Mobrien,
In case you want to consider something different, Google SketchUp is free and easy to use. As far as I know you can import drawings from other programs.
I do not know anything about the program you mention. I only know AutoCAD and MIcrostation.

Before you buy any brand of home design software, go to its support forums and read the posts. That will give you an idea of how its users view it. It will also give you an idea of what kind of abilities and problems lurk in the particular versions.

Programs without support forums (user groups) should be avoided, as they are likely to be so simplistic as to be unuseable. Also, if the maker requires you to pay for forum membership after a certain period, add those costs to your decision factors. You might also ask yourself what kind of manufacturer would try to extract money out of its customers by charging for user group membership.

As to Punch, it's junk. Avoid all of their products.

I would recommend the professional version of SketchUp for design.

Frog hopper hates Punch and I like it so we've had this coversation before. Since I really don't want to get into it with him again, to avoid a long back-and-forth string between the two of us, I'm only going to post on this string this one time.

I think Punch is great for non-professionals but recommend AGAINST starting with one of their upper-end versions. The upper end programs have a lot of bells and whistles that the average non-profession neither wants nor needs... and the presence of those features complicates the process of learning to use the ones you really do want.

Punch 5-in-1 is the Punch starter program and, as a total CAD novice who had never even played computer games, I found it very easy to learn... easier than Excel or Powerpoint, in fact.

Punch 5-in-1 will allow you to:

* sketch floorplans (up to three floor levels are available and it is actually possible to have more but takes a bit of finagling that you can learn how to do on the Punch user's forum if you ever need or want more than 3 floors.)
* set foundation heights at whatever height you want.
* set walls to the thickness or height you want.
* Use a flat ceiling that can be set at any height you want or you can have cathedral ceilings. (If you read reviews you'll see where some people complain that you can't change the pre-set 8' ceilings.--Balderdash!)
* add in windows (any size you want and in a broad variety of shapes/styles)
* add doors (regular swinging doors, bifold doors, patio sliding doors, pocket doors, and garage doors are available and can be set to any height/width you like.)
* put in decks (with or without railings and/or steps on any given side)
* put in staircases - straight, curved, L or U shaped or whatever shape you want. You do have to choose between having curtain walls beneath the entire staircase or none at all which was another thing that eventually bothered me because I wanted my stair case to be open on one side and closed on the other. Also you can put the handrails on the left or right side, or both, but you can't have it change sides half-way up.
* add in plumbing. you can change the dimensions of bathtubs and showers but have sink options are limited to a single bowl bathroom sink and either a double or triple bowl kitchen sink. That is a detail that will only bother you, if at all, when you're looking at your images in 3D.
* add hip or gabled roofs or a combination thereof. You can't do shed roofs on 5-in-1 however.
* do basic landscaping - I never bothered much with this feature.
* add kitchen cabinets and basic furniture from a library of objects (or you can build additional objects using a subprogram that I frankly never really mastered but I know it is doable b/c on user group people post the furnishings they have designed with the subprogram so that others can download them and it is amazing what some people are able to do.)
* add paint, wallpaper, carpeting, tile and other textures to surfaces. It is also possible to download additional textures from wherever you find them. The user group can tell you how to do it. I downloaded a metal roof texture I wanted so I know it can be done but don't recall the details of how to do it.
* walk thru 3D images of your plan. This is one of the coolest features of the program and is designed specially for us non-professionals!
* create elevations from any angle you want.

Frog hopper will tell you that you'll find a lot of complaints about the product. That is true but, because it is so inexpensive probably a lot more people buy it than ever buy one of the more expensive programs - which of course will lead to a greater number of complaints. Additionally, having read all those reviews (after my last conversation with frog hopper on the subject) I can tell you that in 99% of the cases where people were specific about what they didn't like about the program, (i.e., "Punch 5-in-1 wouldn't do X") I know for a fact that it will do "X". In other words, the complaints are from people who didn't take the time to use the tutorials to learn how to use the program... which is rather sad because it only takes a little while to run through all of the tutorials. So, the complaints are kind of someone complaining that they bought standard transmission car and it wouldn't go forward faster than about 30 mph or go backward at all and therefore standard transmissions cars are piles of junk and you should avoid them. Anyone knowledgable about standard transmission cars KNOWS that the problem was that the complainer didn't read the instructions that told them how to use the gear shift! Duh.

