Punch! Home & Landscape Design Suite with NexGen Technology
by Punch! Software
List Price:
Our Price: $74.99
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Category: Software
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Software Summary
Manufacturer: Punch! SoftwareBrand: Punch Software
Format: CD-ROM
Release Date: 2008-10-20
Platform: Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP
Model: 20800
Product features:
- In Quick start- Build a house in just 59 seconds!
- Building Green- Green features inculde eco-friendly tips & ideas that save energy and money
- Intelligent Room Detection- Complete automation that changes when you change the size or shape of your design, including the roof!
- Google 3D support- access millions of options for your design.
- Integrated Internet- Fina a local contractor, plotting service, or other support to complete your project.
Software Reviews of Punch! Home & Landscape Design Suite with NexGen Technology
Customer Review: Difficult to use, but worth learning anyway--saved me $80,000
Summary: 5 Stars
I have been using Punch! products for 9 years now. I see a lot of these reviews complaining about how difficult the software is to use. Have you ever tried to use AutoCAD? When a program is very capable, there are a ton of features and a ridiculously steep learning curve. Much like MS Excel, there are simple, intuitive, out-of-the-box features that you can open up and use right away like the 60-second home builder and auto roof. But, just like in Excel, if you want a function that doesn't exist you have to write custom VBA code to create it. In Punch!, if you want it to not draw a roof, click just outside of any wall and select options on the right side. Uncheck the "Auto-generate roof" feature and there you go! The walls that are created in the 60-second home builder tool are problematic and I just skip over it now. But when I'm trying to design a new house from scratch or plan a renovation, fooling around with the space planner is useful and time-saving.
I have created my own work arounds for many of the tool's faults. For example, since you can't split a wall at different heights, I'll join two walls together at differing heights. But if you click and drag, one wall will take on the height characteristic of the other wall. If instead, you select the end of the wall and nudge it using the arrow keys until it butts up against the first wall, that will do the trick. Same thing for ceiling heights in rooms with varying wall height. Click the room itself, and uncheck display ceiling. Then use the draw floor feature to draw a floor at the elevation of the ceiling. There are a hundred little tricks that aren't documented anywhere that I can find, but you tend to learn them over time.
One of the features that is unparalleled in this market is the 3D custom workshop. Unlike all the other functionality, there is no manual, no video, nothing on how to use this tool. It took me a couple months straight of banging my head on the computer screen trying to figure out how to make it work. But now I am creating my own furniture! No other program lets you do that. Creating your own furniture is useful for 3D rendering too because the furniture out-of-the-box is very complex (often a single chair is 1.2MB when your entire house is only 700KB). By building my own furniture, I can create chairs that are more like 20KB thereby DRASTICALLY (by orders of magnitude) reducing my rendering time.
But why should you suffer through months of agony to master this software? Simple. If you are not an experienced builder or architect, you will learn a lot about construction, design, and planning. I bought a 130yr old house and started with my renovation plan. I took the drawings to contractors and got quotes. The price was out of my budget, so I literally "went back to the drawing board." After dozens of iterations of virtually building spaces and working through ideas, I was able to come up with an alternative renovation plan that cost $80,000 less than my original plan, but still met all of our requirements. You simply can't do that with a napkin.
Description of Punch! Home & Landscape Design Suite with NexGen Technology
Punch! Home and Landscape Design Suite with NexGen Technology takes home, landscape, and interior designing to a new level.?Punch! is proud to announce the easiest, most comprehensive, home and landscape design software you will find today. With revolutionary NexGen Technology you can build a new house or replicate your own house in just minutes. With the new Intelligent Design feature; walls, paint, flooring, and more are moved, changed or updated with a click of the mouse.?Also new, "Building Green"--click the feature, scroll over your area and the screen will highlight areas that you can apply environmentally friendly, energy or money saving tips and options.?Want to print blue prints, or find a contractor in your area--we'll take you there. With web integration you can add to the already thousands of objects provided in the program's custom library by importing objects from Google Sketch Up. With thousands of objects, planting materials and interior options including decorator palettes and room templates your options are endless.Hobbies Software
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