Cheetah 3D (http://www.cheetah3d.com/) — software for modeling, animating and rendering 3D objects — has been updated to version 5.8. The upgrade offers improved compatibility with Mac OS X 10.7 (“Lion”).

The Collada export has been improved so that, under Lion, Preview.app can load Cheetah3D-generated Collada files properly. For non-Lion users, version 5.8 also offers improvements like better auto-keying, faster F-Curve drawing and better Undo support when dealing with poses.

Cheetah3D costs US$149 for a single user version; however, version 5.8 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 Mac OS X 10.4 or higher.