.co.uk Review Punch Professional Home Design Suite does something very few home planning applications achieve: it brings together designing both the interior and the exterior--including the garden--of your home on one CD-ROM. While the software is perhaps a bit complex to learn at first, the huge range of features on offer make this forgivable. You can start with a blank screen, work with a pre-drawn plan from the software's library or import scans of the existing floor plans of your home. Whichever option you choose simply clicking the on-screen tabs allows you to switch between working on the floor plans, electrical plans, the plumbing system, roofing arrangements, heating and air conditioning or external decking and landscaping. Getting objects such as furniture into position on a plan is mostly a matter of drag and drop, while you can also use a Computer Aided Design feature to draw curves, arcs and other standard shapes. It is useful to be able to see a flat plan and a 3-D view side by side, and to walk through the 3-D view, or do a fly over. You can even change the light direction, intensity and brightness on the 3-D views to get as close to the real world as possible. With several useful tools above and beyond the designer, Punch Professional Home Design Suite is a rounded application. The 3-D Furniture Workshop lets you edit the library of furniture objects or design your own from scratch. RealModel lets you turn a home plan into a template for making a scale model--you can even print textures onto paper for pasting to the building materials. HomeEstimator works out how much it will cost to build your project life-size, and how much of each type of material you will need. --Sandra Vogel Manufacturer's Description Building upon Super Home design suite this is the total solution to all your home design & building needs. Punch Professional Home Design Suite is equipped with exceptional functionality allowing you create your dream home. All programs are fully integrated giving you total flexibility. You have at your disposal the 3D home interior & exterior design program, a 3D landscape program, a decking section, a 3D furniture workshop allowing you to create customised furniture, the unique floorplan trace function, a home estimator, electrical planner, plumbing planner, HVAC planner, the unique clearview transparent viewer and the exceptional 3D RealModel which allows you to create a scale down model of your dream home before you commit to construction.
S**N
Five Stars
very helpfully
M**N
Dont be put off buying this at this price...its excellent
At this price this is fantastic entry level into the world of CAD. I bought this 3 years ago for over £70. I used it to design a complete re-furb and signif extension to our house.I had never used any CAD software before. It was easy to use and fun. I really enjoyed using it.My girlfriend found it very useful to be able to visualise what the house would look like at following one dimensional plans is not so easy.Its much cheaper to move a wall on a piece of software than move one in real life !We used the pictures from the software for our planning permission submission and its was very well recieved by the council planning office.Our builder liked it as he was able to easilly run multiple ideas past us and we wereable to see the impact.I cant recommend this highly enough a this price.....ridiculously cheapPJ
S**I
An American product for an American market
The software is great, except for its many limitations for a UK market. It is obviously written for the US market. It contains only warm air heating and airconditioning, with furnaces and not water heaters or boilers. There are only two staircase styles with no way of making full, half or quarter landings. There are no provisions for double doors, and I don't mean bi-fold doors. There is no provision for split level properties, basements or cellars. No provision for bow bay windows, dormer windows. No provision to erase sections of walls or roofs or free draw these items if no template exists.If all you want is an American style home, then it will be perfect for you.
A**R
No support, No patches, Very frustrating
This could be a very good piece of software apart from the lack of tech support from Fasttrak the UK distributors of this software.Fasttrak have made some changes to the version released by Punch in the US, These changes mean that the patches for the US version will not work.Fasttrak have not released any patches for the UK version and when I have called them they say that they either will not supple patches or they are unable to because lack of help from the US.There are a number of bug's and features that have been corrected in the US version which appear to make it a much better buy.My advice is "DON'T BUY UNTIL TASTTRAK START TO GIVE SUPPORT/PATCHES"
H**6
Punch Pro Home Design
This product is extremely difficult to use - not a patch on earlier version, Visual Home Pro - and the graphics are not nearly as good as is implied. It's also not as flexable as I'd have liked, you can't really make anything that looks at all bespoke.
B**K
Punch Professional Home Design Suite
Very simple to use and exceedingly good on detail. The only complaint I would make is that you are unable to determine 'plant types' prior to selection.
Trustpilot
3 days ago
2 weeks ago
