Punch! Home & Landscape Design Suite with NexGen Technology

This product won't install - by design. End of Review. Apparently Punch has substantial copy protection that doesn't play nice with Vista and the UAC so, expect to wait 40 or 50 minutes (watching your disc spin) before it even thinks about starting to load, then fail. Here's the latest from Punch: ---- Installing Punch! Products When you try installing your software you receive an error and are unable to continue with the installation. Windows Vista When installing software in Windows Vista, the installation may take 15 minutes or more to start, so please be patient. You can perform the steps below to alleviate the waiting time. * Turn off the User Account Control (UAC) * Reboot your computer into Safe Mode * Try to install your software * Once the software is installed you can reboot into Normal Mode ---- (FYI: to boot into safe mode, hold <F8> on boot up) ...and I tried all that but, it makes me really nervous to have to disable the protections included in Vista that allow me to uninstall, avoid trojans/viruses, and prevent the installation of the root kit they're obviously wanting to put on my PC. And be warned, I know most people have internet access, but if you don't: registration requires and active connection and you'll have to wait for Punch to email you a serial number before you can actually save/print/etc. The program looks neat and I'd love to try it but, since Punch seems to have gone out of their way to make the program impossible to install (I'm 4 hours into the annoying process now...), it has to go back. Note to Punch! software engineers: you may think the 'anti-installation' copy protection feature is really great but, in my eyes, it makes the entire product completely useless - defective is probably an apt description.

I bought and installed this program, and then saw all the bad reviews. Not expecting very much from this program, I was pleasantly surprised by my experience and how powerful and flexible this tool is. Installation admittedly was a bit quirky. It took about 5 minutes just for the autorun just to load, leading me to believe that it would not run on my Windows 7 box. However, after this initial load time, install went very smoothly. And yes, you do need internet connection to register; otherwise, you can only run the program for 7 days. The software comes with a several hundred page manual, which is a clue as far as how complicated it can be. It took an hour or two of me playing around before getting the knack for the basics of navigating the program. It's extremely powerful, and undoubtedly has a steep learning curve, especially for those doing advanced projects. For example, many of the objects they have in their 3D object gallery can actually be edited in the build in 3D CAD-like editor. This is way more complicated than what most people would need, but it's nice to have the option. Selecting and manipulating objects is done via the 2D editor, but realtime updates (although slightly choppy on my PC) are made to the 3D rendering, which you can view alongside the 2D plan you edit. This process is mostly intuitive, but I found it pretty easy to move objects I did not intend to. The undo function fortunately, works perfectly, and will likely get quite a bit of use. I'm still trying to figure out all the ins and outs of manipulating objects, but as I'm using this program to design my backyard landscaping, it would be nice if they made it easier to redraw certain areas (e.g. if I wanted to redraw a certain portion of my backyard and make it grass) to design and compare multiple designs easily. As it is, trying to reshape certain areas requires quite a bit of rework of my design. The library of furnishings, 3D objects, plants, etc is quite impressive and have only hit a couple of minor things that I have not found in their palatte. Overall, I've been pretty pleasantly surprised by how stable and powerful this program is

I purchased this after using the Better Homes & Gardens Home Designer Suite. At first, it looked like it had potential as it appeared to be much more flexible and feature laden. Unfortunately, it has too many problems. Simple things like selecting walls and moving them, copy and paste, and 3d walk-through are either poorly implemented or bug-laden. I was hoping to find a support release that would improve on what appears to be a first run, buggy release - but there is none. I searched their forums and they don't even have a dedicated forum for this product. I contacted support and inquired about maintenance releases and dedicated product forums (like they have for their other products) and was told they have none and suggested I contact tech support. I don't need to beta test software and spend time with tech support for basic functions that should be implemented properly - so I'm sending it all back for the money-back guarantee. Also, the green features appear to be "thrown in". When clicking the special green icon, you just get a few tips that are mostly common sense. When you try to delve deeper, it's just a link to a page Punch! made that has categories of external links to external sites on the internet that could be found using a search engine. As an aside, I've found TurboFloorplan from IMSI to be the best of the 3 programs I've tried - though I'm stilling learning it.

The last time I attempted a 3D home design was back in 2001. Computers are much faster and way more powerful. This product is extremely easy to use. The simple start build my house feature is SWEET! start there and build that 30,000 sq ft dream house. Still have'nt finished my final design for our addition, but will soon. Not so happy about the "Hey if you want plotted plans printed, click here and pay $xx.xx for us to print and ship.

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.

Prior to the purchase of this program I called Punch to ask specific questions regarding the software functions. After he answered all my questions he convinced me it was exactly what I needed/wanted. WOW was I fooled. This software is very limited and it really provides the user with nothing more than a game of attempting to design a house or deck. Unfortunately, it will not generate a set of plans, the framing wizard does not provide specifics and calculate the location of beams and posts. I called customer service and was on the phone 72 minutes. Although the person who helped me was excellent, he concluded that the program is pretty much a way for a person to draw a concept to take to an architect. The reality is the program is so clumsy and the graphics so bad it is a colossal waste of time. If that's not bad enough try to print a sketch of the graphics. They are so poor due to the background colors and the light colors of the lines. After paying for overnight shipping out of $72 my return is only $27. DO NOT BUY THIS PROGRAM unless you want to waste a lot of time and have a useless end product.

Hi All, I've been a Punch! user for over a decade, that in itself should say how much I like this program. Punch! has completely rehauled their program with their NextGen versions to be faster, lighter and easier to use although I always found it easy to use from the very beginning. I've read the reveiws and feel that most of the issues users are experiencing are due to not understanding how the program works. Like driving a car, once you know it, it becomes automatic. Users can't expect to hop into a program and wha-la know how to use it without any guidance; although, that's kind of what I did way back when and still do it today with every upgrade. It's a basic program not a full blown architectural program which by the way can cost you $$thousands in comparison to the low cost of punch which offers you much more for your buck! I've "tried" other programs in the past and none of them come close to the 3D virtual reality world it produces in it's LiveView window. Immediate results are produced in a realistic scene. You draw a wall, BANG! it's there in 3D. You can throw textures into the window onto the walls, the ground, the sky, just about everything you see in the window and unlike other home design programs with their cartoonish appearance, Punch by far looks more realistic than anything I've ever seen. Add to that a lengthy library of Sherwin Williams color pallettes to dress up your design and guess what, the name of the paint and color number are provided for you should you want to run down to the hardware store and buy it. There are also many automatic features, such as automatic roofing, snapping, dimensioning, and more. Each that can be turned on or off. Best of all is their Quick Start feature whereby you are presented with a screen of starter rooms that can later be modified to your liking. Each user of course is looking to buy something with an idea in mind. In all fairness, a user should not post a reveiw unless they have taken the effort to do their homework and understand the program .... Read The Manual guys!! *A member of the Punch! Online Community posted this review. The Punch! Online Community allows people to collaborate on features, techniques, and uses. It also assist each other to maximize the software capabilities. This member was not compensated in any form for this review, if you would like more information on the Punch! Online Community please visit the Punch! Software website.

I couldn't find any way to design a basement, All plans had to be designed to the nearest inch. no 1/2 inch etc.. it was also too hard to change a plan once you made one.

a touch limited

does the job....great price