In the world of design, artistic ability is a necessary skill. On-demand hand sketched designs, intuition, and an acclimated imagination tuned to envisioning beauty in odd spaces are only a few of the unique capabilities of a great designer. Yet, designers are now empowered with the gift of technology. Rendering software has taken center stage in design firm process. They provide extraordinarily accurate drafting services that increase efficiency and boost time management in the workplace.
While, modern technology seemingly negates the need for two-dimensional drawing, it’s a skill that should hold as an active ingredient for any design profession such as engineers, architects, graphic designers, effects specialists, landscape artists, and interior designers.
The Relevance of Drawing
Rendering isn’t the only technological aid to permeate the design world. Programs that aid in illustrating, vectoring, manipulating photos, and designing video graphics are just a few to become wildly popular over the last decade. Even the act of sketching by hand is rapidly turning automated with drawing tablets and touch screen computers.
It seems that the pen and pencil will soon become extinct. This would be a great loss for the design industry. While technology offers amazing benefits and should be utilized in every design firm, incorporating and reinvigorating the art of hand sketching not only keeps an artist’s mind sharp and focused, but it also leads to more accurate and successful creative design. The key here is creative. Any designer can throw together a rendering based upon popularity, basic design elements, or current trending themes, yet it’s a truly great designer that adds a unique twist to the old, mundane, and overused.
Infusing & Inspiring Creativity: This is what artists and designers refer to as the creative “spark”. Creative spark is inhibited through freedom of movement and expression, which is oftentimes difficult to achieve when using software.
Per UCreate, a resource for artistic advice, opinion, and insight, “there is always that creative feeling when you are holding a pencil than holding a mouse. It gives you more freedom to illustrate what’s in your mind on paper than on a computer. By means of drawing rough lines and shapes, you begin to use that spark of creativity within you to come up with interesting concepts that can be the initial foundation of your next awesome design work.”
Getting Down to Business: Outside the realm of creativity, sketching is also simply good business practice. From rapid concept development at the privacy of your own desk or under fire in front of a client, to visual exploration via composition and layout experimentation, hand sketching is an incredibly useful way to show competence, skill, and connect directly with the client as you bring their ideas to life on the page.
EnvatoTutsPlus states “large project(s) with a significant client budget will benefit from sketching throughout the design process. This makes sure that before massive amounts of time are invested on refining a solution, a direction is first agreed upon with the client.”
Find a rhythm. Begin with sketching and move toward technology. This type of system improves creativity, confidence in design, as well as accuracy.
2-D versus 3-D Drawing: What’s the Difference?
2-D Drawing: When it comes to design, the most common form of two-dimensional representation is drawing.
The basis of two-dimensional drawing relies on shapes, “a 2-dimensional area that is defined in some way”, generally by positive and negative elements, and can be either free form or geometric. 2-D is the simplest form of sketching as it utilizes only the most basic knowledge of artistic craft. By conjoining circles, rectangles, curved and straight lines, triangles, and any other basic element, one can create a rough sketch.
While two-dimensional drawings can be beautiful in their simplicity, when it comes to advanced uses, such as design, it’s incredibly useful to incorporate depth.
3-D Drawing: Three-dimensional drawing takes two-dimensional elements and adds the perception of depth. In essence, a three-dimensional drawing is simply a two-dimensional drawing that pops from the page. While this is the simplest explanation of three-dimensional art there are a variety of ways it can manifest including becoming fully interactive, a form commonly referred to as virtual reality.
Tech Target takes a deeper dive into three-dimensional image creation by outlining the main stages of creation: tessellation, shape repetition to cover a plane, geometry, the manual modeling process, and rendering, creating 2-D or 3-D image via computer system.
Bring Your Sketch To Life: Conversion
In the design world, having the ability to quickly and accurately convert a two-dimensional sketch or drawing into a three-dimensional rendering is incredibly important. As stated above, beginning with a sketch is a great way to get the creative juices flowing, yet at some point in the process the sketch must take a more realistic form.
When it comes to 2D to 3D conversion, turning to technology is the best option.
At home rendering software offers excellent hands-on two-dimensional to three-dimensional image conversion tools. Outsourcing image conversion needs is another great option. Rendering firms generally have an on-site staff of experienced and reliable staff to handle individual projects or time-related contractual work. With that said, both options require the necessary time and financial investments.
Popular Rendering Software
SketchUp: One of the up and coming, popular software options, SketchUp offers beginners and advanced designers alike to quickly and efficiently add three-dimensional qualities to two-dimensional sketches. Incorporate callouts, dimensions, graphics, and model views using this excellent rendering tool.
Archicad: While Archicad offers many defining qualities, one of the most revolutionary is its laptop friendly design. Offering similar attributes as more complex rendering software such as Revit and AutoCad, Archicad can accompany designers on the road to meetings, conferences, and telecommuting work from the comfort of your own home.
Easy Render hails Archicad as a revolutionary rendering software as, “it has been widely recognized as the first BIM and CAD product on a personal computer, capable of generating 2D and 3D geometry. It’s also regarded as a revolutionary software for it can store incredibly large amounts of data in a 3D model. And now, its latest version Archichad19 is faster than ever with its industry first background processing technology.”
3ds Max: 3ds Max is one of the many high-quality programs created by Autodesk, a multinational software corporation that “makes software for people who make things.”
3ds Max focuses primarily on animation and modeling, yet also has a soft spot for rendering visualizations that are incredibly useful for designers, engineers, and architects. They boast to be a three-dimensional model creator for artists, concentrating their efforts to create reality-based three-dimensional design such as environments and characters.
The stand-out quality of 3ds Max is it’s versatility and compatibility, “it’s the ultimate three-dimensional model creator for it can seamlessly operate with most rendering software and other programs such as Adobe Photoshop and After Effects–ultimately resulting in much better, high-quality renders. Though it’s regularly used by video game developers, many film or TV studios and especially architectural rendering studios prefer 3ds Max because its features and tools are versatile, robust and collaborative.”
A Few Resources
Blender.org
Blender.org offers a completely different experience for rendering images. They are a “public project, made by hundreds of people from around the world; by studios and individual artists, professionals and hobbyists, scientists, students, VFX experts, animators, game artists, modders, and the list goes on.”
As an open source 3D creation platform, this site inspires collaboration between designers and artists without compromising the integrity and quality of image conversion. Providing services including “modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, even video editing and game creation,” Blender.org is a one-stop shop for individuals looking for a more hands-on experience.
INDBIM is a team of professional and experienced CAD experts offering high-quality, low-cost rendering services. As a one-stop-shop outsource service, engineers, architects, and designers are able to request projects on an as needed basis. By utilizing resources across the globe and maintaining a collaborative worldwide network, The Engineering Design regularly incorporates new and innovative practices. No matter the size, type, or length of a project, INDBIM will offer top quality expertise in CAD drafting, 3-D rendering, and AEC BIM or Tekla services, while adhering to strict deadlines.