Seeing your design vision in 3D
In some Interior Design studios you might spot a bin containing rolls of old blueprint plans from years past — kept somewhat as a reminder of how far implementation technology has come for the Interior Design industry. As quaint and romantic as such mementos may be, that image of your Interior designer, leaning over a goosenecklamp-lit drawing board, sliding the trusty parallel bar and hand-plotting your Interior design Vision, is but a memory. While there are still some traditionalists clinging to some of the sentimental methods, the buzzword today is 3D! CAD — Computer Assisted Design — has revolutionized the design process!
Visualization is a concept and a skill. Most understand the concept; not all have the skill. Every element in your Interior design plan, large or small, becomes part of the visualization discipline: Will it complement? Will it harmonize? Will it fit the Vision? Everything from visualizing the right upholstery pattern for a large couch to balancing flooring and wall treatments, involves visualizing before deciding!
Sometimes “falling in love” can get in the way of appropriate choices. That floral fabric you absolutely love in swatch size just might be wrong, wrong, wrong for upholstering a piece of furniture you have in mind. How can you know it will work unless you can clearly visualize it?
Then, there is the challenge of the right floor plan — traffic patterns, furniture and appliance placement, counters, doorways, on and on. Sometimes we think — no, we are sure — where we want things located for function, convenience, entertainment, etc. But, sometimes, we get it wrong in spite of how sure we are; we used to call it trial and error!
The advent of CAD and its 3D imaging capability has been an amazing transition. Your Interior designer now presents clients with 3D renditions of your project’s environment as it may be in your final choices and decisions. Onscreen, with the tap of a key, you can see your kitchen floor treatment change possibilities; your furniture styles, colors and materials can be visualized in different ways that help you make the right choices.
With 3D, you get a bird’s eye view into each aspect of your proposed Interior environment as your Interior design expert applies your choices to a model. Within those models you can actually picture and place your family, your business staff or your diners in typical activity, traffic patterns and tasking! The choices you make — colors, textures, materials, furnishings — are easy to see in place, in actual proportion to the space and to each other; and, you don’t have to be “a professional visualizer” to get it right!
A big challenge for an Interior designer is taking the client’s words, descriptions, suggestions, wishes (and confidence) and re-translating it into the designed environment they have in mind. Traditional blueprint plans and illustrations called “elevations,” drawn by design artists, were the visualization tools for Interior designers, architects, contractors and engineers. We learned to read them. The “elevations.” while well drawn, were finite — not flexible.
Yet, wonderful structures were built with excellent Interior designing!
But getting from here (the Vision), to there (installation), with today’s technology, is quite a contrast and quite a different journey! Walking a client through a 3D application and interpretation of all their choices and decisions is an entirely different experience.
A little nostalgia is a good thing, and that glance across the Interior designer’s studio, at those yellowing old rolls, can bring a warm smile.
But, today’s Interior design project path, with its 3D imaging capability, has delivered amazing flexibility, efficiency, accuracy and fun to the serious process of making good choices and durable Interior design decisions!