Punch! Professional Home Design

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 flyover. 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 need. --Sandra Vogel

Product Description
Professional Home Design Suite is a full suite of 14 home design&improvement -- it's a total package for the creation of your dream home!

Having said all of that, most of the quirks noted are valid. The 3D movements are hugely frustrating (THAT programmer should be strapped to the helicopter!). It's wall selection, sizing, cutting is cumbersome but ultimately gets you there. And it's object library of 'stuff' inside a house is trivial. And the landscape trees are ugly.

But I knew what I was after and 12 hours later I was pretty happy with the results. My task was a small, single level, duplex. Not a real complex task. Wanted a good blue print for further analysis and a 3D perspective. Got it. I wouldn't want to be a paid professional and give this output to clients, though.

Glanced through the manual during lunch before the marathon. No crashs. HP/AMD 900Mhz, 512Mb, XP/Pro

So, to me, it was worth the money.


Don't believe the hype!   November 25, 2003
R. Yi (San Jose, CA)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful

As a mechanical engineer, I've used all kinds of CAD programs as well as other types of software. This has to be one of the worst software packages I've ever used. The interface is maddeningly archaic. It makes one wonder about the caliber of programmer that Broderbund is hiring. It also makes one wonder who's writing these reviews, some hardly seems believable after actually experiencing the software.

PLEASE, do yourself a favor, don't believe the positive reviews, and save your money. Given a technical background, I lulled myself into believing I should be able to handle it in spite of the negative reviews, and came away severely disappointed.

Stick to a general 2D drawing program such as AutoCad, Vellum, or Visio, it'll be much less headache and still fulfill 99% of what most users are looking for.


Not bad, mild learning curve   November 5, 2002
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

I use 3-d CAD software in work so I have had some experience in this type of software. I have used a older version of the 3-d broderbund software and found it somewhat intuitive but the graphics were disappointing. I was ready to get a newer version figuring the graphics would be better when I came across this software.
We are modifying an older home and I was looking to get a feel for the flow of the house before we moved some walls and get a visual feel for what the rooms are going to look like. This software did the trick. I havn't opened the book and have most of the floorplan done with modifications we were looking for(9 room house 2200 SF = 5 hours, no training, all windows, doors, furniture etc. havn't done the roof nor kitchen yet). The elevation scale was a bit difficult to understand and the auto-wall dimensioning had a lot to be desired. Although the graphics are good in detail they are very slow in rendering.
I agree there are shortcommings to this program and if I designed houses for a living or was designing from scratch, this might not be the tool to use (I only have experience with one other program so I am NOT an expert). From a relative ease of use and a method for visualizing room size, house flow, lighting etc, it works great. I am looking forward to finishing the rest of the house.
I am running Win98 2nd edition on a P3 500 256 MBram 32Meg diamond video card and have not had any system preformance nor graphics rendering problems.

Like any other review, use it with a grain of salt. I needed Ideas without a $5000 price tag. Structural support of your design must be considered with any interior changes.


Not Good.....Don't Buy   September 30, 2002
Archie12 (Rochester, New York United States)
8 out of 10 found this review helpful

I am a professional interior designer, ASID member.I upgraded to Punch Professional thinking it had to be better than the other Punch software I had. WRONG. It is impossible to draw interiors walls with exact measures as it always deducts the wall thickness. The " Ruler" in useless as it is huge and cumbersome and hard to keep in a straight line. The furniture templates are a joke.You have no idea what they look like( and they certainly aren't pretty)or their size until you drag them into place.Stick to a pencil & graph paper.Can't anyone create a software program for the Design Professional that is not cartoonish.Something quicker & easier than AutoCad. I know people would spend the money for it.Any ideas???