Cheetah 3D (http://www.cheetah3d.com/) — software for modeling, animating and rendering 3D objects — has been updated to version 5.7. The upgrade adds a new preferences window, extends the hotkey handling, allows the customization of many user interface colors and improves the Collada exporter.
The new transform tool now supports multi-object selections, a gadget mode to arbitrarily align the transform gadget and improved snapping tools for precise modeling. Version 5.6 also introduces post- and pre-rotations. The added support for many video codecs like H.264 or MPEG-4, plus many small workflow enhancements, rounds out the new features.
Cheetah3D costs US$149 for a single user version; however, version 5.7 is a free update for all registered users of version 5.x and is a $69 for an upgrade from versions 1.x, 2.x, 3.x and 4.x. It requires requires at least Mac OS X 10.4. It’s a Universal Binary product, which means it will run natively on both PowerPC and Intel Macs.