Punch Professional Home Design Suite Review

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(More customer reviews)The 3d view is very limited, you can walk through but you can't tilt your viewing angle vertically. The objects are very basic and there isn't much of a selection. The "12 powerfull programs in 1" is rediculous. The plumbing "program" is just a few bathroom objects that you can place in your house. The electrical and HVAC are just like the plumbing. Autoframing is useless. If you decide to change something you can't drag a box around everything and update them all at once. Example: i wanted to change my wall hieght, i had to right click on every wall, select "wall properties" from the menu, and then highlight a box and change it. And i had to do that for every wall seperately. The lanscaping feature where it changines the plants to show how they will look in 5 years just scales up some flat images of the plants.

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12 Programs in one intuitive easy-to-use interface... POWERFUL, PROFESSIONAL TOOLS to help you design all of the critical components of your home including foundations, HVAC, electrical, plumbing, custom windows, custom roofs, and much, much more!

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3D Home Architect Professional 5.0 Review

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(More customer reviews)From the negative reviews of the 5.0 product, I decided to do some research on another product that was recommended: Chief Architect Home Edition 5.0 (or CAHE5).
Apparently, the vendor who makes CAHE5 also made Broderbund's 3D Home Architect v4.0 product. But they did NOT make the new v5.0 software; it was sub-contracted out to another company. Probably explains the new interface and the fact that v5.0 is not compatible with v4.0 (you cannot import v4.0 designs).
CAHE5 *is* compatible with 4.0, and it will import v4.0 files. The vendor says that CAHE5 is the true update to v4.0.
FYI, The vendor also says that the next release of their software will be renamed to Better Homes and "Home Designer Suite" v6.0. It's available now, in fact.
...
NOTE: I do not work for Chief Architect, Broderbund or any other computer company. I'm just a homeowner researching for the best home design software and I believe in sharing the knowledge.
Regards,
Roland Thomas

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From your first rough sketch to the final coat of paint, 3D Home Architect Professional 5.0 helps you realize your home dreams. Based on an industry-grade computer-aided drafting (CAD) engine, the 5.0 release of 3D Home Architect Professional gives you everything you need to succeed with your design, remodeling, or addition project. Advanced 3-D editing and photo-realistic rendering bring home plans to life, while the intuitive interface is easy to master. Enjoy unlimited customization of objects, colors, and textures. View every aspect of your design details with eight vivid rendering modes. Explore the extensive library of home plans, furnishings, and more. Plus, you receive 3D Home Interiors 2.0 along with landscape and garden software.

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Punch Home Design Architect Series 3000 v10 Review

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(More customer reviews)I first tried the punch platinum hiome design 8.0 and was able with great difficulty to draw a set of prints that we built a home from.
I then upgraded to Arch 3000 which is certainly a much better product. The interface is virtually the same but some of the additional tools make the program.
The best addition being the room wizard although it is fairly basic and not fully fleshed out, it does allow the first floor of a house plan to be drawn to basics VERY quickly much faster than a trace image. Warning though to people designing basements, make the basement FLOOR 1 and if you use the room wizard use it for the basement. I know the tutorial states you can easily just lower the elevation of the fountation walls to create your basement but as many people have commented with punch products what is stated is not always what happens and in this case your whole first floor including ANY connected interior walls are dropped into the basement.
You can work around this but only if you make floor 1 your basement.
Again a decent product but know what you are buying this program can produce buildable home plans IF you have engineering or construction knowlege but mostly its still a program for a home owner to "envision" the layout of their home.

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Punch! Home Design Architectural Series 3000 combines top landscape design and interior design software into one powerful package.

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Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Suite 8.0 Review

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(More customer reviews)i've owned this program for one week. i was initially concerned, as it did not come with a manual. well, after a week, i've found that a paper manual is not necessary to fully operate this program. i can not claim that i'm an expert after one week, but, i do re-assure you that this program is quite simple to operate, it offers possibilities that i never before imagined in my previous architecture program. this program is challenging, in that it offers so many options that i can spend hours looking through all of them. while $99 isn't cheap, especially compared to some of the other programs, i assure you that it is leaps ahead of my 3 year old 3D program. i haven't purchased other programs to know how it compares to other more recent products. i can say that it is phenomenal in comparison to three year old programs. i am very glad that i made this purchase and i would do it again, knowing what i know now, i might even pay more for it. it is likely to become one of my favorite toys. [after i've owned this program for a month or two, i'll submit an addendum so that you can read more of my findings.]

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Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Suite 8.0 is powerful software for any home design project.With over 5,000 integrated tools it is perfect for home design, remodeling, interior design, landscaping, decks, cost estimation, and site planning. Design in 2D and 3D simultaneously; even do a virtual walk-through.Choose from over 6,000 library items or download free bonus items.Create base, wall, full height, curved, corner cabinets and more for your new kitchen or bath.Choose from over 1,500 popular plants and get detailed information including Hardiness Zone Maps.Import custom colors or materials.Track costs for materials, quantities, unit costs and more.

