David Thompson says:

IMSI FloorPlan 3D Advantage over Punch Architect 4000 I own both the IMSI (FloorPlan 3D Version 5) and Punch (Architect 4000) software titles, and the following are my own conclusions. I have no vested interest in either manufacturer. I have a doctorate in Mechanical Engineering, and have taught interactive computer graphics, so I guess I am more than usually familiar with computers and design.I designed my previous home using the IMSI package, and after using it to capture the design, I passed it along to a draftsman to create drawings for the permitting process. I found that the package was easy to use (although a bit weird), and that it generally worked great. When we moved in, the home was absolutely spectacular! So, when we moved to another state to retire, we decided to repeat the process. Even though I still had the IMSI software (Version 5) and it readily installed onto XP, I thought that surely there had been improvements. So, I took the time to find the “best package out there”. The reviews I read said that the Punch (Architect 4000) package was rated best, had the most features, blah, blah, blah. So I bought it, in spite of paying approximately 3X what I would pay for the latest IMSI version of FloorPlan 3D. The manual is about an inch thick, but I started wading through, thinking that this was the learning cost of a really good package. The manual seemed reasonable and there are TONS of features (read complexity), but when I actually tried to use the program, I couldn’t get anything done. Everything was hard to do. Then, and this was the killer for me, whenever I saved data, I could never read the file back in. I tried everything, and eventually thought that it was my fault, so I went back to my old IMSI package because I had a house to design.I quickly got up to speed because IMSI wins out hands down for its simple user interface. I struggled with both initially, but soon found that IMSI’s wall layout tool, while weird, was useable. It’s ease of use (tailorable wall heights, pushing even non-rectilinear wall segments around, changing wall thicknesses, immediate demonstration of dimensions and room square footage, changing wall and floor materials, colors, and texture, etc) allowed one to work pretty quickly. I was never able to use Punch’s layout editor efficiently. Ever! Forget saving the data so you could work on a design again. Even just creating a simple layout was a huge struggle. Unless you knew the design beforehand, it was very difficult to lay out a floor plan interactively. This was what IMSI was good at. Even with a fully designed floorplan, I had trouble with the Punch program.IMSI was also the easiest in viewing your design in 3D. Again, the viewing tools were weird and somewhat non-intuitive, but eventually useful. Punch’s 3D viewer was totally useless, and I was never able to control the views, no matter what I did. And, “Hey!”, I taught computer graphics.After spending many hours getting a complete design (from my working with IMSI) entered into a freshly-reloaded Punch, I again tried to save my work. When I went back to work on it some more, it was unreadable. The file was there, but there was some formatting error that made it unreadable. I was furious, but thankfully, I had the IMSI design captured. So, I had a decision- Waste more time trying to debug a program I had paid 3X more for than the IMSI FloorPlan 3D, or spend my time getting work done on my house plan. Actually, I downloaded a free upgrade to Version 5.1 and got busy. Now I am thinking of purchasing IMSI’s Version 11 as I am finalizing our house plan and like some of the new features and abilities of the new software.To be candid, neither software package was bug-free. IMSI occasionally doesn’t allow you to move a wall, but that is almost always because there is some constraint that is disallowing the modification. I found Punch to be even more restrictive. While I was able to export the IMSI design as a vrml file and e-MAIL it to my son to review, Punch had the greatest number of export file options. Too bad it always lost my saved designs. Neither package really creates beautiful 3D graphics, but IMSI’s simple renderings were adequate for previewing the design work. I also liked IMSI’s design methods using internal room dimensions. But, neither program made it clear how to proceed in starting a design from scratch. Nowhere did they tell you whether you could design the 2nd floor first, whether you had to layout the foundation beforehand (Punch), etc.Finally, I should mention that I wanted to input site information for my lot, but that was too costly in terms of time. Interestingly, I downloaded Google’s free Sketchup software, imported my IMSI design (in dxf file format), and was able to place it on the terrain using a Sketchup to Google Earth tool, and then interactively view it in 3D on my 10 acre lot using Google Earth. I found out that I have some…