Rating: 
Summary: Makes nice pictures, but thats all.
Review: I think it's fair to say that most people who have bought this software have
been disappointed. If you are familiar with any of those 3D "doom" type video
games you might be familiar with how you can design a castle in the game, then
walk through the castle in 3D shooting people. You'd probably have about as
much luck trying to design a house using one of those video games as you will
using this product. In fact, I'm not so sure this software isn't anything more
than a 3D video game that has been modified slightly and marketed as a house
design tool. This program is clearly not worth the...price tag. It's more
like something you'd find for...in the bargain bin.Having spent many hours using it I can tell you that the only use I've gotten
out of it is creating 3D pictures (BMP) that are similar, but not identical, to
what a design would look like. I don't care what the manufacturer claims or any
sales people tell you, this is ALL it can do. If you're serious about designing a house, then you need to get QuickCAD. It's a
lite version of AutoCAD and sells for around $50. It isn't as easy to use. Plan
on spending several evenings just going through the tutorial. But it is powerful,
bug free, and will do everything a home builder needs. It is also the leading
drawing software used by professionals. Problems with this software are too numerous to mention. Every time I tried
drawing a wall right where I wanted it, it would tend to move it somewhere else
so as to intersect another wall. I found drawing a 5' North/South wall
impossible because it kept changing it to a 3" East/West wall. I had to draw
the walls too short then go back and stretch them to the right length. If your
plan calls for any walls that are at a 45 degree angle then forget it, this
program simply can't handle it. Whenever you are more than 4' or so from a wall in the 3D view the wall
pattern on the other side will show through. You'll see a bunch of vertical
stripes which is the wall coloring on the other side. This vertical striping
problem applies to everything. Windows, trim, walls, trees, etc. That's why I
suggest you make a separate drawing for the outside of the house and a separate
drawings for each room or two inside the house. When doing the outside view,
you'll need to put siding on both the inside and outside of the house. This way
when the inside wall shows through to the outside, it will match the outside.
You'll also need to put a wall a few feet behind all the windows and color it
blue to prevent the house from looking like an empty shell. If you want to save a view as a BMP (picture) you'll want to make the
resolution as high as possible. Do this by clicking and dragging on each side
of the viewing area and drag it out so the image fills the screen. (There
isn't a maximize button). Then use the File:Export:BMP and it will create a
hi-res 3D picture in a BMP format. Ignore the resolution settings because they
don't work and don't do anything. Other problems are the beds are not of a standard size. (Twin, Queen, King,
etc). Some look like they are for a Barbie doll and others are for King Kong.
There is no way for you to know which you are selecting. The problem is even
worse with cabinets. None seem to be of the standard size and it doesn't tell
you which are base and which are wall cabinets. When in 3D it's hard to keep
the controls from moving you through the yard at 100 mph and spinning you at
10,000 rpm. When zooming in and out in 2D the view tends to jump to a different
area of the drawing before zooming. The snap & grid are a joke, so it's not
possible to make walls the exact length or location you want. You can only get
within a few inches at best. Mouse commands are inconsistent. Sometimes you need
to press and HOLD the mouse button and drag it to make a line. Other times you
need to press & release the button to mark a point, then press & release it again to mark the other end of the line. This lack of consistency will cause
you to erase and redue about half of everything you draw. Some advice on 3D images: When I see a view I like, I save it to a BMP file.
Because of bugs in the software I usually have to change the drawing each time I
create a BMP to get to get the view to look right. By making BMP's from different
drawings over time I will accumulate a set of BMP's. I then edit the BMP's in
Paintbrush (Standard with Windows) to touch up and remove the many errors that
are in the images. Eventually I'll end up with a set of hi-res 3D pictures of
what my house will look like, and you know, they don't look too bad. The question
you need to ask yourself: Is it worth [the price]and a lot of trouble to create 3D
images?
