Phoenix Software announces latest upgrades in Punch Professional range of home design products

Local software distributor, Phoenix Software, has announced the local availability of three Punch Home Design Products to enhance the design and ease of use of the home and landscape and design packages.

Punch! Professional Home Design Platinum Version 12 continues to expand its already incredible capabilities. This special two-for-one package is loaded with an incredible feature set. Users get all of the features of both industry-acclaimed Punch! Master Landscape & Home Design and Punch! Professional Home Design Suite software and more in this easy-to-use home and landscape design package.

This updated software is built on the same powerful platform as Punch Architectural Series 4000, with even more features and enhancements. With new Aerial views to see how the overall design fits together; colour sampling ensures that all of your colours fit your interior plan perfectly. Auto-elevation makes it easy for objects to be placed on floors or ceilings. Other enhanced components include lighting, editing, rendering and advanced stair texturing options. Room Wizard helps users get started fast - just input room dimensions and the rooms are created for you.

PhotoView technology lets you import real-world photos into your home and landscape designs to create a truly realistic image of your home. You can import a photo of your own home, add landscaping or deck design and then view your work from any angle - with realistic 3D perspective.

LiveView window continually updates your home designs in real-time 3D, as you draw.

Interior and exterior 2D elevations are available with a single mouse click, and the exclusive ClearView tool renders your design with a “glass house” effect. You can actually see through walls to maximise your design space.

The powerful 3D graphics engine lets users create real-time walk or fly-through for a Hollywood-style voyage through the new creation!

This garden and landscape design software allows you to create multi-level or multi-storey decks with 3D photo-realistic textures, stairs, railings, object placement and colour capabilities. Helpful deck design wizards walk you through railing, baluster options and more. Choose a basic shape or create one from scratch and watch the program draft a beautiful 3D rendering of your new deck design.

Your deck and landscaping designs come to life with photo-realistic 3D - complete with shadows - giving you a stunning, true-to-life representation of your home design.

The plant database provides extensive information for a wide plant species, including botanical name, soil and moisture requirements, mature height and other facts so you choose exactly what you want for your garden and landscape design.

The new Punch! Landscape, Deck and Patio Designer is more than just a landscaping product. It brings style and outdoor living ideas to life!

This totally new product gives you the power to choose plants specific to your region. With over 4 000 plants and 5 000 stones, pavers and outdoor materials, your designs can come to life with just a few clicks of the mouse. Need held? Integrated videos guide you step-by-step and can be easily accessed from your planning design project. Unsurpassed realism helps bring your ideas to life. Designing your outdoor living space is easy and fun! No experience needed!

Key features include:

* PhotoView Editor lets you edit your photos right in the program.
* Estimating - Entire plan, including house.
* Plant Finder - Over 4 000 plants included.
* Automatic Growth tool - See how your plantings will look years from now.
* Decorator Palette - click to switch the entire colour scheme of your design to try different colour schemes.
* Integrated Video Tutorials (no need to load separate CDs).
* Animator with special effects, fades, etc, (lets you record walk- and fly-through to share).
* 3DS Import - import pre-drawn objects - thousands available on the Web.
* Detail Creator - convert shapes to Punch! features.
* 3D Custom Workshop lets you modify objects from the library or create custom objects from scratch.
* Views - top down
* Lighting Effects - turn your lights off/on, adjust glow, beam, etc.
* Comprehensive Plan Layers - Foundation floor, roofing, deck, landscape, etc - view in whatever combination you like.
* Print scaled drawings to any size or tile to any size your printer/plotter supports.
* AutoCAD .dwg & .dxf Import/Export

Designing a home, deck or your own landscape project is easy in our most versatile home-and-landscape design software ever!

Home and Landscape Design Suite is the all-new product from Punch! two years in development and written from the bottom up.

A new code base allows for new features and enhanced performance while maintaining the features from the previous versions. Because of this combination of compatibility with previous versions mated with new features, we have labelled this nexGen technology, emphasising our focus on the future as well as differentiating this as a completely new product.

Some of the new exciting features include:

* QuickStart - The fastest way to get your design project moving quickly
* Building Green - Green feature includes eco-friendly tips and ideas that save energy and money
* Google 3D Support - Access to millions of objects for your design
* Smart Rooms - Intelligent room detection gives you complete automation that changes when you change the size or shape of your design, including the roof!
* Video Tutorials - Over 100 minutes of live video directly in the software to help you be productive right out of the box

Pricing and availability:

All products available at leading SA retail outlets at the following SRPs:

Punch! Professional Home Design Platinum 12 R999.99
Punch! Landscape Deck & Patio Designer 12 R999.99
Punch! Home & Landscape Design Suite 12 R999.9