A systematic analysis of the interference of four umbrellalike beams (IFUB), including the symmetric IFUB where any two of three ambient beams form the same angle and the nonsymmetrical IFUB where this condition is not satisfied, is provided. It shows that 10 three-dimensional (313) Bravais lattices out of the total 14 can be produced by means of IFUB. The specific requirements in beam design, the central angle and the symmetry property of the ambient beams for each possible lattice are obtained. This analysis is helpful to practical fabrication of 3D lattices with IFUB technique. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.