Punch! Home Design Studio (Mac)
Punch! Home Design Studio is an easy to use home design from world-renowned Punch! Software. The intuitive interface and simple tools for quick learning curve. Cutting-edge technology creates breathtaking 3D views with controllable sun angle and shadows. Unique PowerTools allow design and editing from within the program. Logically-presented toolsets keep your workspace clutter-free. Use Precision Lighting Planner to design with lighting effects, interior or exterior Add any scanned or photographed object to your design with PhotoView
Punch! Home Design Studio (Mac) Accessories
 Mac OS X Version 10.5.4 Leopard
Apple Mac OS X Version 10.5.4 Leopard [5-User Family Pack]
Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Home & Student Edition
Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac [OLD VERSION]
Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Student and Teacher [OLD VERSION]
Mac OS X Leopard: The Missing Manual
Apple iWork '08
VMware Fusion [OLD VERSION]
Roxio Toast 8 Titanium (Mac) [OLD VERSION]
Apple .Mac 5.0 [OLD VERSION]
Punch! Home Design Studio (Mac) Reviews
The interface is not intuitive, and nothing seems to work the way it should. I used 3D Home Architect for years on a PC, going back several years. What a disappointment. Even simple features like copy and paste seem to fail. I finally found this program for the Mac, and was hopeful, but the program is useless.
So if you would like anything other than a corner shower in your bathroom, that's just too bad. The other major problem I have with this program is how hard it is to use. I've now read the entire manual with the hope that once I've learned everything, I'll be able to enjoy it. All of the other home design programs I've had in the past were so easy, I could immediately start using them without having to study the manual. Also, there are very few objects to choose from, for instance there's only one shower and it's a corner shower. But this one is so complicated, I had to read half the manual just to figure out how to zoom in and out of the screen. Here's the truth-the graphics are the worst I've seen on a home design program since the early 90's. I bought this one because the Punch website had tons of beautifully rendered graphics and they supposedly won several awards.
The truth is it draws a "curve" by using a group of straight and diagonal walls. Well, that's a lie. The objects lack basic details like door knobs and trim with beveled edges. In the past I've used 3D Home Architect and Better Homes and Gardens, but I recently bought a Mac so I could no longer use my old programs. Far from being realistic, they remind me of that old Dire Straits video "Money for Nothing". The program is also supposed to draw curved walls. They also only have one style of kitchen sink-a double bowl.
This program just sucks. So if you want to draw a circle, it will come out an octagon. Bottom line, don't let Punch's fancy ads and awards fool you. So again, if you would like a single or a triple sink, I guess you'll just have to use your imagination. This is absolutely the worst home design program I have ever used. But every time I use it, I just want to cry because it's such a terrible program.
As the other reviews have pointed out, this Mac version has turned out to be a big disappointment. After spending the money and a fair amount of time trying to figure out the unintuitive software, I learned there were virtually no construction-related tools (framing designer, etc etc). I'd consider this more a sophisticated toy than a serious house-design software. It's too bad Punch is not more honest and up-front about the limitations of this software.
The problem was, there was no way to match the color samples at Sherwin-Williams to the representations of color in the program. exterior, or finish availability. Many of the features most useful to users are also target-marketing opportunities to die for. Well, you can't have everything before you ship, right. I was pleased to see they had a Partner program that included Sherwin-Williams, since there was a store near the design site. It has reasonable rendering rates on reasonably affordable platforms such as the Intel-backed iMacs. with so much missed revenue-generating potential, I'd work for stock options. Usability could be improved, and brought closer to standards established by other graphical design and visualization software, especially for navigation and window control in the 2D tools.
After three weeks, I hadn't discovered any way to know what color to buy once I'd chosen something from the S-W paint library, nor had I found a way to input a color by number, update new samples from the Sherwin-Williams web site, or mix a color from a palette and find the closest match to paint that met my criteria, such as interior vs. Perhaps they could share objects with others. Punch's concept is right, but the libraries are so disappointingly limited that its utility as a design tool is likewise limited. All of this is a shame, because the software is lots of fun, despite these gripes. But what a shame.
For instance, the program has Content Libraries, and advertises their availability as a feature. After using it myself, I have some suggestions to make. We've found it useful. User communities create more marketing opportunities. No, but you can provide ways of updating content, and importing and exporting content so users who have unique architectural features can create them.