Rating:
Summary: Old, clunky, incomplete
Review: I wish I'd read these reviews instead of the ones in the computer mags. I manage software development for a living. This program shows many signs of having never been redone since the early 80s. The graphics are crude, the method of specifying dimensions for cabinets utterly fails to use the Windows interface effectively. Most weirdly the `walk through' capability was hair trigger even on the slowest speed setting - tiny movements of the mouse sent the image spinning. Could this be due to my fast CPU - in other words, the program's interface rates aren't calibrated against real clock time, but simply CPU time? Something left over from the 286 days, if true.
And it isn't useful. No sliding window types, for one example. Hard to snap walls to corners. Odd ways of moving components around that - again - don't use modern Windows conventions. My wife wanted to select kitchen cabinet types and was totally unimpressed by the types available. Textures are cartoonish.
Rating:
Summary: NOPE
Review: I'll cut to the chase. Here are just a few of my complaints (I posted this on the Punch forums - which also suck by the way - but, curiously, it never appeared): My biggest complaint is primarily focused on the inability to precisely move objects or points. I built three different triangular-shaped roof pieces. For some reason, one piece had a point that was a few feet higher in elevation than the others. The software only gives you a top-down modeling view. Think about that. How can you precisely line up two points in the Y axis (up and down) if you can only look at them from the top? Punch gives you the ability to view in 3D perspectives but anyone with any experience in 3D modeling will tell you that that doesn't work. You need all three views - top, front, and side, for accurate modeling. The result? Inaccurate models and a very frustrating piece of software. You can't join or group objects or points (wall ends automatically join but then that creates other problems I won't even get into). The Snap-to feature, which could help a lot, doesn't work. It's there, but I dragged wall pieces, furniture, all kinds of stuff onto the grid and nothing stuck. Yes...the feature was turned on. The perspective 3D "walk through" camera is psychotic. One click and it's zooming in, the next click, same button, it's zooming out. I checked out the Punch software forums and found lots of similar complaints and quite a few more related to problems I had yet to encounter (lots of texture complaints). There is obviously a market for this software. It actually has a lot of promise. The problems are relatively simple to fix. In fact, I read a comment on their forums that said that people have been asking them to fix some of these problems for some time and that the developer apparently isn't interested. Why should they? Suckers like me come along at Home Depot, Best Buy, and here at Amazon every day. I advise you to keep looking, stay far away from this developer, and spend a few extra dollars on a better program if you really need it.
Rating:
Summary: STOP! DON'T BUY IT!!
Review: I'll cut to the chase. Here are just a few of my complaints (I posted this on the Punch forums - which also suck by the way - but, curiously, it never appeared): My biggest complaint is primarily focused on the inability to precisely move objects or points. I built three different triangular-shaped roof pieces. For some reason, one piece had a point that was a few feet higher in elevation than the others. The software only gives you a top-down modeling view. Think about that. How can you precisely line up two points in the Y axis (up and down) if you can only look at them from the top? Punch gives you the ability to view in 3D perspectives but anyone with any experience in 3D modeling will tell you that that doesn't work. You need all three views - top, front, and side, for accurate modeling. The result? Inaccurate models and a very frustrating piece of software. You can't join or group objects or points (wall ends automatically join but then that creates other problems I won't even get into). The Snap-to feature, which could help a lot, doesn't work. It's there, but I dragged wall pieces, furniture, all kinds of stuff onto the grid and nothing stuck. Yes...the feature was turned on. The perspective 3D "walk through" camera is psychotic. One click and it's zooming in, the next click, same button, it's zooming out. I checked out the Punch software forums and found lots of similar complaints and quite a few more related to problems I had yet to encounter (lots of texture complaints). There is obviously a market for this software. It actually has a lot of promise. The problems are relatively simple to fix. In fact, I read a comment on their forums that said that people have been asking them to fix some of these problems for some time and that the developer apparently isn't interested. Why should they? Suckers like me come along at Home Depot, Best Buy, and here at Amazon every day. I advise you to keep looking, stay far away from this developer, and spend a few extra dollars on a better program if you really need it.
