Arkitektonisk visualisering
that sells the building before it exists.

3D Studio is an architectural visualization studio working for architects, developers and interior designers since 2013. Photoreal 3D architectural rendering, interiors, aerials, animation, 360° tours and 3D floor plans, produced from the drawings your team is already working in.

  • Fixed price quote in 30 minutes, from the drawings you have
  • Clay stage first, so the camera is agreed before the expensive work
  • 4K delivery standard, full usage rights included
Upload your drawings, get a quote See the portfolio

We only take a limited number of projects each month, so every scene gets top quality.

3D exterior rendering of a glass pavilion house above a lit pool at dusk, Norway
1,231
Projects completed
13
Years in business
17
Countries delivered to
★★★★★ Rated 4.9 on Clutch

Architects, developers & interior designers.

Working for 215 companies since 2013.

125 of 220 clients came back.

Repeat work is the only review that costs the reviewer something.

The short version

What is architectural visualization?

Architectural visualization is the craft of showing a building before it exists: accurately enough to approve a design from, and convincingly enough to sell from.

You send drawings, materials and a sense of the mood. We rebuild the geometry, dress it with the specified materials, light it to a real hour and render it at photographic quality. What comes back is a building that has not been built yet.

The words move around (architectural rendering, 3D visualization, archviz), but the job is one thing: the moment a client, a committee or a buyer first sees the scheme. Get it right and a design is signed off in one round instead of five, and a development sells units before the foundations are poured. Which is why a render is not the picture at the end of a project. It is usually the highest-leverage thing produced during it.

Aerial 3D rendering of a new brick apartment block inside an established city district, Estonia

How it differs from a drawing or a photograph

A drawing is read by people trained to read drawings, and a photograph can only be taken of something that exists. A visualization shows an unbuilt building to somebody who has never opened a section, which is why it ends up in front of committees, lenders and buyers.

What actually comes out of it

Stills are the bulk of it. Off the same model come animation, a 360° panorama, a 3D floor plan and a real-time scene you can walk through. They are outputs of one build rather than separate purchases, which is the most useful thing to know before commissioning any of them.

The vocabulary

Architectural rendering, archviz, CGI: what the words mean.

Half the confusion in this market is terminology, and some of it is deliberate. Here it is in plain terms, including the two words that are not synonyms and get sold as though they were.

  • Arkitektonisk visualisering
    The discipline as a whole: modelling, lighting, art direction and every output that comes off the model, from one still to a tour.
  • Architectural rendering
    In practice a synonym. Where a distinction is drawn, a rendering is the individual image, and architectural renderings or architectural renders simply means several of them.
  • Archviz, arch viz
    Trade shorthand, used by the people who make it rather than the people who buy it. A studio saying archviz means architectural visualization.
  • 3D visualization, 3D visualisation
    The same thing with the software named instead of the subject. The British spellings, 3D visualisation and architectural visualisation, turn up on UK, Irish and Australian briefs and mean nothing different.
  • CGI
    Computer generated imagery, borrowed from film. Every architectural render is CGI; not all CGI is architectural.
  • Artist's impression
    The older, looser term, still used in planning documents and the press. It carries a licence to be indicative rather than accurate.
  • Photomontage
    A render composited into a real photograph of the site, so the surroundings are photographic rather than modelled.
  • Verified view, AVR
    A photomontage from a surveyed camera position, with coordinates and lens recorded so an authority can check it. Some require one.
  • Clay render
    An untextured grey view of the model. Not a deliverable but a checkpoint: where camera, massing and neighbours get agreed.
  • Walkthrough, flythrough
    Animation at eye level, and animation from the air. Both off the same model as the stills.
  • A view
    One camera position. Six views means six positions, not six versions of one image.
  • A set
    Every view a scheme needs, planned together. A planning set and a launch set are different lists.

Two of those matter commercially. An artist's impression promises less than a render and should be priced accordingly. A verified view promises more, because a surveyor fixed the camera, and where one has been asked for, no ordinary render will do.

Choosing between disciplines

Start with the argument you have to win.

Nobody buys a visualization for its own sake. They buy it because something has to be approved, funded or sold. Work back from that and the discipline picks itself.

The argument is massing, height or the neighbours

You need the scheme in its actual site. One aerial for the context and one eye-level view from where an objector would stand beats six heroes. See exterior rendering og planning work.

The argument is the finish or the layout

The room, at full size, in the materials you specified. A plan will not settle an island or a stone the client has only seen as a 60mm sample. See interior rendering.

