Home architecture software

I need to make some cutout graphics of houses and so I took a run through the available software. Here are the ones that I considered.

• IMSI http://www.imsisoft.com/
• Better Home and Gardens Achitectural Home Designer http://www.homedesignersoftware.com/
• Punch Design Suite http://www.punchsoftware.com/
• 3D Architecte Expert CAD 2009 http://www.microapp.com/

1. I have used IMSI for years but I have ever been impressed with the graphic quality, speed or 3d usability of the product. It does work but they’ve gone through so many versions, changing so much that unless the latest version looked amazing was not going to spend more time with them. The latest version did not look amazing.
2. Better Home and Gardens had much nicer looking output that did not take too long to generate. 3d manipulation was relatively easy (though sometimes the mouse control would be limited as in zooming and only the keyboard could zoom closer). They also had many training videos and sample images on their website. It is backed by a professional design software (Chief Architect) too and has a 30 day guarantee.
3. However my first post to their forums was deleted by the moderator and my second was also edited later by the moderator to delete any mention of the previous deletion. For a first time user asking for help this does not look good. Additionally there are some graphic card issues, my older nvidia card was not powerful enough to preview bookcases in their item library for example so I had to upgrade my video card to something newer. The sample plans look pretty similar and I could not find any landscaping samples.
4. Punch Design looks like it might do what I want but their website was so limited that I did not go much farther. I had hoped to see more examples of the interface in use but all they had were scanned images of their boxes which I could not zoom into to see details. The screenshots were only on how to use the quickstart feature but not of anything else.
5. Their Macintosh version interested me too but after reading the many bad experiences on Amazon.com that did not look like a winner either. Also, there are many references to it not being a single program but a whole bunch of programs that makes me hesitant as well. Also their graphic output, at least in their few examples) did not seem as smooth as Better Home and Gardens.

3D Architecte Expert CAD looks like it would do everything I would want... excepting that it is in French. There are a wide variety of templates, a wide variety of modern furniture models, nice looking landscape examples. I seem to remember that it used to be Punch reworked in French though.

Tags: 3d