I found Punch 5-in-1 to be a great inexpensive program and in using it to develop my dream home I learned a huge amount about designing and what I really wanted my home to be like. I spent about 2 years playing with it (I say "playing" because it was so much fun!) Eventually though, I decided I wanted my dream home to have some features that I really could not figure out how to do properly on Punch 5-in-1. (Eg., A very complicated roof line that include hip roof sections, gable roof sections, dormer windows and a shed roof on my wrap-around-porch.) At that point I upgraded to Punch 3000 and used that to finish the design of the home I am currently building. When I took my Punch developed plans to an architect to vet and revise, he was amazed at the level of detail that I was able to provide him and ended up making only a couple of minor change in the entire plan. (We took out some patio doors on one wall of the libray and added a bay window with a window on another wall instead.)

But, as I said, I would NOT recommend starting with 3000 or any of the upgraded versions b/c they are much more complicated programs and would probably be overwhelming to start on. Beside, you can buy a used copy of Punch 5-in-1 from Amazon for under $20 so, even if you decide it isn't quite what you wanted, you certainly haven't wasted a whole lot of money.

Now, I'll cede the field to frog-hopper who no doubt will come back to tell you all the reasons why you should never bother with any CAD program that costs less than a $1000 or so - like AutoCAD.

I used an older version of punch, running on a computer lacking much graphic 'oomph'. A smarter person would have spent the money on a better computer and newer [though not TOTL] version of the software.

I had some huge issues with it at first, and feel there's quite a learning curve to any such software. There are complexities and quirks you don't see coming-- mine had a tendency to 'leak', so that indoor colors and textures would end up carpeting the lawn.

You need to budget some time for learning how to make it do what you want.

I'm normally a paper and pencil kind of guy-- love to draw-- but the ability to render the plan in 3d so that I could take the builder for a walk through or fly around was really valuable, and helps keep you honest about the size of your rooms and furniture.

I'm sure all this software is much improved-- Ikea's free kitchen planner download is lightyears ahead of my older version of Punch...

Home design software should meet several criteria if is going to be useful without providing a hair pulling experience. Besides giving the user the ability to draw two dimensional room layouts, it should provide 3D visualization. Architects are trained to visualize inhabitable space from flat two dimensional drawings. Most of the rest of us have a hard time doing that. For us, the software provides that functionality.

Quality consumer home design software is descended from professional architectural design software. Architects and other design professionals pay thousands of dollars for these programs that provide CAD with 3D visualization. Some of the manufacturers of these programs offer stripped down versions for consumers. Generally speaking, these consumer versions are every bit as accurate as the professional versions, but lack some or many of the features of their big brothers. They tend to be well documented, because the professionals demand it. It is easy and relatively inexpensive to edit existing documentation versus writing it from scratch.

The word professional needs to be put in context here. It is a marketing term, and it often abused. Just because a piece of software is labled professional doesn't make it so. However it does usually make it more expensive. :-)

Other manufacturers of consumer home design software offer a product that has no roots in professional architectural softare, and it usually shows. In my opinion, these products tend to be cobbled together 3D visualization programs without any real CAD underlayment. As a result they suffer in both accuracy and ease of use. They also tend to be particularly lacking in documentation.

The marketing of both types of consumer home design software is shameless. The manufacturers put out multiple versions of what is essentially the same thing with confusing claims as to what can be done with the product. Each version is hobbled in some way in comparison to those versions that cost more. The consumer doesn't find out exactly how the program was crippled until he or she discovers what it won't do, not what it will do.

The best bet is to select a product from one of the companies that make genuine architectural design software. There are at least two of them, perhaps more. Buy the most expensive version you can afford. It will be worth it in the long run.

I have listed some of the things I feel are very important for the home user. There are a lot of other features that are nice to have but not essential.

1. It should connect walls automatically. Software that doesn't have this feature tends to be very tedious to use. It will take much longer to produce a drawing, if the user has to postion each and every wall manually.