The buyer is remote, or the unit is one of forty identical ones

A tour plus a plan. The tour answers what is behind me, the plan answers how big is it, and together they carry a sale nobody attends. See 360° tours og 3D floor plans.

The argument is the approach or the sequence of spaces

Motion, and only then. A still cannot show arrival or a route through a building. Everything else a video gets bought for, a still does more cheaply. See 3D animation.

There is nothing to render yet

A clay massing from a sketch is the cheapest image in the discipline, and at feasibility it is usually the only one worth having. See 3D modeling.

Architectural visualization services

One studio, the whole visual package.

Most projects need more than one kind of image. Everything below comes out of the same studio, off the same model, so the set agrees with itself.

3D exterior rendering of a curved hotel and its forecourt at dusk, Estonia

Exterior rendering

The hero shot. Facades and landscaping in real light, with the street, the planting and the weather the building will stand in. The frame that goes on the hoarding and into the planning pack.

See exterior rendering
3D interior rendering of a warm living room with travertine floors and boucle seating, France

Interior rendering

Rooms built to your drawings and dressed with the specified materials, then lit until the image reads as a photograph. Signs a design off in one round and sells apartments off plan.

See interior rendering
Aerial 3D rendering of a waterfront residential development at dusk, Estonia

Aerial visualization

The view a drone cannot take yet. Aerials place a scheme in its context: the neighbouring roofs, the coastline, the boundary. What committees ask about first.

See aerial visualization

3D animation

A walkthrough or flythrough through the finished building. Animation earns its cost where a still cannot go: the approach to an entrance, the sequence of rooms.

See 3D animation
3D dollhouse floor plan of a house and its garden seen from above, Estonia

3D floor plans

Plans buyers can actually read. A furnished, textured or dollhouse plan carries scale and flow in a way a black-and-white CAD drawing never does, which is why portals convert better with them.

See 3D floor plans
360-degree virtual tour of an open-plan living room and kitchen, Norway

360° virtual tours

A panorama the viewer controls, on a phone or a headset. Tours hold a remote buyer far longer than a carousel of stills, and answer the question a still cannot: what is behind me?

See 360° virtual tours
The same living room empty, before stagingVirtual staging: an empty living room furnished with a sofa and rug, Finland
BeforeAfter

Virtual staging

An empty room furnished convincingly, at a fraction of the cost of styling it physically. For resale listings and handover units that have to photograph as a home rather than a shell.

See virtual staging
3D product rendering of a timber armchair with a black leather seat

3D modelling & product

The geometry underneath everything else, and the same craft on a single object: furniture, fittings and building components rendered clean on white for a configurator.

See 3D modelling & product
By building type

A distribution shed and a hotel lobby are not the same brief.

The craft is identical. What changes is who has to be convinced, and what they look at first.

3D exterior rendering of a metal-clad family house with people in the garden, Estonia

Residential

Houses, apartments and townhouses, where the image is the entire product until handover. Judged on light, on the approach, and on whether a buyer can put their own furniture in it.

3D interior rendering of an open-plan office with heavy planting, Finland

Workplace and office

Fit-outs and headquarters, read at once by a tenant, a landlord and a facilities team. Desk density, glazed meeting rooms and the breakout the letting agent leads on.

3D exterior rendering of a retail and residential centre in daylight, Estonia

Retail and mixed use

The ground floor does the work: signage zones, thresholds, the street at the hour it is busy. The same block usually needs a daylight frame for planning and a dusk frame for leasing.

3D exterior rendering of a hotel with a faceted metal facade at dusk, Estonia

Hospitality

Hotels, spas and restaurants, where a brand standard, an investor's return and a guest's booking decision all read the same set. Hospitality work.

3D interior rendering of a vehicle workshop with a car lift, Finland

Industrial and logistics

Sheds, yards, workshops and depots. Unglamorous work that still has to be approved and let, judged on whether the access and the yard are shown honestly. Construction work.

Aerial 3D visualization of a landscape and a development in its wider site, Norway

Public, civic and masterplan

Schools, civic buildings and whole sites, where the image enters a public process and stays there, read by neighbours who know the road better than you. Urban planning work.

The part nobody sells you

What it costs to get this wrong.

01

An image the process did not believe

Overstate the context, plant the trees at twenty years, lose the neighbours in a convenient haze, and the first person to spot the flattery owns the room for the rest of the meeting. A deferred decision costs more than every image in the pack. Honest context is not modesty, it is procurement.

A new block shown honestly behind the restored brick terraces it actually sits behind, Estonia
02

A set bought in the wrong order

The classic version: an exterior hero commissioned at launch, when the aerial the lender wanted six months earlier would have carried both jobs off one scene. Out of order means paying twice for the same model, and it is the most common avoidable cost in the discipline.

