Live Interior 3D (Mac)

Reviewed by Ben Rael , Alaskan Apple User Group Member
Product: Live Interior 3D
Company: Belight Software
www.belightSoft.com
Price: 69.95

PRO: Nice Simple "Cad Like" program for interior decorating or remodeling, quick start templates and object library. fairly simple commands for basic drawing. Nice 2D to 3D switching for quick viewing. Materials library very extensive and manipulative.

CON: Only 6 templates to choose from, otherwise drawing from scratch take much more time. object library very basic, having to design your own for unique items or dimensions. Takes a little time to learn, more to master.


Moose Rating: 3


Live Interior 3D can be used as a interior decorating or "light remodeling" tool allowing you to see what you would like to design before the work is started.
Starting on a good concept this is a helpful program. However, if your looking for something to get started in fast and easy, this is not it. Frankly though I don't know of any that are fast and easy that also have power and versatility.
As with most programs that deal with "Cad Like" manipulation, this one requires a little study and practice. They do provide a tutorial which helps, but I still found myself having to refer to online help or the booklet. If you have this kind of experience, you can just jump in using the templates provided and find yourself working in a short amount of time. Only a very short list of templates though. If you find you need to create a room or house from scratch, this could slow you down.
The object library provided does have a good number of items, but these items were pretty standard and basic. Appliances were few, and with todays versatile decorating, a lot of new or unique items were not in the library. Moving and turning objects to place them was not intuitive at all. This task took me the most time to figure out and was not easily listed in the booklet. The program has the option of designing objects, but again unless your well versed in "cad like" programs, this can be a challenging task.
The materials library I found to be quite extensive. You could pick a tile, vinyl, wallpaper or any surface you like and choose through thousands of textures, colors and styles. I found this element to be one of this programs greatest assets.
Using cameras is a nice way to view a room once you find a vantage point that suits you. Walking around in 3D can be a little quirky and time consuming, so if find a view you like you can set a camera there and jump to at any time.

Overall, This is a decent program, it does require some study and could be a little more detailed in some of its instructions. If you have the time and are patient in this kind of drawing and manipulation, the end result can give you nice pictures and a good feel for your project. However, if time and patients is not your thing, an imagination with pencil a paper can go a long way.

My husband and I just bought our first home, and I've been anxious to get in there and start re-decorating. But we have about a month or so till closing, so I bought this software to get my ideas out of my head and into the virtual space so i could see how they'd look. I've been using the software only a couple of days, and overall I think it's a great product. I'm no professional by any means, so I didn't want something too complicated. I just wanted something that I could build any of the rooms, and put my decorating ideas down in a 3D way. This software definitely met that purpose.

It's very easy to learn and does not overwhelm you with a million tools. The textures are very realistic, and you can really play with the lighting. I can only do so much at this point since I have no idea what the actual dimensions are of my new home, so I'm mostly going off memory and playing around. My main gripe is the furniture and other items to decorate the spaces with are extremely limited, and they're all in a very ultra modern, European style. You can download other items and styles off the internet, but at this point I'm mostly focusing on furniture arrangement and wall color, so the style of furniture isn't too important. But it is disappointing to see a selection that is the complete opposite of my taste with nothing else to choose from. The box says there are over 1000 items to choose from, but it didn't seem like that many to me.

Since I'm really mainly using this software to get a basic idea for the rooms, the furniture selection isn't a huge priority, which is why I gave it 4 stars. Overall, the software meets all my needs and expectations, and I highly recommend it to anyone who's re-decorating their home and needs a little more help than what their imagination can provide.

I was VERY excited to be getting my hands on this application. I do not use any other application like this so my experience is limited to relegating this creative process to someone else. A large part of what I do is to work with architects and of course, before I can do that, the land must be found, thought about, negotiated over and purchased. During this process, I can't help myself from day dreaming building possibilities. As a way to unwind, I doodle my thoughts and ideas, apply the finance of building and sales, and eventually, pass ideas along to our architects to fully develop. So to become proficient at using this architect program was a thrilling idea, initially.

Now this is a very cool application so let me get the hard part over with early. The application did not allow for me to draw curved walls. This is my biggest complaint. It was frustrating. I also found aligning items on multiple floors, when you did not have the advantage of the ruler, a little tuff, specifically a spiral staircase. It just took a light touch and blowing up the screen large enough to see the alignment tics. Another difficulty I had was getting the doors to swing exactly as I wanted. There is a `flip' tool, which was useful but not sufficient. It only flipped in a either / or direction and I didn't or couldn't find a way to get control of flipping it in the 4 points of the compass type of direction.

On the Pro side, BeLight has superb web support and I was able to get my questions answered very quickly. I just didn't like the answer. BeLight also offers tutorials which were extremely exciting because it showed me what could be achieved, walked me through it, with ease, and everything looked so professional.

As I became more versed in the applications tools, I began to respect the thought put into making designing easy. It was easy to resize every item from window frames to potted plants to coffee pots to paintings and more. There is a wide selection of furniture and although your pallet is limited, for just special understanding, there are plenty of choices.

Another great feature of this program are the previewing options. There are multiple choices flat perspective, 2D and 3D. The image can be viewed in any one of these in the same frame. This is great when you get to the process of final touches. In the final touch process begins, you have options of adding lights, shadows, run a walking tour. You can almost add smells even. The tools pallet and options on each pallet is enormous. If not absolutely every material or texture in the world, certainly enough to dress up your building well enough to tell the storey, to make choices, to begin your building process.

Now I joke with my architects how easily they could be replaced by me. Actually, I've gained more respect for what they do as I have gone back to doing my doodling and daydreaming on notebook paper. I do this because I am a person who gets totally absorbed in the minutiae, and nothing could be more tedious than choosing textures and materials to suit an interior.

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