Developer: BeLight Software
Product: Live Interior 3D Pro
Price:$129.95 – Education Discount Available
Version Reviewed: 2.1.1

User Interface/Features: 5
Stability: 5
Reuse Value: 4
Overall: 4.6 stars

Live Interior 3D is an application from BeLight Software that allows you to create gorgeous 2D and 3D interior designs.

You can quickly get started with the 57 really nice built-in templates, or start with a blank template to make one from scratch.  After you are done with your design, you can export it into many formats, and even make a virtual walkthrough which is basically a quicktime movie that swivels and zooms around your structure in any path you want.

The UI (user interface) on this app is awesome. The app is really powerful, with tons of features & presets, yet simple enough for an amateur to use. This excellent UI is also good for people who don’t want to mess with CAD and other complex software.

Since I’m reviewing Live Interior 3D Pro I need to talk about the additional features of the pro version compared to the standard version which costs $50. Now in the pro version, you can create multi-story projects, so you can finally model an entire house.  You can now also make niches and opening in walls and even make panels with different materials.  This would be useful for instance if you want your walls to look like black & white stripes.  The app also has a light source manager, so you can actually see how the shadowing would look like with the lights on.  This includes lamps, chandeliers, wall lights, night lights, etc.  You can even alter the built-in material, or add your own, and even control the amount of reflection off each material.  As if the 1,200+ objects included were not enough, Live Interior features not only free expansion packs (giving you tons of more objects & materials), but access to the Google 3D Warehouse which sports tens of thousands worth of objects!  With the pro version, you can even export your Live Interior creation into SketchUp to share with friends who don’t have Macs.

I know that this seems like a mouthful, but like I said before, the app is extremely simple. The mix of advance features and simple UI is very liberating when you are designing a house with specific needs.  Sometimes when you import an object from Google Sketchup, you would have to re-assign the materials, which is a little annoying, but not to much of a problem since there are over 1300+ surface materials baked-in.

After I designed my bedroom, future home, retirement home, mansion, etc. , I started using the software less frequently.  Of course, architects & construction workers will probably use the pro version on day-to-day basis for projects that will really happen, but for the average joe, I would suggest them buying the standard version ($50) since it features most of the features that an average user will need.

Overall, Live Interior 3D Pro was awesome! It is the new Final Cut for architecture.  The UI is so simple, the features are really great, and the overall user experience was so fantastic, that Live Interior now has a place on my dock.