PUNCH! SOFTWARE

About Punch! Software

Punch! Software® was founded in 1998 with the premise that 3D design software and home design software should be as fun to use as they are productive. In September 1998, the first Punch! home design software, Home Design Complete, was marketed.

In November of 2006 Punch! acquired CadSoft Solutions to expand into the neighboring Computer Aided Design (CAD) market. Carrying these CAD products into their existing channels, Punch became the fastest growing retail CAD company in 2007 and retains the leading market share in this segment through today with the ViaCAD™ product line. In 2008, Punch! launched the innovative SHARK™ line of conceptual design tools which quickly gained recognition for their innovative approach to design, deep feature set, interoperability, and value.

Punch! recognizes the value of the CAD market and is currently growing an excellent base of partners who can assist in sales and support of professional CAD users. Punch! provides separate and distinct sales and support services for the professional and the more casual user, while at the same time sharing development resources across both groups. Using these methods, Punch! delivers exceptional products at a competitive price point in all markets.

In May of 2010, Encore Software acquired the assets of Punch! bringing significant additional resources to the products, business partners, and customers. And by June, the combined teams have successfully launched two new CAD titles - ViaCAD™ 2D/3D v7 and Shark™ FX v7.

Encore retains and reinforces the Punch! mission to be the leading global provider and destination for design solutions. We achieve this by developing highly productive, but very affordable, software that appeals to consumers, 3D design hobbyist, and professional users.

With more than 3 million units of its Mac and Windows products sold via retail stores across the world and online, Punch! Software® has consistently been the best-selling home and landscape design retail software brand in the U.S. for the last 11 years.

Home Design Software

Easy and intuitive tools let you take a fresh powerful approach to the way you want to design! You can plan room additions,design an outdoor living area, remodel your kitchen or bath with the latest designs or see what landscaping will look best by importing a photo, adding plants and trees and watch them grow!There is no design experience needed!With our exclusive nexGen technology just drag and drop rooms, it’s that easy!

• Instructional videos, tutorials, and sample drawings
• Drag & drop an entire furniture arrangement into your room. Move individual pieces around to fit your design vision.
• Global Sun Positioning™ takes the guesswork out of setting lighting conditions. Set the sun angle for your plan based on your geographical location.
• Updated cabinet and outdoor living objects make your outdoor entertainment ideas a reality! Create outdoor kitchens, decks, seating areas, fireplaces, fountains, and so much more!
• Save money and energy with our “Going Green” function! Choose from a library of eco-friendly building materials and get advice from our integrated building green design tips!
• Control material and project costs with our Estimator™. Easily edit your material list and print it out!
• Order blueprints or shop on-line without leaving your design

Landscape Design Software

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 Help? 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! PhotoView Editor™ lets you edit your photos right in the program.

• Estimating - Entire Plan, including house.
• Plant Finder - Over 4,000 plants included vs. the competition with only 2,000.
• Automatic Growth tool - See how your plantings will look years from now.
• Decorator Palette™ - click to switch the entire color scheme of your design to try different color schemes.
• Integrated Video Tutorials (no need to load separate CDs.)
• Animator with special effects, fades, etc. (Lets you record walk and fly throughs to share.)
• 3DS Import - import predrawn 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

Kitchen & Bathroom Design Software

• Kitchen & Bath objects libraries
• Clean, simple user interface with collapsible toolsets
• Building Green design tips, objects and materials
• Drag & Drop texture libraries including wall coverings and paint
• Customizable Door & Window styles
• Automatic floor plan dimensioning
• Cabinet Designer, material finder, lighting planner, sinks and faucets, toilets, tubs, showers and spa bathtubs.
• Photo realistic walk-throughs and so much more!

2D CAD Design Software - Powerful Tools for 2D Architectural Design

Quickly create intelligent walls that automatically heal when positioned next to other walls. Explore new wall configurations by dragging or precisely changing parameters that control length, angle, and thickness. Add custom wall styles for detailed wall components or drag intelligent doors and windows onto walls.

