Punch Home Architectural Series 18 review

The computer-aided design (CAD) programs used to design skyscrapers and suspension bridges cost thousands of pounds and take years to learn.

Things don't have to be that complicated. Punch's Home Architectural Series claims to provide all the CAD tools a non-professional needs to design their dream home, or just plan an extension.

There are three ways to begin your plan. You can start from scratch, use one of the template designs or open a bitmap version of a plan you got elsewhere and trace over it to create an editable file. If you do trace over a bitmap, make sure you set the right scale, or the house you're planning might suddenly halve in size. The program's default scale is 1:20, but it also offers three other scales up to 1:100.

Laying out a 2D plan is simple. You pick an element from the plan toolbar - a wall, door or window, for instance - and drag and drop that element on to your plan. Resizing while on the page is just as simple. You also get the option to enter exact lengths for interior and exterior walls, which saves time fiddling around with the mouse to make sure two parallel walls are precisely the same length. It's a shame, though, that there isn't a similar function for secondary elements. Placing a window or door to within a centimetre using just the mouse and the arrow keys can be a frustrating business.

Surprisingly for a suite with this many applications, all the functions are pretty useful. The Landscape feature, for example, allows you to make a detailed model of the topography of your site, so you can see how your house will look in its actual setting, spot any potential problems and even landscape your future garden. The Estimator function is particularly useful. It uses your plans to calculate the amount of each material required, based on units costs you enter.

As you work on your plan you can use a split screen to view a continually updated 3D model of your house. This 3D 'camera' is simple to control and doesn't go spinning off into space every time you try to rotate it.

You can export your finished plan to the .DXF format used by professional CAD programs. This is useful as you'll have to take your drawings to an architect so they can make sure the plans conform to building regulations, otherwise you won't get planning permission.

Punch's Architectural Series 18 is easy to use and contains an amazing number of features and tools that other software companies would make you buy separately. If you want to design your dream home, you can't go wrong with this software.