion was very helpful. By adding color and texture, lighting, and landscapes the complete picture of your home is possible. You can import photo images into the model increasing realism. A good buy for the money.
Rating: 
Summary: loosing it
Review: I have spent hours drawing on this program, saving it to hard drive and floppy. When I go back, it's gone. The program won't even open the floppy so I can recover. Tech support is a joke!!!
Of course they blame it on my computer. It won't work on any of my 4 PCs. I have had it with punch.
Rating: 
Summary: AS18 is feature rich, but has room for improvement
Review: I have used three Punch products in the past 3 years: Suite, Platinum, and AS18. They all offer similar user interfaces, although as you pay more money, you get more features. In fact, the feature list in AS18 is too large to list here. While some of the newer features work (DXF and VRML export), I was unable to figure out why anyone would want to use them. The diversity of the features (for example, "showers" can be found both in the "objects" [or "furniture"] section, and in the "plumbing" section) will strike you either as confusing, or as providing rich alternatives, depending on how you view these things. Punch offers free updates from their web site, but if history is any indicator, you can only expect one update per product. Older products, such as Suite and Platinum, are likely to remain exactly as they are, with no further enhancements or bug fixes. I believe that an AS18 upgrade is now available for download from Punch. Program performance ranges from intolerably slow to quite acceptable, but not in a way that is easy to fathom. Calculations that took my old Dell 933 MHz Pentium system 20 seconds, take about 11 seconds on my new AMD 1.8 MHz Athalon, but for a different kind of calculation, the numbers are 4 and 40. Yes, that's right: the newer, faster machine is 10 times slower than the older machine. When I switched video boards on the newer machine (from an ATI 8500 Radeon to an nVidia 4200 card), this number dropped to below a second, an improvement of a factor of 50 or so. Thus, predicting program performance can be difficult, since simply getting new hardware is not a panacea. Punch tech support provided essentially no help in this area. Note that 3D values are recomputed at times when they need not be, which can be especially frustrating if you have a slower system, since long (20 second) delays can occur. Punch has designed the software so that there are times when the blueprint is repositioned without your permission. This can lead to your having to pan back to the place you were working originally, which can be pretty annoying. Why they think that they should move the diagram when you did not ask them to is beyond me. Some features only work well when using a mouse: if you use a graphics tablet, you may be further annoyed. The zoom feature is particulary awkward to use with a tablet. The main difference between the older Suite and Platinum products and the AS18 product is the addition of "layers". You can inspect and work on any of the layers (including the floor plan, electrical, plumbing, roof, etc) separately, while seeing the other layers as needed. This is a great improvement over the older software. The program is feature laden, and you can actually design a house with it, but I found it to be pretty annoying at times. On the other hand, I know of no other software in this price range that offers anywhere near the features that this package does. Annoyances not already mentioned included the following: The hourglass cursor is rarely used when program delays occur, resulting in user confusion and erroneous multiple clicks; Some functions appear as active menu items but in fact cannot be used at all; Even when you click on an object, and the context menu appears, the object may not be fully selected, and operations on that object may fail without warning or explanation; Plumbing showerheads cannot be moved to arbitrary shower walls; 36"x36" showers will not fit on a 38" wall; Invoking some tools results in no visible change to the screen, because the tool has performed an activity at a location that the user is not currently able to see; The program always asks you whether you want to save your design, even when you have made no changes, and even when the design is empty; The program does not remember printing preferences at all; Some standard objects (such as queen sized beds) are not the correct size; Some objects cannot be easily manipulated because they are hidden "behind" other objects, and there are no facilities for moving objects to the front or back; Data from designs made in older versions of Punch! software can be read in newer versions, but some data can be lost without warning.
Rating:
Summary: Beware of installation bugs!!
