For the interior/home designer/Mac enthusiast, Interiors by UK-based Microspot offers some interesting design options in their Interiors software. While not as polished and intuitive to use as our top-rated interior design software package, Interiors does have a few nice features.

Standout Features

• Easy-to-use and adjust camera viewing angles
• Free 3D object downloads
• 3D object library spotlights
• Create QuickTime movies of virtual walkthroughs
• Lighting controls

Far and away, one of the best features of Interiors is the camera interface. Simple to manipulate, the camera controls (i.e. zoom, pan, angle, placement) are the easiest to use of any of the interior design software packages we reviewed.

Microspot has free 3D downloads on a sister-web site, 3D User Area. The developers also spotlight a new element library, usually monthly, but the previous spotlights range from once a month to once a quarter. Finding this web site is an exercise in patience as its link is buried at the bottom of the product overview page and is only casually mentioned. There’s no obvious link in any of the navigational directories. We even consulted the site map and were still unable to find it until we stumbled on it while browsing through the product’s overview text.

Drawbacks:

• No in-program tutorials and only five (as of this writing) video tutorials on the developer’s web site.
• No included user manual—very little actual help included with the software.
• Poorly-organized manufacturer’s web site. Very difficult to find the additional object libraries.
• The free demo download is somewhat misleading. It covers putting the final touches on a room but not how to create the room to begin with. Users have reported a great deal of frustration while trying to create the framework for the room to decorate.
• Other than the camera’s controls, the interface isn’t very user-friendly. This is definitely not a program for the raw novice.

While you can import elements from Google’s 3D Warehouse, there isn’t an easy, integrated way within the software to access the warehouse. You must leave the software program, download elements over the Internet and then return to the program to import them unlike Live Interior 3D which has the access seamlessly built into their software.

Unfortunately, Interiors is not nearly as polished and refined as other interior design software packages. For the price, the devoted Mac user will be better off using the more powerful Live Interior 3D software program for dreaming and designing their own nest.