I could find only one "power user"" advertising her work on the user forums, a clear sign that the format is a forbidding hurdle even for users with considerable 3D modeling experience. Really. The libraries include content from home design product vendors, such as tile, paint, and wallpaper vendors. The review consensus, here and at other sites, seems to boil down to this: it is hands-down, the best home-design out there.
Simple window features, such as recessed frames, are missing. More content attracts more users. You see what I mean. It is reasonably usable, meaning my sense is, if the features justified the investment, most people who could benefit from using this software would be able to learn it. Sherwin-Williams would sell more paint (and get an edge on Behr's until THEY sign a partner agreement with Punch), and the consumer is delighted to buy the software when they find out they can actually preview their actual paint color. What am I missing here. AND this is faint praise because it has few competitors that can touch it in power and flexibility, short of a professional CAD program. These are missed opportunities for manufacturers of windows.
Can it be this easy. I've been working with this software five days a week, 7-plus hours a day. This is an obvious win-win if Punch can work a bit on that partner program and the business model supporting it. Judging by these reviews, the program's actual use seems simultaneously to be a most frustrating experience for many reviewers, with clumsy navigation, less-than-optimal implementations of half-thought-out features, barely adequate libraries, and just plain missing features, along with the best graphics engine in its niche. Design features we wanted to add, such as a greenhouse window, were missing.
This software has such obvious potential. So on the whole, I'd buy it again. It seems quite stable and responsive, even on older Macs, though the speed differences can vary widely with different OS/hardware combinations (I did not test it on the PC). In fact, I'll lead the redesign team myself, if they want me to, because for me, it was hours of fun. I am an experienced user of 3D programs, and after an hour or so, I had the navigation down pretty well in the Live View window. Users creating and sharing (free) content creates user communities. I've read many reviews about it.
I'd looked forward to picking up paint chips and trying out various colors. Doh. That said, the critics are only partly right about the usability problems. The real missed opportunity here lies in features. The property has SUCH potential that I don't know why it's been overlooked by its publishers. But most of the core features are in place. Punch's decision to use a proprietary graphics format just doesn't seem to make economic sense.
This is an old business model, and Google's SketchUp, with it's open formats, may eventually catch up with it. This is a mass-market product; there are lots of small businesses trying to use it as well as plenty of homeowners. First, I think the rendering engine on this program is really impressive. And I confess to being completely baffled by this puzzling mystery: Why don't the Punch software people invest in some good interface design for a major new Punch release.
Punch Home design Studio is just a toy with little substance. A toy to be experimented with but not appropriate for much more. Well because I tried to return the software and was unable to return it even just the next day. Ditto for the rest of the details.
If that wasnt enough, when running it on leopard, it tends to crash and erase everything you did since the last save, so if you do intend to play with this thing, save often. When I querried about how to put in piping for my radiant floor I was told that you dont do that because the plumber does that. Clearly this is a bad hack port of a windows program. While we are on the subject of the interface, the Mac interface is very bad. Of 32 plants I had planned to put in my renovated garden, PHDSP had 2. If, on the other hand, you are looking for a program to help you design real projects for a do-it-yourselfer you are going to be sorely out of luck.
Yes I am upset. So why am I making this post. Its like a great big content editing program for a 3d video game with as much use as that. When it comes to the landscape editor, the joke gets worse. Yest, only two plants of 32 were found in the library and the interface to that library stinks.
Maybe I can eek out some cash on eBay for it.
I was told that the $149 I plopped down for a lemon with overinflated advertising was lost.
The user interface is not like a mac program but more like Office for Mac clearly a low quality hack.
In summary, I was looking for a program that was useful for helping me design my home do-it-yourself projects from installign radiant heating to planning my sprinkler system and what I got was a poorly implemented toy to assemble pre-fabricated 3d objects into a pretty picture.
Now what if I am going to be the plumber, Im supposed to just shoot from the hip.
You can put up a wall and throw down a sink but you cant run piping to that sink or electric to the bathroom lights.
Advertising scores a 10 of 10 for promising much but the program will only be minimally useful.
If you are looking for a program to do a 3d view of your dream home without any substance, this program is for you.
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