Lightpipe based lighting systems are employed in vehicle interior designs to provide visual information. Good visibility and bright displays for Instrument Panel (IP) clusters, HVAC controls, radio controls, and various switch indicators are important to provide safe driving conditions. However, the lightpipe designs have been largely based the modification of past working designs developed without the aid of CAE tools. Systematic methods for lightpipe designs with the state of art illumination software are the subject of this paper. The main objective for a light pipe design is uniformity. The design process includes the following steps. The first step is to characterize the applique. Light transmittance, spectral response or color properties, and the scattering distribution needs to be measured when the data are not available. Then the lumen budget is calculated to determine the number of bulbs or LEDs required. The third step is to decide on the locations for the light sources. Light pipe design with light collectors and light extracting features is the fourth step. The last step is the optimization of the light extracting features to create uniform luminance. A complete lightpipe design process for automotive interior lighting application is discussed. This design process has been integrated into illumination design software that includes an optimization capability. With state of the art illumination software, lightpipe design is a very effective tool and the design time can be reduced significantly. In addition, with the illumination design software, some prototypes as well as testing can be done on computer. This is called a soft prototype process, which reduces the needs for hardware prototypes. Again, time as well as money is saved. Furthermore, with the illumination software, the lighting engineers can design quality final products,