Live Interior 3D — the art of home & office design Originally downloaded April 21, 2007. I would be quite willing to spend $80 on software like Live Interior 3D if it's actually easy to use and doesn't require hours of study to master. Last fall, I looked around at all the available Mac tools for doing architectural rendering--whether interior or exterior--and none met that standard. I ultimately used version 5.x of Google Sketchup, but it took me hours to add a simple addition to my lake cottage. I haven't tried the latest Sketchup, and I notice that it launches with a new tutorial, which hopefully will help. In any case, I'm curious about this new software from BeLight and will be glad to give it a go! One thing I was pleased to see is that Live Interior 3D supports other 3D standards, including the one Sketchup's built on. This gives users access to a huge library of existing 3D objects to work with. Live Interior 3D also comes with a huge amount of starter content, available as an optional download with the trial version.

Version as tested: 1.0.

Update 8/15/12.

I ended up purchasing this software as part of a software "bundle," and I'm glad I didn't pay full price for it. LiveInterior 3D has a lot of power, but like so many 3D applications it's not easy to learn. I've used it several times, though, for reworking interior spaces — nothing too complicated. And it's definitely worth having in my software toolchest. In fact, I'll be using it again soon in order to design a build-out addition on our house. I don't expect to become an architect using this package, but it's helpful for pre-architect meetings... and I think it's easier than using graph paper.