3D Home Architect 4.0 or Punch! Home Design Suite?
BAN
home design software package. First, I want to show the entire house
in 3D, then play around with different ideas for the basement
refinishing, showing studs, soffits around HVAC ducting and so on.
Finally, I would like to make a materials list for just the basement
refinishing portion of the plan.
Which of these two packages (or any others) do you recommend for this
purpose? I have used an older version of 3DHA (version 2.1, I think).
It was OK, but not that great. There was no way to really create a
basement and it did not have framing capability. I also had to resort
to "fudging" to get things to behave correctly.
Thanks
BAN
Dan Berry
"BAN" <bj...@cinci.rr.com> wrote in message
news:a1baa469.01061...@posting.google.com...
I've used both of these programs and others as well. While punch is the
best of a poor lot, it has serious quirks that make it unsuitable for anyone
actually planning to build a home off the plans it produces. Punch has a 3
story limitation, so 2 story house with a basement as well cannot have a
loft. It cannot do round walls. It does not compute measurements
accurately (or consistently). The rendering is poor compared to the
broderbund product as well. It's fine for a quick and dirty look at
something though. I still use it for rough stuff, but I'm learning autocad
and povray.
POVRAY is free and you can see some of it's capabilities at
http://www.povray.org/
autocad's clone intellicad is free as well. It won't do some of the high
end things autocad will, but the intellicad pro version will...it's a
hundred bucks or so. Check out www.cadopia.com for that program.
I think we are still a couple years away from a true home-design program for
the masses that produces nice pictures and a proper plan. Chief architect
is one of the better pro software packages out there but it's 1000 bucks.
You can check it out at http://www.chiefarchitect.com/ If it were 100
bucks, I'd have bought it.
I've not used it, but archicad produces some nice quality output as well.
Not sure of the price though. http://www.graphisoft.com
There are many more, but the price keeps getting higher and higher. :)
Good luck!
Dan
Eric and Kristin Brewer
designer used a pro version of 3DHA. Punch's features were fine for what I was
doing, which was just playing around with ideas of my own before presenting them
to the designer. However, it has serious bugs. It would crash on average at
least once every time I used it, especially when doing 3d rendering. The screen
would get distorted and the mouse would still move, but I couldn't do anything
but hit reset (I don't believe ctrl-alt-del even worked). Major annoyance and
waste of precious time.
If it were free I would recommend getting Punch! and trying it on your system.
If it crashes I would get 3DHA because I have heard that it is excellent and
fairly inexpensive. Plus you can send the file to the designer to view and work
with.
Also, check with your designer and see if any of his previous clients have a
copy that they could let you borrow. This almost happened for us, but the
person couldn't remember who he lent it too.
Good luck, Eric
"Dan Berry" <sapph...@nospam.home.com> wrote:
/
/"BAN" <bj...@cinci.rr.com> wrote in message
/news:a1baa469.01061...@posting.google.com...
/> I am thinking about refinishing our basement and would like to use a
/> home design software package. First, I want to show the entire house
/> in 3D, then play around with different ideas for the basement
/> refinishing, showing studs, soffits around HVAC ducting and so on.
/> Finally, I would like to make a materials list for just the basement
/> refinishing portion of the plan.
/>
/> Which of these two packages (or any others) do you recommend for this
/> purpose? I have used an older version of 3DHA (version 2.1, I think).
/> It was OK, but not that great. There was no way to really create a
/> basement and it did not have framing capability. I also had to resort
/> to "fudging" to get things to behave correctly.
/>
/> Thanks
/> BAN
--
sorry, don't forget to remove *NO_SPAM* from my email address
Walt
entering my house's plan, and it has several curved walls. I
actually found a "get around" by simply making a bunch of 8"
long straight walls, and attaching them at slight angles. It
works out rather well, and I actually, think a bit closer to
how curved walls are actually built.
I thought that 3DHA Deluxe was based off of Chief Architect. Matter
of fact, there is an upgrade path from 3DHA Deluxe to Chief Architect.
BTW, 3DHAD is out in version 4.0? I have (only) v3.0. :( Can
someone confirm the latest version number?
Dan Berry wrote:
>
> It cannot do round walls.
> I think we are still a couple years away from a true home-design program for
Michael Bruss
: I am thinking about refinishing our basement and would like to use a
: home design software package. First, I want to show the entire house
: in 3D, then play around with different ideas for the basement
: refinishing, showing studs, soffits around HVAC ducting and so on.
