The term ‘value-added’ is a marketing strategy in which the company adds enhancements to a product or service for the benefit or enjoyment of the client. While the initial cost may be increased for the business, the result will build differentiation into the corporate brand by offering an exclusive service or a product with more features than the competition.
As interior designers and architects – both consultants and captive staff, face increasingly stiff competition, implementing a value-added component such as 3D interior renderings, can help build a stunning portfolio and take conceptual presentations to a new level. Successful client presentations can be enhanced with both creative and technical differentiation strategies.
Partnering with an outsourced architectural design service can add the creative talent to create highly stylized interior visualizations or the technical skill required to manipulate CAD software to produce motion-enhanced 3D renderings. Each presentation type, stylized or realistic is rendered to emulate the interior furnishings, fixtures, and surface materials as specified by the designer.
Communicating Concept with 3D Interior Rendering
3D interior renderings of a project will capture many facets of a design that are impossible to visualize with an architectural floor plan or even a 3D CAD model. While both 2D illustrations and 3D models can depict the dimensions and organization of a space, it’s functional use and basic forms, a 3D interior rendering will also add a visual contrast of scale, volume, balance, and style.
In a research study published in Oslo, Norway, the author discusses professional vision, particularly the notion of architectural contrast in mastering and appropriating design concepts. Interior renderings will accomplish all the proponents of architectural contrast, that is “appraising differences between the shape and geometry of a building, its components, and surroundings”. The author goes on to make a further assertion:
In architecture and artistic expressions, for example, volume and form are seen as an integral part of a design’s structural logic, which is ‘controlled by the primary concept of something to be expressed’ (Arnheim, 1969). Visual thinking, Arnheim (1969) explains, demands disciplined concentration, bringing ‘organizing powers’ to bear on the expression of ‘one’s vision of the world” (p. 456). This kind of deep understanding of the primary concept in an expression is distinct from an artificial or superficial concentration on mere shapes and colours that renders one pattern as acceptable as the next (Arnheim, 1969).
3D interior renderings represent the tool instigated to bring about a deeper understanding of spaces and assists the client with ‘visual thinking’, a process that is natural for architects, designers, and artists. Highly sophisticated CAD generated models eliminate the need for the disciplined concentration and organized mental powers your clients must bring to bear in order to visualize your interior concept as a three-dimensional space with volume, contrast, colors, textures, finishes, ambiance, and strategically located functional spaces.
Stylized vs Realistic Visualization Styles
Computer-generated architectural presentations have been around since the inception of CAD and gained immediate acceptance as a drafting and design tool for the A&E profession. The initial idea was to emulate traditional hand-drawn illustrations for the purpose of client conceptual presentations or final interior design documentation. These earlier CAD visualization styles recreated the look of pen-and-ink, watercolor, or colored pencil presentations, and accomplished a limited range of visual sentiment – the visually-induced emotion would either be a warm-hearted zeal or a completely hygienic proficiency.
Today, superior interior visualization styles achieve environmental renderings that surpass the flat, uninspired models of years past. Skilled technicians create stylized interiors by combining a keen artistic eye with technical expertise to emulate not only interior surfaces and furnishings but to also evoke a temperament and a tone within the environment.
Imagine a natural and charming interior combining the illusion of watercolor with cast and reflected shadow effects; immerse the client within a photo-realistic rendering projecting the efficient futuristic feel of a of a state-of-the-art industrial floor plan rendering; seat your client in a spacious and luminous Atrium teaming with foliage and comfortable accommodations; dramatize a modern conference room concept with reduced light and a sleek, metropolitan ambiance. From a stylized dream-like utopia to a realistic simulated environment, 3D interior renderings are capable of capturing any setting and any mood.
When deciding between stylized versus realism in architectural illustrations, one would need to examine both the project type and client style to determine which method of dramatization would be most appropriate. Stylized interior scenes will demonstrate originality and leave a strikingly memorable impression with the client. High-end residential real estate builders, mixed-use retail developers, and some larger public projects will opt for stylized interpretations of interiors. Architects and designers of industrial and manufacturing plants, federal and state real estate projects, and privately funded projects such as office complexes, hospitals, schools, and other business entities generally prefer a staged, real world rendering of interiors.
3D Interior Rendering Presentation Modes
After determining the preferred visualization style, there exists multiple presentation modes and medium (final file storage format and file extension). Final output mediums include DVD storage as video clips or image files (such as .mov and .jpg) which can then be distributed directly to clients and owner representatives. Other options include files that are embedded within a corporate website or simply stored on a removable drive for in-person, client conference room presentations from computer to whiteboard projection. Graphics files can be further enhanced with voice-over, music, and textual information for a fully-independent client presentation product.
Each of the following presentation modes are developed with specific techniques which require manipulation of the technical aspects of rendering three-dimensional objects, such as creating digital motion, adjustments to line-of-sight (or camera) angles, view manipulations such as axes orbiting and view rotations, depth perception, the science of light, texture mapping, and end-of-production editing and file compression.
- Interior Light and Shadow Studies – used as part of a 3D BIM model for the creation of energy-efficient structures. The objective is to simulate the path of the sun across the building site to visualize or model interior heat gain, daylighting, and the proper orientation of passive or active solar energy building components.
- Floor Plans (still renderings) – helps to ensure client approval of projects with a 3D visualization of interior spaces which includes the placement of equipment, furnishes, lighting, and egress routes. Opt between an overhead view of the entire space which clearly illustrates the arrangement of furnishings or sectional views which give an eye-level view of the interior space.
- 3D Animations – animate building occupant circulation or production workflow with a walk-through or fly-over animation that more clearly illustrates the flow of interior spaces. The client will move effortlessly by way of virtual motion through each area with the ability to rotate the scene for a fully-rendered view of all areas.
- Virtual Tours – will take the client on a tour with an interior virtual staging, in which the interior space has furnishing and fixtures added to demonstrate how rooms might be used by future tenants. This method is especially useful for the high-end residential real estate, commercial and retail development, or public projects.
- Panoramic Renderings – combines several individual renderings to create a full 360-degree project visualization.
- Photo-realistic 3D Rendering – uses an extensive library of texture and pattern files to model a real-world representation of all specified finishes and surface materials.
Our outsourced services can assist architects and interior designers with constructing a conceptual design 3D model and detailed documentation, or for our clients who already possess an existing set of 2D documentation or a 3D model, our CAD conversion services can transform CAD files from most platforms into fully rendered interior models.