Rendering to Reality – The Advancement of 3D Visualization

By Holger Gerdes, 3D Visualization & Concept Development, DEI Incorporated

With advancements in technology, design visualization has improved exponentially over the past 25 years. From hand drawn sketches and illustrations to photo realistic renderings, visualization has always been an important part of communicating the vision of our customer’s new buildings. Understanding flat, 2 dimensional architectural drawings can be a challenge for both customers, designers and architects.

The ability to quickly generate a 3-dimensional model and change its form, finishes, angles of view and even perform sun-studies, has been a priceless tool in the development of our financial facilities.

When I began working at DEI in 1995, our standard visualization communication tools were hand drawn, marker-colored renderings. Occasionally, a 3Dimentional, scaled study model was created out of Foam-Core, hot-melt glue, and various other craft tools.

Today, we have photo realistic images from multiple angles, animations and VR, generating a much more accurate representation of the finished product.