Punch! Home & Landscape Design Suite NG2

Rarely do I feel like I have been ripped off when I purchase software but this makes me regret ever purchasing the software. I had an older version and it was quirky and difficult but you could get most things done. I decided to upgrade based on the "new interface" and powerful new features. WHAT A JOKE.

- The auto roof generating does what it wants. Yes, you can create your own roof but it will generate it's roof over yours and even if you delete generated roof the program puts it back. You had better want the roof they picked or you are out of luck.
- The garage has a perimeter foundation not a slab and it is difficult/impossible to change. You would think that a garage is a slab but apparently most people park indoors
- Garage is part of livable area and no way to change the behavior
- Rooms randomly change name
- Exterior walls end up segmented in odd ways so there is no way to easily generate a gabled house end and let's not discuss stupid stuff like the gables point the opposite direction of the style, etc.
- They removed most of the items from the library so your choices are VERY limited
- The FAQ says you cannot import library items so you had better like what is left of spend a ton of time drawing your own. There is no way to expand or leverage other work.
- There is only about 6 door styles left so you had better want one of those. AND you had better not want sliding doors on a closet unless it is a sliding glass door (yes clear and can't be painted).
- The grid randomly locks things to specific sizes and index steps. Never mind how you set up the grid parameters.
- There are no scroll bars so you can't zoom in to work on an area and move to another area. You have to zoom out and zoom in again.
- You have to paint doors, etc. from both sides and casings from both sides if you want them to change color completely. That is a lot of clicks to get a white door. Plus, you can't do it from anywhere you can see them, you have to be inside the room. That means you have to get inside of a closet if you want the door to be painted; given the narrow view angle the small space is tricky.
- If a casing is 0" wide it leaves the inside edge of a door wood grain even if the doors are painted AND there is no way to change the color.
- No full height cabinets and no ability to change door styles unless you go design your own cabinet library.

The list of issues goes on but I finally gave up because you can't even draw the most simple floorplan. I am sure that there are even more problems when you start with landscaping, electrical, plumbing, cabinets.

There is no value in this product and I regret having given money to this company. I feel as if it is falsely advertised and that my money was essentially stolen. Purchase this product at your own peril.

I purchased this software in order to visualize changes I wanted to make to my home. I was apprehensive at first because I thought it would be difficult. I have tried using this type of program years ago and never could figure it out. I'm so glad I gave it another shot! The instructional videos answered all my questions before I even got started and walked me through how to utilize the features. I found it so easy to drag each room and just drop it where I wanted it to go. I also was able to change the paint, flooring, and even add my furniture with the click of my mouse so that I could see how my home would look when it was finished. I also liked the green features the program provided. Being able to save money and help the environment is very important to my wife. We were able to click on an icon and see where we could save energy and even got some ideas on materials to use. There was even a feature that kept track of the building materials I was going to need so that I ensured I stayed within my budget. I had so much fun doing the inside that I decided to try and play around with my outdoors. Although I was not intending to redo any landscaping, I have ideas for the future. I live in the desert and have a hard time keeping plants alive in the summer. The program has a tool that helped me find the types of plants that work best for where I live.

There was only two reviews, so I had to ad mine.

BACKGROUND
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I am a Sr Software Engineer with 25+ years of designing software in over 18 programming languages and compensated accordingly. So a program has to be pretty bad for me to say this... I have years in CAD as well as programs like Visio... This program is challenged, complex does not apply, instead poor user interface, basically antiquated.

Usage
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Installing was a snap, with no unexpected messages etc. Went right in. I installed it in both Win7 x64 & WinXP SP3 wiht out issue. Now to the fun part. I went over the videos which were really clean and straight to the point. The problem was I could not get the software to work the way the videos showed it.

Mouse Issues
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The main problem was that the tool bar has some dropdown options, when you click on the icon, well it did not work at all in Win7 x64. Under XP I was able to actually get them to work, but just barely.

Overall
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The walls kept snapping no matter what I turned off. I could not put accurate dimensions in. I tried painting the walls in a room and walking inside, it was extremely difficult. I could go on and on with the detailed problems. The interface was very dated, looks like a late 1990's program which has been patched and patched to get it to run in modern OS's. So it was hard to navigate in the drawing.

Support
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Looks good, but no updates or comments about the problems I am having on two separate computers. I wish I had downloaded the demo first. Maybe I got a really bad copy, all I know is I am out $$ dollars as I bought it months ago and did not get a chance to try it. No ones fault, but mine.

Download Demo First
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Each person has different level of acceptance, I was very disappointed, for me it was a waste of time to install it, not once, but twice. No matter. Please follow the link below to download a demo version. I am assuming it works, since I found it, but did not try it first etc...

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