Visualization

Visualization in ArchiCAD encompasses all the tools and techniques that allow you to display and present your architectural design to your customer even at an early stage of your work. Presentations can be of various types (photorendered still images, animation, virtual reality) and may serve different purposes.

You can visualize your entire project or parts of it using numerous built-in views or by adding dedicated cameras to the floor plan and then viewing the data from that vantage point. Some of the special views (for example virtual reality scenes) require the use of dedicated tools.

ArchiCAD’s default 3D perspective and parallel (or axonometric) views can be activated and customized with menu commands and by using the Navigator palette.

Cameras and their settings play a key role in the definition of the different visualization modes and views.

For photorenderings, the built-in CineRender Engine comes with pre-set scenes and user-friendly Basic Settings. CineRender is optimized to work with corresponding Surfaces (with a catalog of hundreds of predefined surfaces) and Light objects. Even if you only use the Basic-level settings, you can quickly create good renderings with a minimum of effort.

However, the full menu of Detailed Settings is also available for CineRender. These correspond to Maxon Cinema 4D version 14, and incorporate most of the parameters of the Cinema4D renderer.

Although the built-in visualization possibilities of ArchiCAD are quite extensive, you may want to further improve on the output images or insert them into foreign environments.

ArchiCAD offers various options for exporting the entire model into a number of common file formats used by professional rendering software.

Artlantis is a cutting-edge rendering solution developed by GRAPHISOFT’s French distribution partner, Abvent SA. It can handle still images and animations exported directly from ArchiCAD by choosing the appropriate file format. Moreover, an intelligent link is established between the original model and the Artlantis file.

You can also export the floor plan or 3D view into a variety of applications such as Piranesi, 3D Studio or Photoshop for fine-tuning it or adding special effects.

The most commonly used commands related to Visualization techniques can be found on the predefined 3D Visualization toolbar. Choose Window > Toolbars > 3D Visualization to display this toolbar as needed. (This toolbar also contains 3D Window display and 3D Navigation commands.)

Multi-core processors are recommended to support 3D navigation and 3D model generation.

Topics in this section:

Cameras

PhotoRendering

Visualization Extras

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