Punch Home and Landscape Design Suite with NexGen Technology

Take home, landscape, and interior designing to a new level. Punch! Home and Landscape Design Suite with nexGen Technology is easy as punch. It’s the most comprehensive home and landscape design software today. With its revolutionary nexGen Technology, you can build a new house or replicate your own house in just minutes. With the Intelligent Design feature, walls, paint, flooring, and more are moved, changed or updated with a click of the mouse. There’s also a ?Building Green” feature - scroll over your design and the screen will highlight areas where you can apply environmentally friendly, energy or money saving tips and options. Web integration can add to the already thousands of objects provided in the program’s custom library by importing objects from Google SketchUp.

Real-time walk and fly through Landscape topography Property slope tools and Excavation tool Deck design tools including multi-level decks Automatic curved stair & railing generator Estimator Framing, roof truss, window & door schedules Floor Plan Trace 3D landscape growth Definable sun location Automatic floor plan dimensioning Custom complex roof tool International plant zone maps Editable home & deck plans 2D & 3D object designer Construction phase overlays Electrical, HVAC, Plumbing, Foundation planners Lawn Sprinkler Designer Irregular shaped Wall Wizard Skylight and Dormer cutout tools 3D Cutaway slider Exterior wainscot tool Cabinet Wizard PlantFinder BMP, JPG, DXF & DWG import/export and Google SketchUp & 3DS import

User Ratings and Reviews

1 Star Wasted Time and Money
I bought this product with the single purpose of designing and building my workshop. Having been involved with steep learning curves on other software, I also enrolled in Punch University to learn how to use the software. After looking at the first lesson, I realized I couldn’t find the tools they were using. I couldn’t find the toolbar. After an email to them, I get a call from Customer Service telling me that the University provides instruction in an entirely different product and no, there is no training available for the version I bought. Tuition was rerfunded a few days after they said it would be so I decided to go it on my own. Understand that I am no neophyte to drawing and CAD programs. After many false starts and hitches, I have the building drawn and fire up their “Power Tool” called Framing Editor and hope to get a materials list and a drawing. No joy. Software wouldn’t print from that view and the materials list didn’t include framing. Gave up and threw in the towel. They got me on this one so be careful if you’re considering this software. I gave it one star because the system wouldn’t let me go lower. On the piece of [...] scale this thing reeks.

Jim

5 Stars Great Program
Although I’m unable to compare this with other titles in the same category, I think Punch! Home & Landscape Design Suite is a great program. If you’re interested in home improvement or construction, this is a great tool! Getting started is quick and easy but all the possibilities will keep you involved with this program for a long time. I created a model of our current house and the 3D walk-through is an uncanny experience. The ability to visualize improvement ideas is of great assistance. Much better than heading out to the store and looking at samples and trying to picture it in your head.

2 Stars Poor Controls
I bought this product as an upgrade hoping the controls would be better than the previous versions….they made them worse. I find myself clicking on building components (windows, doors, etc) SEVERAL times trying to move it but instead grab the wall its attached too. The whole feel of the program is awkward and time consuming to use. The product has been out for awhile now but you wont find any information about it on the Punch technical support page. Its not even listed as a product they support, it can only be found on their sales page. This product may be inexpensive but its too miserable to use to be worth your time.

1 Star Amazon failure
The product never arrived.

I sent customer support three emails about it. Not a single reply from Amazon.

