Design|Reality Blog

We've all, at least once in our lives, had thoughts and visions run through our minds of what our dream house would look like. These visions are so vivid and life-like in our minds, that we can picture ourselves walking through, room by room, with every detail in clear view.

The intent behind 3D rendering, is to take those visions and put them down on paper, for the rest of the world to see. There have been impressive advances in the technology behind 3D rendering and photorealism, down to the precise details of material qualities and the effects of natural and artificial light on those materials.

There are many rendering programs available to us, all with different features providing us with the tools to reach the same goal; to bring our visions into reality. A personal favorite of mine, a program called "Kerkythea," provides users with an easy to use interface, with all the bells and whistles needed to create a life-like rendering.

The process that I go through when creating a rendering is as follows: to start, I create the model of my vision in Sketchup, a 3D modeling program with a very user friendly "push-pull" interface. After creating a full model or specific scene in Sketchup, the output is then exported to Kerkythea. When working within Kerkythea; materials, lighting, and atmosphere are determined and assigned to each scene. The above illustration shows a split screen view, with the Sketchup model on the left and the finished, rendered Kerkythea product on the right.

Through personal tastes and touches on the 3D rendering output, we can easily re-create our mind's vision and put it down on paper. This process is a very useful tool in all circumstances; from being able to depict and share fun thoughts of a distant vision, to being able to set down extremely specific and accurate depictions of what you desire from an architect or contractor for your own future home or remodel.