Punchsoftware: Home Design Studio For Mac
Architosh: Feature Product Review: Punch's Home Design Studio 11 for Mac
Only the tool's name appears and unfortunately this doesn't always inform you enough of how to use the tool. (see image 01-02) For folks that are new to the Mac, Punch Software has done an admirable job with the interface; we look forward to what they may do in the future, as it will make the program more intuitive. Working in Home Design Studio Getting started is easy if you simply begin with the first floor of your house.
In fact, the Active Floor drop-down menu consists of just three choices: First Floor, Second Floor and Third Floor. Unfortunately, if you begin to develop from the foundation or basement up the program itself presents a bit of confusion. A basement would technically be a floor level, yet Home Design Studio for Mac doesn't provide that in the drop down menu. What becomes confusing for those working on a basement is understanding that they want to draw their basement at a negative elevation such as -9'-0' and set your active floor to the First Floor. (see image 03).
This confusing aspect is definitely something the folks at Punch can fix in the next version. Most users will want to just jump right in to the development of the first floor.
To start you pick one of the wall tools, set your parameters in the Inspector palette, and then begin drawing your walls. Newbies to CAD software may struggle a bit here to understand the nature of 'snaps' and this is one area where Punch can make - and should make - a large improvement. While items snap together okay, there is no intelligent cursor technology that shows alignments with particular vertices on other objects. This can make closing a complex shaped house plan tricky. 04 - Common Window Elements - they can be customized by dimension and basic shapes.
Punchsoftware: Home Design Studio For Mac Download
Once you have your walls in place adding doors and windows is a snap. You choose a type, set dimensions for each item, including elevation level for the sill of the window, for instance, and then place it in the wall. (see image 04). Once in the wall you can slide it around to the desired location and use live dimensioning as your guide to where you place it. You complete walls, insert doors and windows, add color or textures to them and proceed up through your house for each floor. Adding a roof is straight forward but the user will need to understand the nuances of wall properties options in the Inspector palette in order to fill gaps in walls under roof gables and so forth. (see image 05-06).