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Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Suite 7.0 Review

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(More customer reviews)I recently had the onerous job of drawing several plans for an addition to my home. I had the option of hiring an architect ($$$), or doing the drawings myself--and I selected this software to do the later.
First of all, I was successful drawing 5 or 6 floor plans for my existing home and the addition. However there were some "hiccups" and problems along the way. Here is what I found:
- I gave up trying to create a roof that would look anything like what I needed to draw. This was true for my existing home as well as the roof for the addition. This was by far the biggest problem with this software--I watched various on-line "videos," looked for help in forums, etc. but I was unable to render it correctly. Big problem because I was unable to get a good 3D or elevation drawing and actually was forced to draw these views by hand (well, a ruler and pencil). The auto-generated roof function is totally useless unless you have a very simple roof structure.
- My home has walls of various thicknesses--while the software provides preselected wall types, it doesn't allow you to customize the thickness (which was a problem). So I had to use a "canned" masonry type wall (12" thick I recall) to represent a wall I have that's not masonry and about 18" thick (don't ask!). If you have a newer home with "standard" walls, then you probably won't have this problem. In my case, I don't think I have any "standard" walls (home is relatively old).
- Button layout is confusing--they would be better off following typical "Windows" layout. Easy to forget what the icons represent.
- I tried to use this software to lay out a garden--however I literally couldn't find any of the plants I'm growing in their library. I understand there's an optional product can purchase (which I didn't), but they really should provide a better "basic" choice of plants.
- Very difficult to add dimension lines--it's difficult to explain unless you try to use it. For example, you "drag" across an area you want to add a dimension line...it invariably sets one of the points to the middle of a wall--which isn't what you want if you want the interior dimension of a room. They don't provide a simple way to click on two "spots" and produce a dimension line. If a dimension line sits inside of a wall, it's very difficult to select it...on several occasions I was forced to delete the wall because I couldn't select and move the dimension line out of the way. There's an alt-click (I recall) method to select overlapping objects, but it sometimes just doesn't work.
- Sometimes, no matter what I did, I could not get a precisely sized object (like a wall's length). They have a "nudge" tool for precise sizing that doesn't work on all objects. Software has a propensity to "snap" to grids or other objects which can be really annoying. You can disable it, but it's hidden in some menu somewhere.
And so on-- there were many other minor irritations that I worked through. The bottom line (sic) is that I was able to get most of the layouts done (except anything that would show a roof)--but I had to "fight" the software in order to do it.

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Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Suite 7.0 is software developed by Chief Architect for home enthusiast remodeling and home design projects. This software helps you design the home of your dreams with 3D models, virtual tours, even more library items, easy to use building templates, a new Plant Encyclopedia and landscaping features with over 1,000 plant terrain and outdoor items.Combining the leading-edge home design software with the consumer design editorial expertise of Better Homes and Gardens, we have produced the best software tool for home and remodeling design.

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Punch Pro Home Design Suite Review

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(More customer reviews)1. The software is not intuitive. There is no starting point for beginners, no wizard, no introductory lesson, nothing. The outdated help file starts with "It's simple to get started planning the home of your dreams." Yes, BUT HOW???? WHERE DO I START?
2. There are no keyboard shortcuts for the tools. No space-drag for Pan, no Z-drag for zoom. No hotkeys that I can find whatsoever. You must move the mouse over to the tiny tool button and click.
3. The program is stuck in the 90's. The help file is antique and mostly useless. Sure there is a lot of text to read, but it all states the obvious. The object filenames are eight characters and nearly impossible to decipher. What is a Hitanktl? That's a High Tank Toilet... I think. It gets worse!
4. There is no logical way to preview an object before adding it to the schematic. The objects tab presents approximately 50 kitchen cabinets that all look the same as a micro sized thumbnail. Since it sizes the object to fit the thumbnail, two identical looking objects are actually different sizes.
5. The helicopter and walk-through tools in Professional Home Design are extremely sensitive. The slightest movement of the mouse send the view wildly spinning. Micron miniscule movements of the mouse lead to extremely aggravating and disorientating walk-troughs. There is no limiting the camera to not go through walls. The Wide view is not wide enough. The controls are absurdy inintuitive. Click once to move up, click again to move down. WHAT? AHHHHHHHHHH!
6. Interestingly, the helicopter in the 3D custom workshop works completely differently. Why do they behave differently in the two applications?
7. The helicopter orbits around a fixed center-point. This makes it difficult (actually, impossible) to orbit around anything but the center of the schematic.
8. Did I mention there are no keyboard shortcuts or hotkeys?
9. The slow speed of the screen updates in 3D Custom Workshop make me suspect that there is no OpenGL being used. This would make sense since it seems the application hasn't been updated in a decade or two. This is mind-boggling if true. How can it take so long to render ONE frame on my NVIDEO Quadro FX 5500?
10. The help file suggests you set your screen resolution to 800x600. Are you kidding me? When was this written? 1984?
11. You can't export the blueprints. My only option was to print (with no preview or ability to print only a specific area) or export to a DXF file, which Illustrator CS3 refuses to open. I solved this problem by PRINTING to a PDF file, which Illustrator does open.
12. The web site offers no COMPARISON TABLE. I had no idea what the difference between each of the 12 products was. There is a pro series, architectural series and a home series. What does the Pro Series offer that the home series does not? What is the difference between the Super Home Suite, 5 in 1 Home Design, Professional Home Design, Home Design Studio and Home Design Platinum? What the HELL? The only guidance is the price tag.
13. Where is the trail software? Why can't I try is out first? Disable the export and print ability and offer trial software.
14. What good is a walk-through or helicopter camera if you can't do preset animation for it? There should be the ability to set keyframes and animate the camera. Export to AVI or QuickTime at high-quality 3D. This feature alone would seriously rock.
Other than that... great software! :)


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Professional Home Design Suite Platinum Review

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(More customer reviews)Punch Pro. Home Design Suite Platinum V12, is not hard to use, especially if you have used any type of Autocad, or Home design software in the past.
I laid out my entire basement and second floor addition in about half an hour.... This program is addicting because you want to measure every space you have to make it accurate.
It prints blueprints, and has electrical and plumbing blueprints as well. AWSOME. It has 3D walk and fly over modes that are right on the money.
I took a chance on buying this cause there were many negative reviews on this software. All I can say, if you are willing to spend the time and you feel strongly about your project or addition, this will be well worth it.
This is an advanced piece of software, so if you have any graphics experience or you are technical, this is the one to get.


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