3D Modeling & Rendering; Enrich Furniture Sales Catalogue with Photorealistic Designs

In the era of online markets, if furniture products do not communicate well with potential buyers, furniture manufacturers, fabricators and retailers suffer deep cuts in sales.

Furniture fabricators have realized that 3D rendering of furniture models will drive their sales. Keeping in center the marketing segment, fabricators now focus on 3D rendering along with 3D modeling. Easily perceivable designs, better design intent communication, and attracting customers are some of the characteristics that manufacturers look for by bringing rendering aboard. To make it possible, the wooden furniture models have to be turned to lively products, with help of rendering to give it a photo realistic look and a 360° view to the product.

As far as rendering is concerned, wooden furniture pieces modeled in SolidWorks are imported to 3Ds Max with IGES/STEP conversion for enhancing rendered qualities and creating photorealistic images for sales catalogue.

CAD and rendering tool to overcome modeling, fabrication and sales challenges

Owing to the challenges faced, industry leading furniture manufacturers resort to CAD software and rendering tools like 3Ds Max to leverage maximum benefits. This is an effort to showcase how CAD drawings and computer generated images – CGIs help in tackling these challenges.

1: Furniture Modeling, fabrication and assembly drawings

Iconic wooden furniture is becoming a center of attraction with their peculiar characteristic of fine carving, durability and cost effectiveness. However, as the texturing and carving becomes finer, the designing and modeling gets more complex. The complexity reaches at its peak when the product enters manufacturing stage owing to the need to meet exact surface finishes. Although, with dedicated CAD tools for woodworks, furniture designer can communicate design in a better manner.

Furniture assembly and fabrication drawings deliver successful site assembly options and seamless fabrication with minimal change orders and downtime. Fabrication drawings depicting comprehensive details and understanding of surface finish, glazing rebates, dents, curves, etc. facilitates uninterrupted fabrication process. Not only designers, but assembly drawings deliver special assistance to manufacturers as well for enabling them to coordinate with suppliers and offers onsite assembly option. Furthermore, assembly drawings also play an important role in delivering satisfactory after sales services.

2: Rendering to attain the projected sales figures

For wooden furniture suppliers and sellers, furniture assembly models aren’t enough. Suppliers need to polish and render the models to give them a lively look. One can hardly find dents, folds, bent, reflection or even shadows, and everything looks symmetric; but this isn’t the case in reality. Say a wooden chair will cast shadows for back rest, arm rests and seat on the floor where it is decked. Besides, bad lighting (ambience), unpleasing colors, lacking of character contribute to the downfall of sale. Rendering of CGI with software like 3Ds Max fixes this for any furniture item ranging from residential furniture such as chair, table, kitchen furniture to office items like wall mounted cabinets, drawers etc.

Furniture models generated in SolidWorks or any other CAD software, when imported to rendering software are polished and upgraded to make them fit to appear in sales catalogue. With proper ambience, the products intrigue potential buyers by being communicative. This same job can be done with a professional photographer and a prototype but the costs incurred are pretty high. Plus, the picture once captured becomes static and cannot be changed in view or angles.

On the other hand 3D furniture rendering offers numerous advantages and flexibility in changing aspects according to marketing needs. Leading furniture manufacturers in the industry use CGI and 3D rendering tools for their catalogue and have seen soaring high sales figure with attractive catalogues.

Final Note

If we look at a use case, a furniture manufacturer in USA witnessed a sharp rise in the profitability of furniture sales value with 3Ds Max rendering tools and CAD modeling software capacity. CAD and rendering, thus, form an incredible duo for furniture manufacturers; giving a boost to their profits. All that a furniture manufacturer needs is a collaborator for their furniture pieces, each time a new name, characteristic, and feature is to be added to the product with appropriate fabrication drawings and models. Until the moment your customer buys the product, it is this rendered image of model that is going to be in their thoughts; make it count.

About Author:

Kashyap Vyas is an Engineer at Hitech CADD Services - CAD Design Services and holds a Master’s degree in Thermal Engineering with several research papers to his credit. He covers CAD and CAE topics for the engineering industry. His contributions are primarily focused on encouraging manufacturers and suppliers to adopt virtual product development tools to build efficient products with reduced time-to-market.