Home design Software

When we decided to buy our home (which is being constructed) I had to look quite a bit to figure out which of the myriad applications availble was worth shelling out the cash for. The one that I decided to shell out the moolah for, was Punch Software's Professional Platinum software (v8.0). I found that this software was very fast in rendering 3d views from your plans. Though my only gripe was that the user interface is not very intutive and takes some learning. Also there are no wizards that help you do the setup. For that matter the documentation is not very good too. But with some work I got my stuff working and got very good results. I think if you are the kind of person who is willing to explore the software and take on a steep learning curve - you will definetly like this software. It also allows you to design your garden and do landscaping and from some screen shots that I have seen - its pretty good - though I havent tried it out myself yet. Punch Platinum Pro The version I bought was $100. But they have another one thats about $30 cheaper and is good if all you want to do is design your home and not the garden. Other softwares that I read about: * Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Suite http://www.homedesignersoftware.com/products/products.htm This software got the highest rankings in almost every review that I read. Heard that people who had never used design software before - found this to be very good. Check out the samples they have on the website - its very impressive * 3D Home Architect® Design Suite Deluxe 6 by Broderbund The user interface is not supposed to be very easy in this one and havent seen many people give very good reviews about this software. Checked it out only because I knew about BroderBund from way back when they used to make great PC games. I found this review to be very useful: http://www.consumersearch.com/www/software/home_design_software/fullstory.html Its very indepth and basically they recommend the Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Suite. Also, most of these companies have demos, so it would make sense that you download them and test them out for yourself.