Customer Reviews
Better than Most-Hard to Learn-Customer Support Lacking 
2008-08-01
I do interior design work as a part time business. I have tried several software programs but most are very limited. This is better, but I am usually fustrated with trying to design something that I can't get the system to let me do. For example, I wanted to use tin that you would normally put on a roof on an interior wall. It could not understand and would not allow me to do it. I did complete a room and wanted to present the animated verson of it to a customer however I could not find a way to open it on anyother computer. I emailed customer support and to this day, I am still waiting on an answer. I wonder if real people work there? as there is no tel # to call!
The "Interior design" in the title misleading 
2007-10-23
I expected to design new details in my existing interior but this program is useless in this respect. The program basically does visualization of the floor plan of given layout if one wants such a function. The photo editor could be very use full but the design of the editing interface is annoying and not workable. The available details are not to attractive and the learning curve is steep indeed compare with effect desired.No files of examples of interior design submited in the software (although used extensively in the product advertising's.
The user interface is terrible. 
2007-07-08
This program is awkward to use, counter-intuitive, and poorly-designed. It's unfortunate that this program requires many hours of reading through a manual of equally-poor quality just to get started. Good software allows anyone to pick it up and do something with it, with extra features and power for those users who wish to spend a little time learning advanced techniques. With this software, you'll spend a couple hours just trying to figure out how to put up four walls and some cabinets in your kitchen. Sure, it does some good stuff once you get going, but that just highlights the major design flaws of this software:
1. The UI is all over the place. Menus at the top, buttons on the left, buttons at the bottom, tabs at the top (each containing more buttons), tabs on the right (each containing menus and more buttons). I tend to immerse myself in new software by looking in all the menus and learning where things are. Good luck doing that with this product! You'll be lucky if you can find the same button twice without the manual.
2. In addition to the sins of the UI, this program also fails to handle a scenario that is increasingly common: Windows users who have increased their font sizes. Higher-resolution screens often necessitate pumping up the font size from 100% to 150% or more, and to say that this product handles it "ungracefully" would be too kind. This program assumes that you will always be using the default Windows font size, which is one thing no commercial Windows program can ever be allowed to assume. Should you be one of the many users out there who need to increase your font scaling due to poor vision, you will discover you can't use about half this program's features at all.
This program may be the best out there, but that's not saying much. This software genre desperately needs its Photoshop.
Punch for Beginners 2007-02-12
I was very anxious to receive the Punch software and thought I would be able to figure it out quickly (despite the warnings of previous reviewers). Unfortunately after 4 hours, a pinky cramp, and much frustration I found the other reviews to be very accurate. . . the software is not intuitive and you spend a lot of time just trying to figure out what you did wrong/what to do next. It would have been helpful to me if the user manual had a quick 1-2-3 guide, tipsheet, or easy button for those of us who just want to create and decorate a room---not build an entire house (or maybe that's in there somewhere and I missed it).
I also found the paint choices to be limited. Long and short of it, I put it down and have not gone back to it. My decorating project is now complete without help from Punch. Maybe I'll try tackling Punch again one day, but as of now I consider it a waste of money.
It's a very useful software when you want to do interior design yourself 
2007-01-18
There are a lot of good things about this software. The major pull-back is the learning curve, othervise it's a 5-star one. By the way, be sure to set the correct elevation of your house to start with, or you won't be able to change it once you put on walls, windows everything.
Software is cumbersome to use 2007-01-13
Interior Home Design is the all-in-one home design software package that lets you design all of the critical components for your home. Produce stunning results and create the perfect home you really crave and deserve! Preview your workin real-time 3D, taking a walk through your dream home to see how it suits you
Harder to use than I expected -- here are some tips 2006-11-20
This proved to be a very powerful program, but heed the warnings about how difficult it is to use. I use parts of MS office that no one has seen before and have a background in computer programming, and this suite still drove me very close to tears.
I used this just for an apartment floor plan to think through moving walls around, not for complete house construction or modeling.
Here are some tips that might make things smoother for you:
- For some reason, the default flooring thickness is 12", so my doors were getting lopped off at knee-level. Once I reset all the flooring thickness to 1", I could see the bottoms of my doors again.
- If you have a wide screen and it's set to 120 DPI, the display chops of some of the customization controls on the right side of the screen.
- The distinction between exterior and interior walls matters, and is often at the root of flooring and ceiling problems. (E.g., grass in the living room or tiled front lawn.) The wall types sometimes morph into each other by rules I never figured out. If I had to do this again, I'd do all the exterior walls first, lock them against changes, and then add interior ones.
- My performance with the undirected fly-through is exactly what you'd expect from watching me play speedracer. Better way: Click on the binoculars on the left and you get cursor you can position for a "controlled walkthrough." You can look around using the 3-d display, but no more accidentally falling through the floor.
Interior Dream 
2006-08-10
This was my second purchase of a product like this and I loved it. The first one I tried was difficult to use. It was so easy to use. My husband and I were unsure of our remodeling plans and with this we were able to get a vision together of how our home would look once completed. It helped us pick everything from furniture location to color of carpet and flooring. My favorite feature was the Home Estimator feature that tracked our materials useage.
You get what you put into this software. 2006-07-26
I have purchased both the Home & Gardens interior and the Punch interior software. Home & Gardens is much easier to use. You can really start without reading much of the manual. Punch demands that you read the manual (342 pages). It is not intuative. But Punch can do so much more and has so much more creativity. IE: Punch has a library of trees, shrubs and flowers for your yard. Home & Gardens only have potted plants, nothing you can use to landscape. Punch also allows you to make custom doors or windows to your exact specifications. H&G doesn't. You have to choose a set style of door or window and change options.I also could place digital photos of my backyard behind my "house" on Punch to make it more realisitic. I like both software programs, but Punch has more options, but you have to do your homework first.
Turned out to be very good 2006-03-16
Looked at them all and then bought this software... it can do a lot of things so, yes, it might take a bit to learn and get fast with.
There is a reason it has been voted best for several years now. It does a good job if you remember the very old computer saying,
"Garbage IN...Garbage OUT" 8-)
My wife loves the video tutorials that she can pop-up anytime she needs to without stopping the software and what she's working on.
Anything this complete, is worth the learning curve.