Rating: 
Summary: Awful
Review: I'm no architect, but I have been looking at the Punch Platinum software for my own home building design. While most reviews have been very helpful in pointing out bugs (roofs, cabinets, etc.) they are lacking in some very important information to me. I think that if you review a product like this you should at least include the exact version number to reflect whether you've upgraded the software with the manufacturer's patches. I don't have any way of knowing if you are complaining about a problem that has been fixed in the current patches available. Also, just an interesting note: Again, I'm not an architect but Lotzatoyz made a big deal about square footage calculation errors. If you take a 20x20 room and simply multiply them you get 400 which he expected. However, I'm curious to know if he is not viewing the "floor space" or "interior dimensions" of a room that is 20x20 on its exterior. A single 20x20 room (assuming that it was framed with 2x4's (which are only actually 1.5 inches)) means that the actual "floorspace" would require you to subtract 3 inches from the width and 3 inches from the depth of the room (1.5 x 2walls = 3 inches per dimension). That would give you a 19.75 foot width and depth as the true inner dimensions of the room. Any room with these dimensions would have an internal square footage of 390 square feet. That is amazingly close to the calculation that he quotes from the software. Now, perhaps the software is truly reporting this 392 as perimeter square footage. In that case, I'd like to hear the manufacturer's explanation for this. It's strange to me that no other review mentions such an important (if true) error. Also, this small "floorspace" glitch is really exagerated when used in rooms that have cabinets like kitchens and baths because the usable floorspace does not include any square footage under such cabinets. I checked the manufacturer's website and the FAQ's page about this product and they give specific instruction on how to "disable" the live-view rendering when you are not using it so you are not continuously rendering a view that you don't need to. I'm not trying to come off as a big Punch proponent. I've never used any Punch software product and I certainly don't work for them. I'm just researching the software out there for my own potential purchase and found Lotzatoyz comments to be more likely fuled by emotion rather than fact. (Probably). Mainly, please include product revisions in your comments. Thanks.
Rating: 
Summary: Lotzatoyz should think before he slams...
Review: I'm no architect, but I have been looking at the Punch Platinum software for my own home building design. While most reviews have been very helpful in pointing out bugs (roofs, cabinets, etc.) they are lacking in some very important information to me. I think that if you review a product like this you should at least include the exact version number to reflect whether you've upgraded the software with the manufacturer's patches. I don't have any way of knowing if you are complaining about a problem that has been fixed in the current patches available. Also, just an interesting note: Again, I'm not an architect but Lotzatoyz made a big deal about square footage calculation errors. If you take a 20x20 room and simply multiply them you get 400 which he expected. However, I'm curious to know if he is not viewing the "floor space" or "interior dimensions" of a room that is 20x20 on its exterior. A single 20x20 room (assuming that it was framed with 2x4's (which are only actually 1.5 inches)) means that the actual "floorspace" would require you to subtract 3 inches from the width and 3 inches from the depth of the room (1.5 x 2walls = 3 inches per dimension). That would give you a 19.75 foot width and depth as the true inner dimensions of the room. Any room with these dimensions would have an internal square footage of 390 square feet. That is amazingly close to the calculation that he quotes from the software. Now, perhaps the software is truly reporting this 392 as perimeter square footage. In that case, I'd like to hear the manufacturer's explanation for this. It's strange to me that no other review mentions such an important (if true) error. Also, this small "floorspace" glitch is really exagerated when used in rooms that have cabinets like kitchens and baths because the usable floorspace does not include any square footage under such cabinets. I checked the manufacturer's website and the FAQ's page about this product and they give specific instruction on how to "disable" the live-view rendering when you are not using it so you are not continuously rendering a view that you don't need to. I'm not trying to come off as a big Punch proponent. I've never used any Punch software product and I certainly don't work for them. I'm just researching the software out there for my own potential purchase and found Lotzatoyz comments to be more likely fuled by emotion rather than fact. (Probably). Mainly, please include product revisions in your comments. Thanks.