Called AMEX and put a hold on the payment…

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Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Suite 8 0

For a fun and advanced, yet easy-to-use set of tools for Home Design, Better Homes And Gardens Home Designer Suite 8 is the perfect solution. Use it for remodeling, interior design, kitchens, baths, decks, landscaping and cost estimation. Powerful, Fun and Easy Home Design Software

Custom cabinets, sinks, showers and garden tubs in 3D Inspirational photos by room or type Thousands of colors and textures or create your own materials with a digital picture Deck and patio tools Design single or multi-level decks with automatic deck framing Deck foundations automatically generate to match sloped lots Plant Encyclopedia - Over 1,500 plants Pathway tool - design curb-appealing landscaping using stone, pavers or sidewalks Design in 2D & 3D Glass House View - a translucent view of your design Doll House View - a 3D overview without the roof Create a Virtual Tour Day and night views Assemble a scale model of your design Generate shadows from the sun for realistic 3D Automatic Build Terrain and Terrain Perimeter tools - create flat, irregular shaped or sloped lots - use a GPS to import or enter elevation data Create plot and perimeter plans; automatically generate a 3D model of your actual terrain Easy-to-use terrain and landscaping tools - Add a pool or pond and visualize in 3D Fencing tools - a variety of fencing styles, custom gates, driveways, sidewalks and curbing tools Hill and Valley tools - add gardens, beds and slopes that automatically appear in 3D Cost EstimatingMinimum System Requirements Windows XP/Vista 1.2 GHz processor 2 GB of available disk space 512 MB of Memory on XP 1 GB of Memory on Vista DVD drive

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Joe S.
I purchased this product to design an addition on my house, and to help my wife understand what I wanted to do. The product is well worth its money compaired to other products I tried. Most of it is fairly easy to use, I am very happy with it.

2 Stars Frustrating experience, precision problems
I tried out this tool in hopes of mocking up my current home to plan for a potential addition. I had paper blueprints and lot diagram with exact angles and dimensions in front of me. This tool may work well for sketching and quick designs where precision is not important. For me it failed even to create a 25′ x 46′ exterior wall. After drawing a simple rectangle I double clicked on lines to change the dimensions. After entering 25′ for one wall it would still be displayed as 24′11″! I also could not recreate my lot even though I had the exact dimensions in front of me. Now you are probably thinking that I must have zero technical ability. In fact, I have a degree in engineering and have extensive use of complex software packages including AutoCAD. If you have a technical mind like me, this program will not behave as you expect and leads to frustration. I’m currently shopping for an alternative.

4 Stars A Powerfull software
This is a very elaborate,detailed and powerfull software. I was very impressed by its capabilities. You can prepare a house plan and decorate it down to minor details such as the pillow case type and color. You can also download paint color, appliances etc, from the manufactureres web site and use it in your design. Most of the function are fairly easy to learn and I think they did a great job with the DVD tutorial. However with so many detailes involved in designing and decorating a house, you should not expect to master this software, in one afternoon, or one day. It would be more reasonable to expect about two or three weeks of practice to be comfortable with the software. Some Autocad drafting experience would certainly be helpfull but not neccessary. I would suggest printing the sample house design tutorial that is provided with the software and start working on the house project. It will walk you through most of the futures of the software. I gave it four stars because once you draw the house, adjusting the wall lenghts to thier final sizes can be frustrating.

4 Stars This is an old favorite.
I think this program beats any home design program out there. It is based on the old Home Architect program, and I have always thought it was the simplest, best program. Roof design is tricky, granted, but I think it is in any program. I give it a four because it is not perfect, but I highly recommend it.

5 Stars Best Software I Think I’ve Ever Used
I think this is the first 5 star review I’ve ever given. I am so impressed with this product, I believe it may be the best piece of software I’ve ever used.

I started with another program by IMSI that got me through a rough sketch of what I wanted for our new home. Bug after bug and limit after limit got me to give up after a few weeks. This program was highly recommended on Amazon, so I purchased it with moderate hope. Nearly everything was intuitive and easy to do. Most importantly, I have yet to find a bug anywhere. It simply does what I want it to do quickly.

Between the two programs (both similar in layout) it took me about a week to get pretty comfortable to do just about anything I wanted. I do learn applications quickly, but it is by no means a complicated thing to learn. That and the numerous videos make this a pretty nifty package for quick education.

The company also has a website (inside the help section is a link) that has answers to everything you could imagine - either through the online help, or via the forums.

Great product, and not too expensive.

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