Rating: 
Summary: Finally a package worth buying
Review: I like many have run though the halls of Amazon reading reviews on software. First I bought Siera Home Arch and that software was neat but it was very slow, required too much memory and had countless quirks (I am being kind) that wasted so much of my time trying to work around. But alas, it did not have what I needed which was split level designs. So I went back to the market and got Punch Professional and let me tell you, it is great. It works differently than Siera, but it does 1000 times more stuff with almost no quirks. I can really design anything in it with the quality of a professional. I think these is the best I have seen and would highly recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: do not buy this if you have a new system, lots of conflicts.
Review: I liked the idea of being able to design a house from scratch, rather than just move walls around. I started with Punch's 5 in 1, but it locked up my system. Their technical support people told me that it was because I was running ME and I should get their professional suite. The professional version locked up my system just like 5 in 1 had. After another hour on the TOLL FREE line, no luck and the product will be returned.
Rating: 
Summary: Worth the money.
Review: I loaded the software in the afternoon. By 2 in the morning, I had a floorplan I was happy with, a 3d rendering, and even was able to render a 'neighborhood' of homes. Many, many years of computer experience behind me. I'm also very good with Visio. But Visio won't render 3D and it doesn't 'know' architecture.Having said all of that, most of the quirks noted are valid. The 3D movements are hugely frustrating (THAT programmer should be strapped to the helicopter!). It's wall selection, sizing, cutting is cumbersome but ultimately gets you there. And it's object library of 'stuff' inside a house is trivial. And the landscape trees are ugly. But I knew what I was after and 12 hours later I was pretty happy with the results. My task was a small, single level, duplex. Not a real complex task. Wanted a good blue print for further analysis and a 3D perspective. Got it. I wouldn't want to be a paid professional and give this output to clients, though. Glanced through the manual during lunch before the marathon. No crashs. HP/AMD 900Mhz, 512Mb, XP/Pro So, to me, it was worth the money.
Rating:
Summary: Quirky at best
Review: I realized that this was not the best tool for designing a house after 5 minutes of use. I originally hoped that once the general design (using Visio) was done I could use this software's advanced features (framing, 3D walkthroughs, modeling, etc.) to check it out. No luck. I guess it would work for simple plans but I found it very difficult (if not impossible) to use for complex multi-level plans. The 3D walkthrough is jerky and hard to use (even on a 500 Mhz P III). While the software shows some promise, it is not there yet. Last but not least, it GPFed (Windows 98) during a 3D walkthrough causing me to lose an hour's work (I know, I should save my work more often).
Rating:
Summary: You have to ask your purpose first....
Review: I took a chance on buying this, and now I'm happy I did. But I think I'm happy because of my particular needs for this program. I'm not trying to build a house from scratch. I'm simply trying to create a "database" of my new house. Once I created the house, inside and out, I now have something on which I can experiment with new interior wall configurations, furniture/bar arrangements, and landscaping. Now perhaps there are other programs (I have tried Broderbund, but was unsatisfied) that give you a better user interface. But Punch! gives you one thing that I found extremely useful, and is worth the money in and of itself. It's extremely well-thought-out object-oriented design allows you to (as the ad says) design your own furniture. This is an understatement. What it does is let you build your own components, including furniture and objects such as half-walls and distinctive doors. Though not documented, you can even create your own textures such as wood grains and sidings (not through the program itself, but via bitmap images you create with other software). The most useful thing for me is the ability to create my vast collection of woodworking tools, so that I can arrange them in my shop, and via its fly-through capability, walk thru the passages among the tools to see if there's enough clearance to do all the things I have to do in there. It has several bugs (that's why I don't give it a 5), but it is very stable (at least on my Windows 2000). The bugs are minor, and you quickly learn how to avoid them. All-in-all this is one of the best pieces of software I have ever bought. The only thing I caution is that you decide on what your needs are. Don't buy this expecting to build your own house (I can't imagine any piece of software under $1000 you should trust for those purposes). But for home renovation and interior design, this is the best you can do.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad, mild learning curve
Review: I use 3-d CAD software in work so I have had some experience in this type of software. I have used a older version of the 3-d broderbund software and found it somewhat intuitive but the graphics were disappointing. I was ready to get a newer version figuring the graphics would be better when I came across this software.
We are modifying an older home and I was looking to get a feel for the flow of the house before we moved some walls and get a visual feel for what the rooms are going to look like. This software did the trick. I havn't opened the book and have most of the floorplan done with modifications we were looking for(9 room house 2200 SF = 5 hours, no training, all windows, doors, furniture etc. havn't done the roof nor kitchen yet). The elevation scale was a bit difficult to understand and the auto-wall dimensioning had a lot to be desired. Although the graphics are good in detail they are very slow in rendering.
I agree there are shortcommings to this program and if I designed houses for a living or was designing from scratch, this might not be the tool to use (I only have experience with one other program so I am NOT an expert). From a relative ease of use and a method for visualizing room size, house flow, lighting etc, it works great. I am looking forward to finishing the rest of the house.
I am running Win98 2nd edition on a P3 500 256 MBram 32Meg diamond video card and have not had any system preformance nor graphics rendering problems. Like any other review, use it with a grain of salt. I needed Ideas without a $5000 price tag. Structural support of your design must be considered with any interior changes.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't buy this to design a new home from scratch
Review: I was using Broderbund's Total 3D Home to design a new home and wanted to try something more powerful. I purchased the Punch! product and am very disappointed. This product may be okay for drawing an existing home or for finalizing a plan you've already developed. But it is very difficult to use if you are in the early stages and want to move rooms around, re-size rooms, change exterior wall shapes etc. Now that I've tried Punch, I'm going back to Broderbund. It is a far easier package to use.
Rating:
Summary: Don't do it!
Review: Reading the great (as it turned out, unrealistic, since she is employed by Punch Software) review placed by "Donna" I bought Punch Pro and have not been able to do even a simple floor plan on it without multiple problems. Furniture and fixture icons snap to invisible points not in any relation to walls or bearings, the measuring tool is huge and ungainly, sort of like driving a tractor trailer through a garden gate, Furniture icons are a joke I can't even tell a refrigerator from a chest of drawers, furniture building workshop directions are hopelessly convoluted, users manual is absurdly simply minded, altogether a tremendous loss of time and energy for me. If you need to design a home, go buy a tablet of graph paper and one of the home design model kits they sell at book stores, you will be much more pleased with the outcome.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing and frustrating
Review: There are many whiz-bang features that sound impressive but are of limited use in my experience. The basic functionality of this program is impaired. The user interface in not that intuitive, the graphic response is extremely slow, the lack of a functioning "undo" is maddening (in the Edit menu there is a "undo" button, but it is never available). I found working with this program to be very slow going, frustrating and tedious, and I found the payoff (seeing a new home in 3D) to be unrewarding. The 3D view is not that helpful; it is so difficult to control the movement within the 3D view that it is hard to concentrate on what you've just created. Also, you can't walk up or down stairs. I spend a lot of time working with complex audio/video programs and this is, by far, the most frustrating program I've ever used.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing !
Review: This is inferior to Broderbund's 3D Home Architect--by far ! I thought I was upgrading and adding functionality--instead I was dissapointed with cumbersome programming and limits. Amen to some of the previous comments. Also--you cannot print the 3-D screens as you can with the other software. Don't waste your money. I am sending mine back.
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