Live Interior 3D doesn’t disappoint

June, 2007

By: Don Foy

I’ve been a big fan of BeLight Software since I first reviewed Swift Publisher more than a year ago. As a newspaper person, I appreciate the simplicity of that program, yet it does have the power to do most desktop publishing jobs. The same for Business Card Composer and Art Text.

So I was excited to get a chance to take a look at BeLight’ Live Interior 3D 1.2, an US$ 79.95 download (educational discounts are available. It didn’t disappoint, mostly. It was easy to use, something that many other CAD-type programs lack. If you want to draw a wall, use the wall tool. Need a window? Just go to the library and drag it where it needs to be. The program shows you how far the edges of the windows are from the corners of the rooms, meaning you can get the window where it belongs. Same for walls and doors and any other architectural feature.

In less than an hour, I had a walkthrough model of my house, which is admittedly small, but the program was so easy, it took more time to get the exact measurements than it did to transfer them to the plan.

Switching from the 2D floor plan to the 3D walk-around was one-button easy. And navigation was easy as well. Matching wall colors was not easy, but I understand with 3D and shadows and lighting, it’s not a simple process. If you use one of the many colors provided, there’s no problem, but if you want a custom color, it’s going to take some time. If you’re happy with the provided colors, this is a breeze.

The materials gallery is extensive, with colors and patterns for walls, floors, carpets—everything. I didn’t like, however, that it took nearly a minute to open the materials gallery the first time you open it after starting the program.

The architectural galleries are extensive, as well. Doors, windows, columns, arches—you name it, they have it. And if they don’t have it, the Google 3D Warehouse is just a click away. The program will directly import Google 3D Warehouse images, plus some other types (I’m not a big 3D person, which means I don’t understand a lot of this, so if it concerns you, check the program Read Me to see exactly which file formats are directly supported).

One caveat about the 3D images—sometimes they didn’t work or look exactly like I thought they should have. But that may have been because I’m lower than a novice when it comes to knowledge about 3D stuff.

One thing I did notice about the program is that much of the architectural features, furniture and other items seem to be Euro-centric. A lot of this stuff is European in nature and just doesn’t look like what is available where I live in the Southeastern US. That’s not really a problem, since you can grab stuff from Google 3D, but I thought you might want to know.

I also had some minor glitches with the preferences and figuring out how to make them stick in U.S. feet and inches, but finally just made myself a feet-inches template so I wouldn’t have to try to remember how to deal with that.

Also, my kingdom, small as it may be, for a scale system that makes sense. I had drafting classes in high school and college and still can’t figure out how most CAD programs set up the scale.

The Good

This program is really easy to use and the wall tool is the best I’ve seen in any CAD program at any price. It is smart about corners and where walls join, meaning I don’t have to go back and redraw or erase lines to make the floor plan look right. The furniture and architectural galleries, while European in nature, are extensive and you can add your own or images from Google 3D. The 3D walkthrough controls are intuitive and easy to use. You can change camera locations, lighting, shadows—this is a complete program.

The Bad

Takes too long to open the materials gallery the first time you use it every time you open the program. Had a hard time making measurement preferences stick. A couple of the 3D images downloaded from Google 3D Warehouse didn’t work as expected (but that’s not the program’s fault). As with every other BeLight title I’ve look at, you can’t set the zero point for the rulers (At least I couldn’t figure out how).

The Ugly

Nothing to see here.

If you are looking for an inexpensive CAD program for architectural purposes, this program will do the job. The 3D features are an added bonus and well implemented. And noting that this is version 1.2, I expect tremendous improvement over the next couple of years. BeLight Software has been pretty good about that with its other titles.

System requirements: Mac OS X 10.3.9 or higher; it’s Universal Binary so runs natively on both PowerPC and Intel Macs.

Macsimum rating: 7 out of 10.

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