Rating: 
Summary: By far, the best of the lot
Review: I've been looking high and low for a software product that allows me to accurately recreate my home and play around with room additions, redesigns, landscaping, etc. I've looked at many software packages out there (unfortunately, I purchased most of them) and nothing comes even close to what Punch did with this product.... True, some of the tools in the software aren't the easiest to use, but one could hardly expect them to be considering the level of functionality included. After a 3-4 hour learning curve, I accurately recreated my home down to the pitch of the roof, square footage (within inches), style and size of windows and doors, and even the color of the wainscoting. When finished, I walked through my entire virtual home in high-quality 3-D. I haven't gotten to cabinetry, appliances, or landscaping yet, but I'm very happy so far. Again, if you're looking for home design software -- there's simply no other choice.
Rating:
Summary: Better than most...but still
Review: I've been using Punch software for a few years now. For most simple applications, it seems to do what I need. It's when you get to the complicated stuff that it breaks down on you. A couple of specific things that would make their software much better: 1. More detail in properties menus. They tend to stick to standard stuff and you find yourself including things into our design that have absolutley nothing to do with what you really want. But its' the only design feature they have that comes close to what you want. 2. They have a ruler on the side of the screen. How about one across the top also. You always have to guess where you are horizontally. 3. I wanted to design a retaining wall for a hill behind my house. The landscape feature in Punch assumes the wall will be a skirt around the house and will not let you convert it to an outside wall without adding an extra segment to it. What's tha all about? Most retaining walls are single segment. 4. The 3D viewer should be expandable to full screen. 5. In the properties pane, particulalry for wall segments, you should be able to include length and angle. That would take the guess work out of trying to measure using the auto dimension or the ruler. I've wasted a lot of time on this one. all for now.
Rating:
Summary: NOPE
Review: My husband and I both tried for hours to use this program. First a foundation is required- without it you don't have any exterior walls. We found that the drawing tool is simply inadequate. If you make a mistake you are in many instances stuck with it and have to delete all of your work and begin again. The dimensional tool is a joke, you can't simply specify a wall dimension or an angle such as 45 degrees. After hours of work our foundation was an approximate representation, not an accurate one. I can't testify to the rest of the program, we never got beyond the foundation. Sorry we bought this!
Rating:
Summary: Punch Pro?
Review: Punch Pro is not what it's made out to be. There are so many bugs in this software it's not even funny! The square footage is incorrect. A 20x20 room comes out to 392sq ft. The miscalculation gets worse as the room gets bigger. I built a floorplan, and the sq ft calc said it was under 1972 sq ft. When I calculated it manually, it was actually 2532 sq ft. At 70/sq ft, that little "blip" would cost me [a lot] That's not even funny! Try it out for yourself. Draw a 10x10 sq, and then start to enlarge it.....watch the calculation get worse as you go!When you try to export a file to CAD, none of the dimensions come with it. A 30" door without casing will not fit in a 36" wall. I have had to delete the same wall section up to 22 times to actually get it to go away. The libraries are way... outdated and missing so many things it's hilarious. It is difficult to find things as there is no rhyme or reason to the library layout. None of the cabinets are standard sizes, nor is most anything else. I built a 16 foot column in the workshop, but when saved and installed into my drawing, it was 91 feet tall. It's nearly impossible to change the height of cabinets or anything else. The constant updating of the live view for no reason is pathetic. Just try to scroll the drawing in any direction and live view will update, but you haven't moved the cursor, so there's nothing to update. Open a file, and touch the screen, then try to close it. You will be asked to save your changes. You haven't done a thing, but it will ask you anyway. That's just the tip of the iceberg. There are far to many bugs to list here. It's back at the store now, where any junk software should be. As I said to them in my nasty gram. Good Ideas, Poor Execution! If you can stand the bugs, feel free to lay out the [money] Personally, I'll pass...review for more bugs!
| 