: Finally, I would like to make a materials list for just the basement
: refinishing portion of the plan.
Forget 3DHA (I think latest is v.3) for this. It's great for doing
concepts, but not the detail that you want. You can do room layout,
cabinets, doors, windows and other large-scale visible surfaces. It's lousy
for doing hidden infrastructure and materials lists.
Mike
Walt
While you make a good point, 3DHAD is IMHO the best of the non-
professional (home-use) software packages after having bought
many of them.
3DHAD would allow you to do the design work, instead of paying an
architect for his design abilities and time ($$$), and just pass
on your design work to either a draftsman or a structural engineer
to come up with a set of 'real' blueprints. In other words, you
end up only having to pay for "drawing time" instead of "designing
time plus drawing time".
BTW, it seems that 3DHAD v4 can do infrastructure, though I haven't
tried it yet so I can't comment on how useful it really is.
Walt
http://www.learningco.com/product.asp?OID=4144503&SC=1105635&CID=20
Anthony M. Ippolito
round walls
--
Anthony Michael Ippolito
Architectural Drafting Services
ippo...@quik.com
http://charleston.quik.com/ippolito
Custom Home Plans, Cad Drafting Services using AutoCad LT. 2000
over 40 years experience
"Walt" <Wa...@Early.com> wrote in message news:3B29083C...@Early.com...
Walt
David Brock
worth $70. I'm sticking with my 3d Home Architect.
"Walt" <Wa...@Early.com> wrote in message news:3B815518...@Early.com...
eff1 fan
<ippo...@quik.com> wrote:
>You can download a simple shareware at IMSI which will work well and will do
>round walls
i'm getting in very late on this thread, but to reply to the subject,
i'd suggest punch home design suite (officially called "punch
*professional* home design suite).
i just went through punch 5-in-1, which was disappointing. then i
tried 3dha 4.0, which i felt wasn't much better. i'm now using punch
pro. thus far, i'm pretty pleased and feel it is much better than the
others for the price. it's object library seems smaller than 3dha.
but it does have a furniture builder, so you can at least build what
you want. for me, the big pluses are the liveview, the clearview, the
layering feature, the ability to make a paint/texture a wall a
different color than the rest in the room (or on the outside of the
building), the landscape design aspects, etc.
Gary
Gary
Dan Berry
"Gary" <gar...@REMOVEMEhotmail.com> wrote in message
news:2Yii7.747$ua.1...@newscontent-01.sprint.ca...
> Hello, I just got into this thread, what is the consensus?"
>
> Gary
>
I've been plugging away with punch for about 3 years and have been
marginally satisfied. Both products are capable of quick and dirty type
stuff, but my opinion is (and has been) that we are still a couple years
away from true reasonably priced home-design software that can be used to
design a home. I've played with everything from
autocad/archicad/intellicad/chief arch/3d homearch/data becker etc. The
more capable the software, the steeper the learning curve. I like punch
simply because it's cad functions are adequate enough to fill in for it's
shortcomings. My final drawings will likely be done in intellicad. It's
free and powerful enough to do most anything.
I can say that when I upgraded to punch pro, and my box arrived empty,
customer support was very good. I had a disk within a few days.
What I've discovered with designing a house: There is very little new under
the sun. The plans I've been playing with are similar to european houses
built 300 years ago. The availability of properly designed house plans on
the internet for a reasonable price would lead me to buy stock plans if you
can find a design that pleases you. Our desire to build something that was
simple and uncomplicated led us to designing our own house. There seems to
be a void in the marketplace for such homes.
Dan
eff1 fan
<gar...@REMOVEMEhotmail.com> wrote:
>Hello, I just got into this thread, what is the consensus?"
there was no real consensus. but i could encourauge you to go to
http://groups.google.com and put in the name of this thread. you'll
get all the messages. one poster stated that punch pro was buggy
and caused his system to crash. i've been using it steadily for
several days now under windows 2000. not a single problem. (note
that i didn't have crash problems with the punch 5-in-1 version.)
what are you trying to do with these progs? designing a new house?
my use is to investigate renovation and interior design ideas, along
with landscaping options. thus far is seems fine at this task, though
the full verdict is still out on how good the landscaping is; e.g.,
it's difficult to get the topography for my lot just right.