Punch! Home & Landscape Design Professional with NexGen Technology

Review by ASC2078 for Punch! Home & Landscape Design Professional with NexGen Technology
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I recently purchased Punch Software’s Home and Landscape Design Professional. I found it to be anything but “Professional.” In attempting to educate myself on the use of this software, I encountered some disappointing deficiencies. Most disappointing is the door placement and properties of the program. I first attempted to place a 15 light double french door in a plan. When it comes to double doors, there is not a more common item than a standard 15 light, double, french door. To my dismay, when I looked in the default, double door, library, there was none. The program contains a door design power tool but who wants to spend hours learning how to design a common item. Even using the door design power tool, there is no way to select the type of glass that one may require in doors and windows. Neither is there a simple way to select whether a door is interior, exterior, metal, wood type, etc. Likewise, one cannot show the door swing direction on their floor plan line drawing, unless they draw the door as open in the 3D view.

Second, I tried to place a pocket door. Other than size and location, there is no way in the program to edit a pocket door, for type, style, etc. Even in the door design power tools, there is no way to design and/or save another style of pocket door. Likewise, there is no way to alter or create more segments in bi fold doors. Neither did the program provide any accordion doors of the type commonly used in laundry openings, etc. I would note that accordion doors can usually be created in a program by selecting more and smaller panel sections in a bi fold door. A lack of editing features on the bi folds, made that impossible as well.

Most inexplicable in this software is not being able to copy and paste windows and doors. I possess a number of design programs. Even the cheap, thirty to fifty dollar basic ones, have window and door features that are missing in this software. Most will allow one to click in a default slab door, then totally convert it to what is needed. By highlighting and right clicking, a small 3-D properties window usually opens to select style, grids, glass type, hinged, pocket, bi fold, etc. For a program to be named “Professional” and not have such basic design features is misleading. Especially at this price point. I contacted Punch to see if these features existed in the software. I thought perhaps I was uninformed as to how to access them. They confirmed that such features are not in the software.

The software was deficient in other areas as well: There was no good way to edit stairway handrails. It will not do invisible walls, a common item for design reference. The ceiling and soffit features are poor. The objects library was missing many common items like a single bowl, stainless steel kitchen sink, a sump pump, a well detailed furnace, etc. The cabinet, counter top and shelf design features were extremely poor.

The program has a split, side-by-side, screen feature for viewing the working floor plan and the 3D view of what you are doing at the same time. Disappointing however, is the fact that the software will not support systems with two monitors. Thus, the split screen mode often renders items to small to be practical to use. Likewise, the limited ability to edit, resize, etc., while in full 3D mode, is probably the greater shortcoming of this software.

The program also has a number of glitches. It constantly reverts back to default settings instead of what you selected. It will not always delete selected items. It will tell you there is not room for an object when there is. It will put in items that you did not select, like a base cabinet instead of a wall cabinet. Many of the features are cumbersome and overly complicated to use. Most frustrating is the fact that the manual and/or the on-screen instructions, do not always match the software.

My intent was to purchase a quick & clean home design software that was less intense to use than my Turbocad, Autocad, type products. A program that will not even do all of the basic door types, is not practicle for anyone to use. This is clearly a piece of software that was designed by software engineers without enough input from home builders or architects. Punch Software’s Home and Landscape Design Professional could not be given a positive review by anyone that is truly familiar with various home design programs.

Punch took almost a month to respond to my detailed email inquiry about the missing features of this product. I will say to their credit. They took the product back and returned my full purchase price, even though I had purchased it from an online retailer and not directly from the Punch Web site.

I hope this is helpful,

D.B. Columbus Ohio

Review by Busy Executive for Punch! Home & Landscape Design Professional with NexGen Technology
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I find this product useful for those small to medium projects where you want to get a sense of what the finished look will be without resorting to crude drawing tools.

It lets you lay out a space and add common architectural elements, such as doors, windows, flooring and other surfaces. The finished diagrams can then be viewed from a variety of vantage points, giving you a sense of what the final product will be like.

