"And this is the reason of the levy which king Solomon raised; for to build the house of the Lord, and his own house, and Millo, and the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, and Megiddo, and Gezer." [1 Kings 9:15, King James Version]
(In this article we are moving off the track of supported and experimental facts and out into the realm of guesses and interpretation. It is important to know that this is not derived from any information Punch! has released, formally or informally. This is strictly my own "take" on what the Punch! product is and where it fits in the universe.)
I. |
The primary reason - Punch! was created by it's builders, first and foremost, to make a profit. This is the basis of this and all companies; to think otherwise is just plain wrong. Much of what Punch! is and does follows from that - their sales policies, their customer care, their marketing, their success in their marketplace. They are a model of how to apply the basics to build a company with a single purpose, toward a single goal. Whenever you wonder why Punch! does something or doesn't do something, you'll probably not be far wrong to ponder upon this fact. |
II. |
The object-oriented, 3D world - Punch! software builds in what I would call a universe of objects - the primitive building blocks are objects like walls, floors, staircases, decks, plants and the Earth. The primary property of these objects is position, measured in the usual three dimensions, placement and orientation. Objects work well in computer simulations - they can generally be built from geometrically precise, zero-thickness surfaces of pure texture or color. They have no insides; computer displays have no analog to fill dirt, or the sawdust that fills the inside of a 2x4 stud. So they are all hollow "shells", and are measurements, pure and simple. Following from this is a number of remarkable, unrealistic properties. The objects weight nothing; they need no support, they can hang in the air. They can interpenetrate; a plant can appear on both sides of a wall beside it, or two walls can occupy the same volume. No mass, no weight, no physical substance, infinitely malleable. That makes it complete possible to build a house and do the basement walls last, if that's convenient. No part of the house has to be drawn first in order to support any other part. |
III. |
The component-oriented approach - Punch! has violated this object-oriented approach in a couple of particulars. The most important one is the Framer. The Framer is a PowerTool which is added onto Punch! in order to display what the house shell would look like if framed. It is essentially what is known as a "framing plan", though it really isn't a plan, but a perspective view. I presume it was added to Punch! in order to provide such plans for building departments that demanded them, and I think they demand them only because they are afraid that do-it-yourselfers don't know how to lay out studs on 16" centers. There is no professional use for a framing diagram that I know of. Professional carpenters "don't need no stinking plan"*, they take care of framing details in the field without a plan. The real problem with the Framer in Punch! is that it veers away from the object-oriented design of the rest of Punch! into a component-oriented design. No where else do we need to worry about what a wall is made out of. The closest we get to that is picking the texture placed on the wall. With the framer, we start making distinctions like size of studs, thickness pf drywall, which walls are framed versus poured concrete or styrofoam-formed, and tens of other construction materials and methods. We have to start worrying about the use of balloon framing versus western framing methods, and the biggest problem is that we have to start worrying about forces, weights and structural integrity. |
IV. |
To architect or not to architect - An oft-asked question on the forum is, "Can I build from a Punch! design without an architect?", or "Can a Punch! plan be used to gain a building commission permit?" Leaving aside the problem that the answers for both of these questions vary with state, county, weather conditions, commonly accessible building supplies and other "beyond our control" conditions, the real problem is that Punch! is mainly object-oriented while the real-world is consistently componentized. Punch!'s Golden Rule should be: Punch! is a communications tool between you and your architect. That is where it shines. You create the objects, and let the architect convert them into components. Let them and their consulting engineers worry about whether the foundation is large enough; whether the framing is sufficiently load-bearing; whether the dead-weight of the 100-year snowstorm will be covered. They trained for that, and they are worth their money in the event. Does that mean you can't use Punch! plans to build from? No, it doesn't. Punch! plans, especially when augmented with available PowerTools can hold their own in residential building. If you have the experience at construction to convert the objects into components competently on your own, then you'll find that they will likely fill your bill. As I wrote on the forum lately: "Punch! is ideal to use for measurements, alignments and orientation, which is the gist of most plans. It's only when you get into materials and techniques (sectional details, materials schedules) that Punch! - and all similar software - begin to have problems. That's simply because the possibilities explode with the addition of gravity, forces, strengths, ageing properties, etc., and formal expertise becomes a premium. Programs with that level of inborn expertise haven't been invented yet ("artificial intelligence" notwithstanding). So, as far as it is possible to go, Punch! will take you there, but that last piece has to be done with the digital equivalent of a simple pencil driven by an expert. Punch! can do the pencil but not the expert." |
V. |