Review: I purchased AS18, but cannot tell you about the features, because it has a bug KNOWN to Punch! Software, that overwrites some of your WINDOWS SYSTEM FILES when it installs!! If you are running Win 98, 98SE, or ME, you will lose your Internet Explorer browser functionality, that is, IE6 will stop responding to any window that required user input (including the Microsoft Update site, when you try to download critical updates!, an ISP logon that uses a non-80 or 8080 port number, etc.) Rather than issue a patch, Punch support will point you to a microsoft.com technet page that will allow you to fix the problem if you have a few spare hours and a degree in computer programming. I was VERY disappointed with this product!
Rating:
Summary: This is barely a bad toy, not to mention an unusable tool.
Review: I purchased this software thinking that it would provide me with a bit more that just a drawing program. This software is nothing more than a drawing toy!! I am in the process of building a very modest cabin and I was hoping that this software would assist me, in some way, with the architectural/engineering aspects (i.e. load bearing walls, floor joist spans, etc.) and found out that it doesn't do more than draw pictures. The entire interface leaves a lot to be desired and is not intuitive! I've abandoned this software and pulled out my drafting ruler and sketch pad to finish my cabin. Sorry Punch...
Rating:
Summary: Major disapointment!!!
Review: I purchased this software thinking that it would provide me with a bit more that just a drawing program. This software is nothing more than a drawing toy!! I am in the process of building a very modest cabin and I was hoping that this software would assist me, in some way, with the architectural/engineering aspects (i.e. load bearing walls, floor joist spans, etc.) and found out that it doesn't do more than draw pictures. The entire interface leaves a lot to be desired and is not intuitive! I've abandoned this software and pulled out my drafting ruler and sketch pad to finish my cabin. Sorry Punch...
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Home Design Software & Value
Review: I was looking for an inexpensive and powerful Architectual program and now I found it. My profession is a Senior Mechanical Engineer and I have used 2D & 3D mechanical CAD programs for the last 15 years. I was truely amazed when a friend showed me a house he designed using this product. I saw a product like this 15 years ago running on a main frame computer and hoped that one day I could run a program like that on a PC. Well that day is here. I started drawing a simple rectangular house with three floors and a hip roof in five minutes. I then drew up my complicated house with a full kitchen addition including cabinets, furniture and landscaping in less then 40 hours. You do not need to be a CAD Professional to take advantage of this full featured program. Just take your time and have fun with it.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Home Design Software & Value
Review: I was looking for an inexpensive and powerful Architectual program and now I found it. My profession is a Senior Mechanical Engineer and I have used 2D & 3D mechanical CAD programs for the last 15 years. I was truely amazed when a friend showed me a house he designed using this product. I saw a product like this 15 years ago running on a main frame computer and hoped that one day I could run a program like that on a PC. Well that day is here. I started drawing a simple rectangular house with three floors and a hip roof in five minutes. I then drew up my complicated house with a full kitchen addition including cabinets, furniture and landscaping in less then 40 hours. You do not need to be a CAD Professional to take advantage of this full featured program. Just take your time and have fun with it.
Rating:
Summary: EXCELENT HOME DESIGN SOFTWARE PACKAGE!
Review: I WAS USING 3D HOME ARCHITECT 4.0 AND WAS LOOKING FOR A MORE FLEXIBLE / FEATURE RICH SOFTWARE. AFTER CONSIDERING THE UPGRADE TO 3D HOME ARCHITECT 5.0 AND LOOKING AT THE NASTY REVIEWS IT GOT, I SAW A REFERENCE TO PUNCH! SOFTWARE AND WITHOUT A DOUBT I MADE THE RIGHT CHOICE WITH THE SERIES 18 PACKAGE. FULL OF FEATURES, VERY FLEXIBLE, CAN CREATE VERY COMPLEX FEATURES WITH THE BUILT-IN 3D WORKSHOP. GREAT INVESTMENT!
Rating:
Summary: An exceptional product!
Review: I will make it short and sweet! Punch has developed many different programs and Architectural series 18 tops them all! I have been using PUNCH software from the beginning in 2000! I have been very satisfied with their programs.
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