• powerful, yet easy to use, design, drafting, and technical illustration tool
• comprehensive set of drafting and annotation tools making it the perfect choice for producing anything from simple sketches to fully dimensioned, standards compliant, production ready drawings
• supports a wealth of curve creation and editing tools including access to over 275 tools
• numerous methods for constructing points, lines, splines, arcs, circles, ellipses, and rho valued conics
• editing tools exist for changing parameter values of curves, localized and global edits using transformations such translating, rotating, and scaling
• additional utilities are available for filleting, filling, smoothing, chamfering, trimming, breaking, elevating, and extending
• automatically create precise wireframe and hidden line drawings from any 3D component or assembly.
• create accurate 2D drawing views from 3D imported parts and create of auxiliary, detail, and section views.
• Share Data with MCAD/Enterprise Solutions
• ViaCAD 2D uses an industry standing precise kernel that facilitates the sharing of design information using SAT, IGES, STEP, and DXF/DWG industry standard file formats.

2D/3D CAD Design Software

With over 100 new features, ViaCAD™ 2D/3D v7 continues to provide intuitive 2D drafting and 3D modeling tools perfect for all types of design projects. For both Windows and MAC users, version 7 delivers enormous Punch! at a tremendous value.

Precise Modeling ViaCAD™ is a precise software application that provides state of the art modeling tools without sacrificing speed and ease of use. Use ViaCAD™ to explore and develop new product concepts using a variety of modeling methods including curves, surfaces, and solids all seamlessly integrated into a user friendly design environment.

Versatile, Intelligent Modeling Methods

ViaCAD™ supports an integrated collection of 2D, 3D, surface, and solid modeling tools. You choose the tools or combination of tools you need for the task at hand. The different construction methods work together with transparent associativity and a history tree to provide rapid design modifications.

State of Art Modeling Tools

ViaCAD™ is not your typical widget based modeler found in the Mechanical CAD communities. ViaCAD™ was designed from the ground up to make complex shapes using a variety of modeling practices. Designers can choose from a variety of integrated design methods that include:

• Curves (Points, Lines, Splines, Arcs, Ellipses, Conics)
• Surfaces
• Solids (Primitives, Profile Based, Surface Based, Features)
• Features (Fillet, Chamfer, Shell, Boss, Holes, Protrude, Cutout )
• Local Face (Modify foreign parts without history)
• Warp (Bend, twist, stretch NURB bodies independent of history)
• Generating 2D drawings automatically from 3D models.

Seamless sharing with other applications

ViaCAD™ shares data with AutoCAD™, Adobe Illustrator™, and Google's SketchUp™. However, unlike facetted based packages, ViaCAD™ uses a precise kernel that enables data sharing with other high-end applications via SAT, IGES, STEP, or DXF/DWG file formats.

Powerful Tools for 2D Architectural Design

Quickly create intelligent walls that automatically heal when positioned next to other walls. Explore new wall configurations by dragging or precisely changing parameters that control length, angle, and thickness. Add custom wall styles for detailed wall components or drag intelligent doors or windows onto walls.

Ease of Use

A simple user interface provides access to the rich tool set and delivers impressive, professional results. Use the patent pending 2D/3D user interface to work comfortably in 2D. Switch at any time to 3D to add depth and features if you choose. Innovative LogiCursor™ technology aids in visually anticipating your moves, assisting throughout the design process whether you are designing in 2D or 3D.

New users will appreciate the 80 plus minutes of video training included with the product. Over 16 videos address common operations that will jump start your productivity with ViaCAD™ .

A Great Value

ViaCAD™ has more powerful features than many competitive CAD packages costing much more.

ViaCAD™ 2D/3D v7 New Features:

The Gripper™

The Gripper™ is an intuitive interface to dynamically move, rotate, and scale objects in 3D. Attach The Gripper™ to an object to interactively modify using graphical handles.

Inspector

Easily access pen, fill, text, and dimension attributes within one common user interface. Use the Inspector to verify, modify, or set defaults for your shapes and annotation objects.

Custom Palettes

Users wanting to create unique tool palette arrangements can do so with the create Custom Palettes tool. Drag and drop existing tools into a user specified size palette.