Detail drawings - The one sort of plan that Punch! doesn't have in its arsenal is called the sectional detail. The sectional shows a wall or other structure as if cut through with a chainsaw, exposing the insides of the wall for inspection, from foundation through the roof (or pieces thereof, as required by the drawer's need). If you've been following along above, you will note that Punch! doesn't have any insides in its walls to expose; a sectional of a real Punch! wall would be useless, since it is physically unrealistic. A sectional plan is the epitome of the component specification: it not only shows the materials, but their placement relative to one another and application details. The information in a sectional is, of course, vital to the successful completion of a building, particularly when new and novel materials or techniques are being used. The inability of Punch! to create them is a weakness. Unfortunately, it is not a weakness Punch! can do much about. Let it be known, as well, that all similar software packages, even pencil on paper, suffer from this problem, too. It is not a defect, really, but rather a lack of intelligence in the tools. The knowledge that is necessary to create a real, useful sectional detail is the job of an architect, engineer, materials supplier or experienced builder - the one whose training yields exactly the sort of knowledge useful in creating a sectional. Punch! has included, in their AS4000 release a new PowerTool called the Sectional Detailer. It is, though, simply a way to draw lines and rectangles on pad with a nifty interface for attaching the drawing to the Punch! plans. It does not bring any more intelligence to the drawing than without it, of course, simply a better pencil. In this respect it is no more (and no less) than the expensive AutoCAD product. Sectionals still require an architect to drive them. |
VI. |
Wires and pipes - Why doesn't Punch! show the wire placement in the electrical plan, or pipes in the plumbing plan? A traditional set of residential building plans include all the plans that Punch! gives you in its full product: foundation, floor, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, roofing and landscape, plus specialty plans that might include decks. If you look at such a set of traditional "blueprints", you also will not find any wiring or piping displayed there, either. What you will find are the visible aspects of the trade, the fixtures: switches, plugs, lights, sinks, drains. In electrical plans the switches are connected with the lights they switch by imaginary "connectors", whose only purpose is to indicate the connection between the two, not to suggest wire routing. The reasons for this are several:
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VII. |
Foundations - Well, what do we do about the foundations? Americans are so steeped in "laying a firm foundation" that it is nearly impossible to consider working on Punch! without someone asking, "how do I plan the foundation?" In truth, a foundation in a Punch! plan is an extravagance. It is possible to do in a lame sort of way, because a traditional part of any house building plans is the foundation plan (an important part), and so Punch! made it a part of their plan set as well. However, the tools are inflexible (for example, the only walls that have footings drawn are exterior walls - interior walls need not apply!). Furthermore, none of the foundation tools (except the walls and the slab) create any 3D images. That's reasonable, for in normal use nothing in a foundation except the basement walls and slab is visible - to be useful it has to be buried. Well, then, if it's important to have in the traditional plans, why not in Punch!? The difference is that the traditional plans really will be used to create a foundation. As explained above, a Punch! drawing is primarily used to communicate with an architect. A foundation differs from most other items in a plan because its function is to hold everything else up, so it isn't simply interested in placement and lengths - weights and loads are much more important to creating a good foundation. And who of us here is qualified to do that? We have a lot of this sort of question on the Punch! forum: "How wide should I make the footing width, since it is settable on the plan?" (note that depth, just as important as width, is not settable). The real answer to that depends on a lot of things: the soil compaction at the site, the building load, the weather loading expected, and so on. I am an Electrical Engineer, and consider myself unqualified to judge these matters. I consider myself having just enough knowledge about these things to know that I don't know enough to design them. So it's the rare person who can adequately draw a real foundation plan for any building larger than a shed, particularly one that is to be inhabited. The same thing goes, by the way, for the framing plan. I've never seen a real framing plan in a residential plan set, simply because it is considered to be another example of field work for an experienced carpenter. The architect will simply note on the plans where the usual and customary framing doesn't apply for whatever reason. I believe that county building departments require it (when they do) simply to make sure the proposer knows basically what they are doing. Note that walls (at least the load-bearing ones) are intended to bear weight, and so have to be calculated to do so. It should be noted there is one other foundation planning approach, often used in tract homes and by amateurs: simply create foundations and load bearing elements that are vast overkill, which will likley outlast the pyramids (at least the foundations will). But again, you had better know what you are doing, particularly if your family, and not someone else's, is living in it. In closing (it's been a long time coming), unless you are a structural engineer, ignore the foundation tab and let the expert handle it for you. You have no business on that tab at all. The only thing you can do there (that makes a difference in your 3D model) is build walls, and you can do that better on the floor plan. |