2. It is essential that it provide accurate dimensions from the correct structural components. It is no good to just say two walls are 12 feet apart. It is necessary to define how the measurements are taken. Are they taken from the outside of the framing, the inside of the framing, the outside of the siding, the interior drywall surface, etc? Good software will let you select and set how dimensions are taken. It will also be obvious to someone viewing the floorplan.

3. It should provide you with the ability to define your own walls. A wall definition describes how many layers the wall has, how thick each individual layer is, and what they are made of. It should handle multiple wall definitions. If you can't properly define wall layers, you will lose accuracy. It is insufficient to simply say a wall is six inches thick or four inches thick, etc.

4. It should handle curved walls. They are not that uncommon.

5. It should build staircases automatically. It should not have fixed staircase dimensions. You should be able to set the rise, run, angle, and width yourself. It should handle multiple landings. It should handle curved staircases.

6. You should be able to position and change existing walls without deleting and redrawing them. You should be able to move walls by specifying their length or relative postion to another wall or any object. If you can't do this, the software will be extremely tedious to use.

7. You should be able to break a wall with a click of the mouse and have separate definitions for differing parts of the wall. This requirement may seem exotic, but its not. For example, this is exactly what is needed to properly draw a wall that starts as an exterior wall, then continues across the back of the garage, where it becomes a fire wall by law.

8. You should be able to join walls of differing thicknesses, end to end, if necessary.

10. There should be a user definable grid that can be turned on or off. There should be a user selectable feature to snap objects to the grid.

11. It should be able to handle all types of foundations. It should not restrict you to predefined slabs, crawl spaces, and basements. You should be able to mix foundation types on the same plan.

12. You should be able to set the floor height of each room independently. There should be a means to have a change in floor height within a room.

13. Floor heights should be set relative to the ground. You should be able to set floor heights to negative values.

14. It should handle multiple unconnected structures in the same plan.

15. You should be able to set the ceiling height of each room individually. It should handle coffered ceilings. It should handles soffits and firdowns.

16. You should be able to select moldings. You should not be confined to a particular style.

17. Roofs are one of the most difficult things to draw. It should automatically generate the roof. All parts of the roof should be manually editable. You should be able to draw a roof manually. It should handle all roof types, not just gable or hip. It should handle mixed roof types, even if they must be manually drawn.

18. There should be specific provisions to draw and edit dormers.

19. It should be capable of handling attic living spaces or story and a half designs.

20. There should be a generous library of windows and doors. These should be of all common types, and they should all be editable for size and position in all directions. It should also be possible to have door frames without doors, and framed openings without casings.

21. The program should be able to display how the sun's rays will strike the house on any given date and time. This is essential to determine how light will affect the interior of the home. To do this, the program must have provisions for inputing the exact latitude and longitude of the home site and the orientation of the structure on the property. This functionality is lacking in many programs.

22. There should be a generous library of kitchen cabinets. These should be editable in industry standard increments in all dimensions.

23. There should be a generous library of furnishings and fixtures. It is essential that furnishings be editable for size, so that you may position furniture symbols in your floor plans that are sized to match your own furniture.

24. There should be multiple 3D views that can be turned and tilted. There should be an overview. There should be a dollhouse view, which allows you to look inside the house without the roof or the floor above in the way. This single feature will provide more insight into how well your design will work than any other.

25. You should be able to take sectional views of the house.

26. The program should support multiple layers. This allows you to control what is printed and what is not. Layers can also be used in difficult editing situations.

27. The program's default setting should be changeable. Virtually every default should be under the user's control. It is essential that the defaults be stored in the drawing's file.

28. There should be complete and thorough documentation. There absolutely should be a tutorial. The lack of a tutorial is a red flag.

Any program that meets all of the above will have many more features, including multiple material selections, import capabilities etc. It certainly will not be the least expensive in any given product line up, but it will be a lot more capable and a lot less frustrating than most.

I have owned most of the major CAD programs and demoed the rest. I find the tedious nature of CAD to be such that it seriously interferes with my ability to design creatively and creates terribly stiff presentations for clients. I have many architect friends who agree. We use SketchUp Pro for design and a CAD program to do the construction documents. Trying to accomplish both tasks with one 3D CAD program may seem like an efficient approach but I have not found that to be the case.

That indeed may be the case for some professional architects. For those of us without that training, 3D CAD programs are a definite plus.