I happen to own a tablet PC, and to my surprise, the software worked great when using the pen. Over time, I’ve actually found this to be the most straightforward way to work with the software, although it’s not that difficult to work with the mouse either.

Unfortunately, at least for me, I find it difficult to model complicated areas such as curving walls, raised floors, and so on. Still, for the price, the capabilities are good, and you don’t have to be a drafting expert to get reasonable results.

Recommended.

Review by Randall S. Womack for Punch! Home & Landscape Design Professional with NexGen Technology
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Yes, this software is very comprehensive for the dabler in home design. And if you are happy to work with canned architechture software you should do fine. However, if you are like me and you find yourself chaining your mind and needing to tweak your designs, this software is NOT for you. I found the walls and many othe features with tracking dimenions overly sensitive or not sensitive enought. Some features allow tweaking, but not the one’s I was trying to work on. The free design on and then tranfer shapes just had too many bugs. I found myself looking at $500 or $1,000.00 sotware just to avoid the headaches uisng this software. I tried and tried and tried to contact Punch technical support but found it esier to heard cats tehn to find contanct email or phn numbers and get someone to return inquiries. All the bugs make me believe I purchased a beta version but it is a shame I cannot get upgrade. So, until I do, this review will remain.

Review by C. Junell for Punch! Home & Landscape Design Professional with NexGen Technology
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Just installed the software and ran into some serious problems. First I was trying to change a door from hinged on right side swing out to hinged on left side swing out. I expected to be able to select the item and rotate but this was not an option. So the tool bar had a “flip” option but that flipped the door to an interior swing door. Then I saw a swing angle adjustment so first I tried to make the angle -90 (negative 90) degrees but that also made the door an interior. While trying to figure this out my plan got off center and I couldn’t see my design so I looked and looked for the standard hand symbol to “pan” the drawing. No such luck and then I noticed there where no scroll bars so I was just stuck. I went to help and found “pan” and it told me to click on the arrow button and a collapsible toolbar would come up with a pan button. When I clicked no such button. So I went to the website for a more thorough help knowledge base. When I put in my product and searched on pan no results…wtf? Then I searched on door and again no results. Ugh! So I called support, some kudos here, they answered in less than 3 minutes.

Turns out that to get the collapsible toolbar you have to click (and hold). The technician new this was a problem with the help instructions. Then on getting the door the way I wanted it, the procedure was to flip the door to get the hinges on the correct side and then adjust the swing angle to -90 degrees. Wow and this is a program developed in the 21st century? How about being able to select a right hand or left hand door to begin with.

With the time I spent researching which program to buy and the time it is going to take me to learn the program, I SHOULD HAVE JUST BOUGHT A MAGNETIC WHITE BOARD AND MAGNETIC STRIPS, CUT OUT PIECES AND LABELED THEM DOOR, WINDOW, CABINET, ETC. My project would have been done by now.

Review by Johns Books 4 You for Punch! Home & Landscape Design Professional with NexGen Technology
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Why I bought this product:

I am a homeowner with a degree in computer science and a fair knowledge of various drawing and editing programs. After reading several product comparisons, I bought this software to design my backyard and pool as it seemed to have the best features for my needs. (My house had recently been rebuilt and I wanted to focus on landscaping and pool.Punch! Home & Landscape Design with NexGen Technology) This product advertised the ability to utilize “Topo Tools” with “Powerful tools to sculpt your property to perfection” and “Pool Designer to create your pool to exact specs”

What I got:

A very difficult to use, time consuming, and fairly useless program. I spent more time researching the forums for what should be easy common sense instructions then working the program. If the program did half of what is described on the front of the box within a reasonable learning curve, I would be satisfied. As it is, only get this program if you already have working knowledge of other higher level CAD programs….in which case you would already have access to better programs and wouldn’t need this one.

I am totally disgusted with this product and its company. I AM impressed with the companies packaging and marketing…how to sell a useless product with misleading pretty pictures and great wording.

I would love to get a hold of the programmers who wrote the programming for this product and explain what they need to do to make this a better ‘user friendly’ and accurately represented product. I would like to find out if I should have bought?Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer