Product Description

HOME DESIGN STUDIO PRO

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1841 in Software
• Brand: Punch Software
• Model: 91100
• Platform: Mac
• Format: CD-ROM
• Dimensions: 2.75 pounds

Features

• All the tools you need to design your house inside and out, right out of the box
• Draw your design in 2D; take a 3D Hollywood-style walk through as your 2D creative changes auto-update in the 3D view
• Assistants for cabinets, roofs, etc., editable room & deck templates, plus an extensive drag & drop library
• PhotoView lets you personalize your design with imported photos; add ambient realism with Precision Lighting Planner
• Includes a massive plant library along with our popular automatic growth tool, so you can plan spacing and see what your landscape will look like a few years down the road

Amazon.com
Punch! Home Design Studio Pro, for the Mac, makes your home design experience more powerful than ever. Written from the ground-up, for Mac users by Mac users. All the tools you need--work smarter and faster with simple tools that make designing as fun as it is powerful!

All the tools you need to design your house inside and out, right out of the box.

Start designing right out of the box with the intuitive interface, assistants for cabinets, roofs, etc., editable room & deck templates, plus the extensive drag & drop library. Add ambient realism with Precision Lighting Planner. PhotoView lets you personalize your design with imported photos.

Design your house inside and out.
Includes a massive plant library along with our popular automatic growth tool, so you can plan spacing and see what your landscape will look like a few years down the road. Draw your design in 2D; take a 3D Hollywood-style walk through as your 2D creative changes auto-update in the 3D view. Building on our solid Mac debut product, Punch! Home Design Studio Pro is a robust release, which also brings to the design table the following new features:

• Estimator--Track costs, as you draw, then view your estimate schedules in a handy, spreadsheet format.
• Fireplace Assistant--Create a custom, editable fireplace, based on criteria you select--includes style, mantel, hearth, firebox, building material, & chimney options.
• Door & Window Designers--Customize doors and windows for your projects--custom panels, and grids—all to your specs!
• Global Sun Positioning--Set scientifically precise lighting angles, based on your position on earth, date, time, and daylight savings time.
• Room Assistant--Plan your space, input dimensions, and walls are auto-generated to create your rooms.
• Site Planner--Enter coordinates from your plot plan, legal description, or measurements and your property line is drawn for you.
• Fillet, Inverse Fillet, & Chamfer tools--Use these powerful editing tools to easily customize your designs.
• Object Organizer--Create custom categories, then move objects from library to library, so you can quickly locate your favorites or organize them the way you use them.
• DXF/DWG Import & Export--Convert existing drawings to Punch! files or use the export option to share a drawing file with a friend or architect.
• Video Tutorials--Watch and learn with video tutorials.
• 3D Custom Workshop Pro--Edit existing objects and design, download, or insert your own CAD objects to expand your library.
• Google SketchUp Import (3D Custom Workshop Pro)--Import predrawn objects--thousands available on the web-—to convert and use in your Punch! drawings.

Other enhancements include—Content Panel, visual aspects, faster performance, editable planting details, onscreen detailing of lights, windows, doors, cabinets, & crown trim; export option for compatibility with older versions of Punch! Home Design products & file compatibility with our new line of PC products. Get the professional results you’ve come to expect from Punch! Software—along with a fun, easy-to-use interface.

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Customer Reviews

The best thing about this software is the 90 day money back guarantee
I am sorely disappointed. Let me first say that I am a graphics professional, with image, video, and 3D modeling and animation background. So I did not expect incredible quality or even an easy to use program. But this thing is ridiculous.

First off YOU CANNOT IMPORT YOUR OWN TEXTURES. We are doing our kitchen and I was hoping to visualize materials, but even with a pretty extensive library of materials (I found the granite we wanted to use for counters), I could not import our tile options for the backsplash, and other things. Don't get me wrong you can import image files...as image planes, but not as textures!

Object library is stupid. 3 types of cabinets, categorized under lt cabinets and dk cabinets. Funny though not all cabinet shapes and sizes are there in all 3 colors. For example there may be a dark raised panel base cabinet, but not a light colored one. So then I use the custom workshop pro, where you can place any material on any object, and I think cool I can just texture each size and shape I need as needed. Yeah if you want to manually drag the texture to each shape (about 30) that make up each cabinet. Then I try the cabinet assistant, this should work for me right...wrong. The assistant has 4 steps, 1 pick cabinet type, 2 pick the direction the cabinet should face, 3 pick sizes and door style (shaker or raised panel) and your done! What about wood type and color? What about the other 10-20 styles of cabinet doors? Sure I can manually "paint" each cabinet but it seems to me that you should be able to layout the basic cabinets in your layout, and then globally choose a style/color for the entire kitchen.

moving in 3d "live view" is difficult at best.

you cannot move objects in a 3d view, only over head

measuring is by default done by measuring to the center of walls, not how I would measure my real space (wall to wall)

lighting and shadowing in rendered scenes is not even close to accurate (based on how objects are drawn from what I can tell)

I haven't even began to try and use any of the other "features" but I'm sure most of the program is as obtuse as the features I did try.

perhaps the pc version is better but overall this product sucks

Complex - Big learning curve
Home Design Studio Pro is a very complex design package. It has a steep up-front learning curve that will take hours and hours to get over. Once you're past that curve, you can create some really good designs. However, be aware that the curve for novices might be too steep. Even for the seasoned computer user, the learning curve to create your first design will be tough. I still have not gotten to the vast majority of the features but I have confidence that once I learn how to do some of the more complex steps, the package will be everything I wanted. Check back in several months to see if I made it over the curve!

punch home design studio pro for mac
i had read many reviews about this software before deciding to purchase it, and honestly i was a bit reluctant to do so. however, given that it was the only software out there that was reasonably priced i ignored all the negativity i had encountered about it and threw the money down like i was at caesar's. when it arrived i was actually quite shocked by the amount of instruction that it was apparently going to take before actually dabbing in the programs. after about two hours of reviewing the overall functions, terms, familiarizing myself with the icons, and just simply reading instruction i said to hell with it. i loaded the software and simply began a 'project'. it was then when i realized that the best way to learn the software is to actually use it, while keeping the manual along side the applications for reference. because truth be told, everything i reviewed or read didn't make any sense until i was implementing it within the program. i think i can safely suggest that after about an hour of actually using the software i was already familiar with its format, etc. how would i rate it? personally, i love it, and i think it's actually very versatile. though, there are some things that i will admit i don't like about it (certain limitations), just as there are things that one would expect to dislike about any type of software. however, i think the more i work with the software the more i will find ways around my issues. all in all, i gave it four stars because it's functional, practical, and versatile... and for the money you really can't do better. still, i don't believe that this is intended for the professional. it's rather limited when it comes to 'details'. i've noticed some suggesting that the hvac, or estimator, or electrical, or even the measurements are inaccurate. but really, these are aspects of the program that you really have to lend attention to and learn thoroughly. yes, it's an inconvenience, while expecting that the program should just do the work for you. nonetheless, it's still a good program to use for the non-professional (once you've gotten past the novice stage).