VIII. |
Punch! rendering speed - I have a need...a need...for speed!! - Maverick and Goose, Top Gun Lots of Punch! users seem to have a need for extreme accuracy in their plans. While Punch! keeps a position accurate to 6+ decimal places (.0001" in the center of the drawing; I'm going to call this length a "skoatch" in honor of the jeans commercial: "the 401 jeans have just a skoatch more room in the rear..."), it seems to want to negate all that accuracy by displaying dimensions accurate to the inch (or centimeter, in metric). Do people really need the accuracy that Punch! can provide, or are people fooling themselves? A good question. One of the most likely sneering remarks from CAD users using Punch! for the first time is that AutoCAD is extremely accurate, while Punch! is not. However, in 99% of the cases I've seen, it's a snob's argument - a distinction without significance. First of all, we're working with common building materials here. A wooden stud's thickness is often quoted at either 1-1/2" or 1-5/8 inches; a variation of 1 in 12, or 8%. The length is usually from 1/8" to 1/4" longer than nominal, but I know few carpenters who bother to trim their studs to meet the specs on the plans. I once measured an finished alcove before installing A-V equipment in a newly completed high school, and found 1/2-3/4" errors in dimensions to be common, and upon investigation, to be accepted practice. Nuts, steel studs change 1/8" in length due simply to the warmth of the room they are in, and wood likewise changes dimension under differing humidity conditions. Accuracy in these and similar materials to better than 1/2" in the length of a room (say, 10') is wasted; it is accuracy for accuracy's sake, not for practical reasons. Secondly, look to our measurement-setting methods within Punch!. There are essentially three ways to set the length of a wall: Using the mouse, using nudges and the snap grid, and setting a length for a wall when creating it - a method available for walls alone. At the greatest magnification available within Punch, at the smallest scale, a pixel on the screen equates to 1/6" accuracy in placement. So the first method, while close enough for most uses, won't yield placements that are better than 1/6 of an inch, at best. Nudges used with the snap grid can be better, but are cumbersome to use. You can set the snap grid spacing to as little as skoatch, and count nudges and get absolutely accurate placement of a point to the skoatch. That's very good, but who wants to nudge a wall end 237 times so that a measurement of 10'-5.237" can be met? It could be done with fewer nudges and more clicking an typing on the grid properties. Again, a lot of trouble to go through when the user of your plan is going to say, "OK, that's about 10'-5" and a quarter." The best way by far is to use the wall length specification method. It is accurate in placement to the skoatch. Now, if only the table saw could use the number. (This is, by the way, the way that AutoCAD can guarantee the accuracy of it's drawings - only by specification of the length of each and every line.) Also never forget that the snap grid is on by default. With it in place, the accuracy of placement, even using the mouse, is exact to the skoatch limit. The problem is that it can only be accurate to an even multiple of the snap grid size. It can be defeated, of course, by using the Shift key while placing a point, or by turning off the snap grid. People who have tried drawing without the snap grid have been disappointed, however, in the raqggedness of the drawings - walls don't align with the pixel grid on the display and the printer, and measurements don't sum correctly. The moral to the story is to reign in that need to display down to the 32nd of an inch, or the tenth of a millimeter. It's simply not usually necessary. |
IX. |
AutoCAD and Punch! - Is Punch! a CAD program? How does it compare to AutoCAD? AutoCAD (a product and TradeMark of AutoDesk, Inc) is the world's foremost (and likely oldest) Computer Aided Design package. It is rather older than PC's, initially programmed on Univac mainframes. In a generic sense, Punch! is also a CAD program, as it runs on a computer and aids design. However, CAD has become associated in most technical user's minds with packages that do generic line-and-shape drawing, the automated equivalent of a pencil (or ink pen!) and drawing board. The primitive objects for CAD are lines and shapes (polylines), and this a CAD package is at home designing a bolt, a boiler or a building. Punch!, on the other hand, has objects common to the building trades, such as walls, floors, staircases, patios and plants. It also has (on the Detail tab and in several PowerTools a simplified CAD drawing package for adding line drawings to Punch! files (for the above-mentioned detail drawings and so on). So Punch is differently focused; it is meant to be a display-oriented package rather than a measurement-capturing package, although is is still fairly good at plans capturing. The native file format for Punch! is the .pro file, which is proprietary to Punch!. AutoCAD's format is the .dxf/.dwg file. It was developed for AutoCAD, but used by many other CAD programs. Punch! imports .DXF files, but again, they are lines on the drawing, not walls or other building objects. The importer allows the user to select a line and declare that it is a wall, thus simplifying the conversion. Much more information about the Punch! .dxf import and export functionality may be found on www.punchhelpers.com, a site managed by a professional architect who has experience using both Punch! and AutoCAD. |
* - Humphrey Bogart in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (inquiring minds want to know).
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This page last updated on Fri Jan 27 2006 |