3D exterior rendering of dark low-rise townhouses around a paved courtyard at dusk, Finland
03

A supplier who did not keep the scene

If the scene is deleted at delivery, then phase two, the tender change and the relaunch are all full rebuilds at full price, eighteen months after anyone thought to ask. We keep every scene, which is why a later angle of the same building costs a fraction of the first.

Untextured clay 3D model of a library living room, the stage where camera and layout are agreed
How a project runs

From drawings to final frame.

CAD drawings and elevations on a laptop at the brief stage
Brief

Brief and fixed quote

Upload CAD, PDF, Revit, SketchUp or a photograph of a sketch. We build the brief from your files, so there is no questionnaire, and reply with one fixed per-project price and a delivery date within 30 minutes.

Clay view of a residential tower and its neighbours, no materials and no light yet
Days 1-3

Camera and clay

The building goes up as untextured geometry and the camera is placed in it. Standing point, lens, height and the hour of the day are settled on a grey model, which is the cheapest moment in the project to change any of them.

The same tower from the same camera, delivered as a finished dusk render
Week 1

The same view, finished

Materials, real light and the context around it. Deliberately early, while the light and the finishes can still change cheaply. Two revision rounds are included and in practice we keep going until it is right.

The same development seen from the air at dusk, one of the later views off the same scene
Delivery

The rest of the set

Every further view comes off the scene already built, which is why the second image of a building costs a fraction of the first. 4K as standard, larger crops for print on request, full usage rights.

Clay model to final render

Drag to see what the visualization actually adds.

On the left is the clay view every project starts from: correct geometry, correct levels, correct neighbours, and nothing else. No material, no weather, no hour of the day.

Everything right of the handle is what a committee, an investor and a buyer respond to. Same model, same camera. That gap is the whole discipline.

A private house in France. The living room in the services strip above is the same model, from a camera two rooms away.

Finished daylight render of a house and pool terrace, France
Clay model of the same house and pool terrace, no materials and no light
Clay modelFinal render
Selected work

Buildings that did not exist yet.

Work across the Nordics, the Baltics, Europe, the UK, the US and Australia. Filter by type of work, by sector, by light, or by market.

See the full portfolio
What it costs

What architectural visualization costs.

One number for the whole scheme, agreed before anything starts. Not an hourly rate, which bills how slowly a studio works. Not a rate card by the image, which pretends the tenth view took what the first one took. No published starting price either, since it would be true of no real project. Here is what a quotation actually weighs.

  • Which disciplines the scheme spans

    A dusk exterior, the rooms behind it, an aerial, a walkthrough and a panorama are five crafts drawn off one model. The quote follows that mix, which costs less here than assembled from five suppliers.

  • How much of the building has to exist

    An envelope lit from the street is one job. The same envelope with furnished, lit rooms behind every window is another. What gets modelled follows what the images must show, never the size of the site.

  • One scheme, or a type you will reuse

    A single house is priced once. A house type due to reappear on eleven plots, or a layout sold across three phases, is priced as the reusable asset it becomes.

  • The state the source files arrive in

    A coordinated model with a finish schedule attached reaches a first preview far sooner than a folder of PDFs and a photographed mood board. Of everything listed here, it is the one you control.

  • How many rooms the image has to survive

    Something only a design team sees can stay loose. Something facing a committee, an investment memorandum and a portal listing must withstand all three readings, which is art direction rather than render time.

  • Whether it has to match what already exists

    Joining a set delivered last year means adopting its palette, hour and camera height closely enough that the new frames are not read as a different building.

  • What gets taken while the scene is open

    A floor plan, a 360 or thirty seconds of motion pulled from a scene still loaded costs a fraction of standing that scene back up a year later.

What every quote already contains

None of the following is a tier, an upsell or a line you have to argue for.

  • A single figure, back within 30 minutes, with the delivery date written on it.
  • Sign-off on a grey model, while changing camera, massing and hour still costs nothing.
  • Two rounds of revisions, and in practice we keep going until you are happy.
  • 4K masters, with print and hoarding crops cut on request, not quoted as extras.
  • Every usage right you need, for advertising, submissions, listings, press and portfolio.
  • Your scene archived, so one more angle in eighteen months is a small job.
Show us the drawings and see the real figure
Why the whole set comes to one studio

One studio for every image the scheme needs.