PrecisionPoint™

PrecisionPoint™ is a direct data entry user interface to specify coordinates of geometry. This versatile interface allows the user to rapidly specify consecutive data locations in a variety of reference systems. Options include data entry using absolute XYZ coordinates, relative coordinates, distance along entity, and percent along entity.

LogiCursor™ Updated

LogiCursor™ is ViaCAD™ 's intelligent snap assistant. LogiCursor™ infer's key positions from the drawing and relays the information back to the user in easy to ready graphical cues. With version 7, LogiCursor™ was updated to provide identification of projected intersections, midpoints, and centroids.

Compatible with Windows® 7

ViaCAD™ is now certified compatible with Microsoft's Window 7 operating system. Windows 7 is Microsoft latest operating system providing enhanced usability and stability for Window's users.

AutoCAD™ 2010 File Support

Improved data interoperability with AutoCAD now extends file support from R2.5 to the latest release of 2010. Easily share data geometry and annotation data between ViaCAD™ and other applications supporting the DXF and DWG drawing file formats.

SketchUp™ v7 File Support

ViaCAD™ now supports SketchUp v7, the latest update from Google. Import files from the Google 3D Warehouse into ViaCAD™.

Extend Bend

The Extend Bend tool takes a shape and extends with a bend. The tool is especially useful for duct and pipe design.

Offset Section

The Offset Section 2D draw view provides an option to generate a cross section through a 3D part through multiple offsets. Great for specifying hole features!

Break-away Section

Use the new Break-away Section option to create irregular cutouts in a 2D draw view. Perfect for viewing hidden details in complex models.

Extend Curve

The Extend Curve tool provides options to extend to another curve, by distance, and dynamically. Extension methods include linear, cubic and quadratic.

3D Digital Prototyping

Bring your idea to market faster with Shark™ FX, the new standard with precision 3D digital prototyping. Explore new product concepts with unprecedented ease and precisely share data with manufacturing processes.

Windows and Mac OS X

Shark ™ FX v7 is available on both Windows and Mac OS X platforms. The Mac OS X version is a universal binary natively supporting PPC and Intel based Macs and runs on OS 10.4 and higher. The Windows version is certified compatible with Windows 7 and works with both Windows XP and Windows Vista.

EASE OF USE

While many packages claim ease of use, few actually deliver. Shark™ not only delivers unprecedented usability, but provides an uncompromised, extensive set of 2D/3D design tools. Shark™ has been designed, from the ground up, to be intuitive for the casual user as well as the professional engineer. Keys to the innovative user interface include smart prompting and tips, intelligent snapping through LogiCursor™, and over 80 minutes of training videos. Install Shark™ and design your first precision part within minutes!

COMPLETE DESIGN SOLUTION

Shark™ is the industry's first modeling application totally focused on conceptual and preliminary design for those requiring precision content for 2D/3D digital models. Shark™ is a full featured package uniquely positioned to provide solutions that address versatile modeling practices, photorealistic rendering, animation, and precision drafting capabilities all within one seamlessly integrated package.

STATE OF THE ART TECHNOLOGY

Shark™ supports an integrated collection of 2D, 3D, surface, and solid modeling tools. You choose the tools or combination of tools you need for the task at hand. Notable tools include numerous spline creation and modification commands, seventeen surface construction methods, blending, chamfering, shelling, stretching, twisting, bending, and foreign part editing tools. All surface and solid modeling operations transparently support associativity and a history tree for rapid design modifications.

SHARE DATA WITH AutoCAD®, CATIA®, and PRO/E®

Unlike facetted based conceptual design packages, Shark™ uses a precise kernel that facilitates the sharing of data using IGES, STEP, and AutoCAD® DXF/DWG file formats. Shark™ also supports reading native CATIA® v4 and PRO/E Wildfire® parts and assemblies as well as SAT for sharing with SolidWorks®.

COST EFFECTIVE SOLUTION

Shark™ provides a complete design solution with access to over 680 commands for curve, surface, solid modeling, drafting, and photorealistic rendering at a fraction of the price of competitors. Now you can have all the power without all of the cost.

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