Link: IKEA’s use of 3D rendering in its catalogs

This blew my mind – almost all of the imagery in IKEA catalogs is computer generated.

The main rationale for switching from traditional photography to 3D rendering:

The IKEA team didn’t feel there was anything wrong with traditional photography, quality-wise. Like any company, they just wanted to make things easier for the team to work on – to make the process simpler, cheaper and faster. With traditional photography, you need to have prototype furniture being built in different parts of the world shipped over so it can be photographed. Everything needs to be there on time and it can be logistically difficult, expensive and not that environmental. Then if there are changes everything needs to be re-shot. With CG re-creations of pieces, it removes a lot of this difficulty. However to start with, Martin says, “There was no vision initially to create entire rooms in CG, like we do now. We just wanted to create the individual pieces – the ones you see on white backgrounds on the web.”

There are some great images in the article showing how the same kitchen is rendered for different countries. You’ll notice that the faucet switches sides, the oven handle changes, and in one of the renders the refrigerator is removed completely.

The article also describes the technology stack that they use to render all of the images.
Thanks to Hacker News for the link.