A consistent set of framed images, illustrating one visual language

The set agrees with itself

Split a scheme between four suppliers and you get four buildings. When the street view, the interiors, the aerial and the film are lit by the same hands off the same model, a brochure reads as one project, and so does the phase you add to it two years later.

Two professionals discussing drawings, illustrating direct communication

You brief whoever is in the scene

Nobody relays your comments for you. Notes go straight to the person with the file open, which is why a change raised at the end of one day tends to appear the next, rather than entering a queue behind other people's projects.

Signing a confidential agreement, illustrating NDA as standard

Sensitive by default

Competition entries, off-market sites and schemes with no consent yet stay off this website, out of the portfolio and off social media. We will sign your paperwork, and we behave the same way before anyone sends it.

Globe and clock, illustrating European delivery across time zones

Estonian studio, European hours

Trading since 2013 and delivering into 17 countries. Sitting an hour or two from most of Europe buys you a conversation the same afternoon, while work for North America moves while that office is closed.

Software and engines

What the renderer decides, and what it does not.

"Which software do you use" is the most common qualifying question in this market and one of the least useful. Here is what the answer actually tells you.

3ds Max, Corona, V-Ray, Blender

The still-image pipeline, and what most studios including this one run. A renderer sets speed, and how far you can push resolution before a frame stops being economic. Not believability.

Unreal and the real-time engines

The one choice that changes what you can buy: a walkthrough you steer, a configurator, a headset tour, a scene somebody changes live in a meeting. Real-time trades a little photographic depth for interactivity.

Lumion, Enscape, Twinmotion, D5

Viewport tools, usually run inside an architect's own office. Useful for design review, and recognisable at a glance in a sales context, which is why they rarely survive a launch campaign.

The question to ask instead

Every 3D rendering company runs the same three or four engines, so ask something the engine cannot answer: show me two projects that look nothing like each other. Believability is lighting, materials and art direction, all decided by a person.

File formats and what we do with a Revit file are a separate question, answered on the 3D modeling page.

Procurement, not craft

How to judge a studio before you sign.

Every architectural rendering studio edits its portfolio, and by the third one they all look good. Four checks still separate them.

The same retail and residential centre rendered again at dusk, Estonia

Read the portfolio, not the hero

Is the same building shown twice, from different angles and hours, or only from the one that worked? Is the context modelled or pasted? A wall of dusk heroes is a studio that can make one image.

Clay model of a living room and fireplace, the stage where camera and layout are agreed

Settle it at the clay stage

The grey view is where camera, height, lens and hour get agreed, and the cheapest moment to change any of them. A supplier who skips it is protecting their schedule, not your budget.

3D exterior rendering of a glazed gable house on moorland at dusk, Norway

What to check before you sign off a final

Verticals. Planting at handover size rather than maturity. Entourage at the right scale. The material read at full size rather than thumbnail. And the neighbours as they actually are.

3D exterior rendering of an office entrance and the street in front of it, Finland

Five questions that expose a weak supplier

Do you keep the scene. What does the second view of this building cost. Who owns the images, and for how long. How many revisions before it becomes a variation. Who am I actually talking to.

Who we work with

Built for the people who have to sell the drawing.

Architect in a black turtleneck and round glasses

Architecture studios

Competition boards, planning packs and client presentations, art-directed to your house style rather than ours, so six images read as one practice.

Read more
Real estate developer in a hard hat

Real estate developers

Marketing sets for off-plan sales: hero exteriors, interiors, aerials, plans and tours from one model, released in the order the deal happens.

Read more
Interior designer holding a fabric swatch

Interior design firms

Schemes shown at full size with the specified finishes, so a client signs off on the room rather than on a mood board and three sample trays.

Read more
Real estate agent in a blazer

Property marketing

Portal-ready stills, staged interiors and 360 tours produced to a listing deadline rather than a studio one.

Read more
Hotel manager in an elegant lobby

Hotel and hospitality

Lobbies, suites, spas and restaurants rendered to the standard operators expect, so a property is marketed, booked and financed ahead of opening day.

Read more
Game developer wearing headphones

Game studios and apps

Architectural-grade environments, assets and interiors built to real-world scale for real-time engines and AR.

Read more

Also written for estate agencies, construction teams og planning and public consultation.

What changes hands

What we need, and what lands back.

Whatever stage the scheme has reached, there is a version of it we can start from. None of it has to be tidied up first.

