![Punch! Home Design Studio (Mac) [OLD VERSION]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51TPbvfXHbL.jpg)
Category: (Software)
3 new, starting at $95.54
2 used, starting at $72.99
This isn’t just a Mac-compatible version, but a complete, stand-alone product that puts all of Home Design Studio’s state-of-the-art features in the hands of Mac users,” says Pierce. “They can quickly explore an almost infinite number of ways to improve and enhance exteriors, interiors and landscapes, and then get a photo-realistic view in 3D, from virtually any angle.
Terrible Program!Reviewed by D. Rose, 2008-11-04
I used 3D Home Architect for years on a PC, going back several years. I finally found this program for the Mac, and was hopeful, but the program is useless. The interface is not intuitive, and nothing seems to work the way it should. Even simple features like copy and paste seem to fail. What a disappointment!
Worst Home Design Program EverReviewed by S. M. Jefferies, 2008-11-02
This is absolutely the worst home design program I have ever used. 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. I bought this one because the Punch website had tons of beautifully rendered graphics and they supposedly won several awards. Here's the truth-the graphics are the worst I've seen on a home design program since the early 90's. Far from being realistic, they remind me of that old Dire Straits video "Money for Nothing". The objects lack basic details like door knobs and trim with beveled edges. Also, there are very few objects to choose from, for instance there's only one shower and it's a corner shower. So if you would like anything other than a corner shower in your bathroom, that's just too bad. They also only have one style of kitchen sink-a double bowl. So again, if you would like a single or a triple sink, I guess you'll just have to use your imagination. The program is also supposed to draw curved walls. Well, that's a lie. The truth is it draws a "curve" by using a group of straight and diagonal walls. So if you want to draw a circle, it will come out an octagon. The other major problem I have with this program is how hard it is to use. 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. 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. I've now read the entire manual with the hope that once I've learned everything, I'll be able to enjoy it. But every time I use it, I just want to cry because it's such a terrible program. Bottom line, don't let Punch's fancy ads and awards fool you. This program just sucks!
Much less developed than Windows versionReviewed by spinoza, 2008-07-26
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.
A Puzzling Product StoryReviewed by zeppocat, 2008-06-11
I've been working with this software five days a week, 7-plus hours
a day. I've read many reviews about it. 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? This software has such obvious potential.
The review consensus, here and at other sites, seems to boil down
to this: it is hands-down, the best home-design out there. AND this
is faint praise because it has few competitors that can touch it in
power and flexibility, short of a professional CAD program. This is
a mass-market product; there are lots of small businesses trying to
use it as well as plenty of homeowners. 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.
After using it myself, I have some suggestions to make. In fact,
I'll lead the redesign team myself, if they want me to, because for
me, it was hours of fun. Really. with so much missed
revenue-generating potential, I'd work for stock options. The
property has SUCH potential that I don't know why it's been
overlooked by its publishers.
First, I think the rendering engine on this program is really
impressive. It has reasonable rendering rates on reasonably
affordable platforms such as the Intel-backed iMacs. 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).
That said, the critics are only partly right about the usability
problems. 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. 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.
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. But
most of the core features are in place.
The real missed opportunity here lies in features. Many of the
features most useful to users are also target-marketing
opportunities to die for. For instance, the program has Content
Libraries, and advertises their availability as a feature. The
libraries include content from home design product vendors, such as
tile, paint, and wallpaper vendors. I was pleased to see they had a
Partner program that included Sherwin-Williams, since there was a
store near the design site. I'd looked forward to picking up paint
chips and trying out various colors. The problem was, there was no
way to match the color samples at Sherwin-Williams to the
representations of color in the program. 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. exterior, or finish availability.
You see what I mean? This is an obvious win-win if Punch can work a
bit on that partner program and the business model supporting 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. Doh! What am I missing
here? Can it be this easy?
Punch's concept is right, but the libraries are so disappointingly
limited that its utility as a design tool is likewise limited.
Design features we wanted to add, such as a greenhouse window, were
missing. Simple window features, such as recessed frames, are
missing. These are missed opportunities for manufacturers of
windows. Well, you can't have everything before you ship,
right?
No, but you can provide ways of updating content, and importing and
exporting content so users who have unique architectural features
can create them. Perhaps they could share objects with others.
Users creating and sharing (free) content creates user communities.
User communities create more marketing opportunities. More content
attracts more users.
Punch's decision to use a proprietary graphics format just doesn't
seem to make economic sense. 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. This is an old business model, and Google's
SketchUp, with it's open formats, may eventually catch up with
it.
All of this is a shame, because the software is lots of fun,
despite these gripes. We've found it useful. So on the whole, I'd
buy it again. But what a shame.
Great Toy, Light on serious featuresReviewed by Robert Simmons Jr., 2008-05-14
If you are looking for a program to do a 3d view of your dream home
without any substance, this program is for you. 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.
Punch Home design Studio is just a toy with little substance. 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. Its like a great big
content editing program for a 3d video game with as much use as
that. A toy to be experimented with but not appropriate for much
more. 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. Now what if I am going to be the plumber, Im supposed to just
shoot from the hip? Ditto for the rest of the details.
When it comes to the landscape editor, the joke gets worse. Of 32
plants I had planned to put in my renovated garden, PHDSP had 2.
Yest, only two plants of 32 were found in the library and the
interface to that library stinks.
While we are on the subject of the interface, the Mac interface is
very bad. Clearly this is a bad hack port of a windows program. The
user interface is not like a mac program but more like Office for
Mac -- clearly a low quality hack. 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.
So why am I making this post? Well because I tried to return the
software and was unable to return it even just the next day. I was
told that the $149 I plopped down for a lemon with overinflated
advertising was lost. Maybe I can eek out some cash on eBay for it.
Yes I am upset.
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. Advertising scores a 10 of 10 for promising much but the
program will only be minimally useful.