CAD drawings, PDF plans and references we accept Final photoreal render you receive

What we can start from

DrawingsDWG, DXF or PDF plans, sections and elevations. A sketch photographed on tracing paper counts
Native 3DRevit, ArchiCAD, SketchUp, Rhino, 3ds Max or IFC, opened as they are instead of traced again
FinishesAnything that fixes the palette: a schedule, supplier links, RAL or NCS codes, or three photographs you like
SurroundingsA survey, one photograph from the site, a map pin, or nothing at all where the plot is empty
Nothing polishedOne plan and one reference image is enough for a fixed figure. There is no intake form

What comes back

Masters4K by default, and 8K to 12K where a hoarding or a printed spread calls for it
RatiosPortrait, landscape, square and banner crops taken off the same scene, never re-ordered as new work
CheckpointsAn untextured view early for camera sign-off, then two revision rounds and refinement until you are happy
Same-scene extrasMotion, a 360 panorama or a readable plan drawn from the scene that is already standing
The rightsUnrestricted commercial use of the delivered files, with the source scene kept on our side

Not sure which discipline you need? Send the drawings and we will tell you what the scheme calls for, before quoting it.

What usually happens next

Briefs grow, and they grow in a predictable order.

Almost nobody stops at what they first asked for, because everything below comes off a model that is already built and paid for.

An exterior brief becomes a set

The hero goes out, then the aerial the lender asks for, then the street views the planners want. One model, and each frame after the first costs a fraction of it.

An interior brief becomes a tour

Once the room exists, a 360° panorama and a 3D floor plan are a short step from it, and between them most of what a remote buyer looks at.

A still becomes motion

A flythrough, or a short loop for social, rendered from the scene you already paid to build. It is the only genuinely cheap way to buy animation.

Questions we get asked

Architectural visualization FAQs.

What is architectural visualization?
Architectural visualization, also called 3D architectural visualization or archviz, is the practice of picturing a building accurately while it still exists only on paper. Your drawings become geometry, the finishes you specified go onto it, a chosen time of day lights it, and the frame is rendered until it can pass for a photograph. The only test that matters is whether people believe it.
What is the difference between architectural visualization and architectural rendering?
In practice, none. The two are used interchangeably, and so is "archviz". Where a distinction is drawn, rendering means the individual image and visualization the whole discipline around it. The vocabulary section above sets out the rest.
How much does architectural visualization cost?
By the project, never by the image and never by the hour. What moves the figure is the mix of disciplines a scheme calls for, how much of the building has to be modelled, the condition of the files you hand over, and how hard the art direction has to work. Upload the plans and one firm price comes back within 30 minutes.
How long does architectural visualization take?
About a week for a single view. Two to three weeks for a medium or large set. A grey model reaches you a few days in, so the camera gets argued about early, and the first photoreal frame follows while the hour and the finishes are still cheap to move.
How many images does a project actually need?
Fewer than most people order, and in a different order. A planning submission wants an aerial and two eye-level views from where objectors will stand. A launch wants one hero, two or three interiors and a plan. Name the audience for each frame.
What counts as a revision and what counts as a new view?
Changing light, materials, styling or entourage in an agreed frame is a revision, and two rounds are included. Moving the camera or changing the design after sign-off is a new view, priced as one. We say which before doing it.
What happens if the design changes after delivery?
The scene is kept, so a changed cladding or roof line is re-rendered from the same camera at a fraction of what the frame first cost. Resubmissions and phase two are the usual reasons.
Will AI replace architectural visualization?
It has changed the drafting, not the deliverable. AI is fast at a mood and unreliable at what a render is bought for: your actual geometry, the specified finish, the real neighbours. The full argument is on the interior rendering page.
What software do you use?
3ds Max and Corona for most stills, V-Ray and Blender where they suit, Unreal Engine where a project needs real-time output. The renderer sets speed, not believability.
What files do you need to start?
Anything that already exists. Native models from Revit, ArchiCAD, SketchUp, Rhino or 3ds Max, an IFC export, DWG or PDF drawings, or a photograph of a sketch. Where a genuinely necessary piece is absent, that is flagged in the quotation rather than discovered halfway through.
Can you work on a project in my country?
Almost certainly. The studio has worked remotely since 2013 for clients in 17 countries, among them Estonia, Finland, Norway, Germany, France, the UK, Canada and Australia. Sitting in European time means a North American project moves forward while that office is closed.
Who owns the images?
You do. Full usage rights to every delivered image are included: brochures, portals, hoardings, press, social and planning submissions, for as long as you like. No separate licence and no per-use fee.
Start a project

Send your drawings, get a fixed quote in 30 minutes.

Upload the plans, elevations or model you already have. No budget dropdown, no discovery call first.

Upload your drawings, get a quote See how it works

We take a limited number of projects each month.