A building cross section or doll’s house rendering can be a unique way of displaying the floor plan and interior spaces of your house, apartment or other building project.
Here at Render 3D Quick we like to be masters of all elements of our craft, even niche areas that don’t get a lot of attention (but have big potential!). One of those niche areas are building cross section renderings. These rendered house cross sections are sometimes also called Doll’s House Renderings, because they resemble the types of dollhouses you see that open from the side and allow for furniture and dolls to be easily moved in and out of different spaces in the house.
Before 3D rendering tools had developed into the amazing quality products we use today, to design and construct homes, architects and builders relied on 2D house cross sections or hand rendered drawings of the proposed property for the design, approval and build stages. While these cross sections provided some information regarding the proposed building to be created, they don’t provide sufficient detail about certain crucial aspects of the building, particularly for clients in the approval stage. It’s hard to visualize internal spaces from two-dimensional drawings.
The inability of these 2D drawings to provide adequate “live in” details about the finished house could result in a number of issues. For example, some design mistakes or choices, which may have been picked up with a 3D rendered cross section can be missed in two dimensional drawings. These types of mistakes can prove to be very expensive, or can leave clients dissatisfied if they’re not fully happy with the building you’ve designed for them.
Help clients understand the internal spaces you’re designing with house cross sections
With 3D rendering, however, not only can you obtain 3D cross sections of your property, which can help with marketing as well as explaining your designs, but you can take these cross sections a step further with virtual reality renderings, letting you experience what it will be like to live in that property; and giving insights that will help to make any necessary adjustments required before any major commitment is made.
At Render 3D Quick, we help you achieve your property dreams by bringing your building ideas to life. We specialize in designing house cross sections and building 3D dollhouses for a wide range of properties including luxury homes, offices, and many other buildings for architects, interior designers, and home owner-builders, among many other clients.
Why Choose a 3D dollhouse Floor Plan over 2D Cross Sections?
While 2D cross sections are a technical way of explaining parts of a property e.g. an apartment, as though that building were cut through, a 3D floor plan or dollhouse is a 3D virtual model based on the 2D plans of that building. A step beyond 2D plans if you will.
By creating 3D views of the different floor areas of the property, the viewer can visualize the architectural plan from a bird's-eye perspective. This can be likened to the view one would get after lifting the entire roof or front facade off a house.
Dollhouse floor plan renders are quite similar to regular floor plan renderings, but the perspective is slightly different, and sometimes the walls are extrapolated. They may also include other aspects of the property, including the fascia, small sections of other levels etc.
This type of floor plan bridges the gap between regular floorplans and full 3D renderings.
Some benefits of choosing 3D dolls house floor plans over 2D cross sections include:
Added Elements That Enhance visualization
A 2D drawing gives you a basic understanding of a space. A 3D floor plan allows you to more easily visualize the spaces in your building, letting you easily visualize elements such as the size, dimensions, and other information contained in the plan. A dolls house floorplan also shows you more features of the house interior including its wall colors, furniture, other decorations, floor coverings, etc. and can even include aspects of the exterior of the property too, so you can understand how everything fits together. Each of these types of drawings and renderings adds an extra step that enhances visualization of the proposed property.
Much Easier to understand
Unlike a 2D cross-section which is relatively difficult to understand and is a technical drawing used predominantly by real estate professionals, elements in a 3D cross section are easily deciphered even by the average house owner as they look like a real house.
Can Be Used For Marketing and Promotion
2D drawings and cross sections are not suitable for marketing purposes. They don’t look enticing or inviting, and they make it hard for someone to visualize themselves living in the property. 3D cross sections, however, are an excellent marketing tool. They show properties from unique and engaging angles that are very well suited to being used in printed marketing materials or published on social media.
Matterport Dollhouse Models Vs. Pre-Build Virtual Reality Renderings
As far as photorealistic virtual tours go, Matterport is generally considered by many professionals as a high-performance company and leader in this aspect of the real estate marketplace. The only problem with Matterport cameras, is that they will only work on structures which have already been created.
Matterport dollhouses are made from the pictures they take to create a virtual tour, giving users a “clearer sense of space and size that’s simply unparalleled by 2D photos and videos alone”.
The matterport doll house experience
You will require a set of headsets to view a virtual tour of a property created with Matterport cameras, or through our 3D virtual tour services.
When a user of the Matterport virtual space engages the dollhouse using the VR headset, it shows them a holistic overview of the interior or exterior aspect of the house. This image can be rotated, and even zoomed in and out. These options offer the user a close-up view and thus present more information. Additionally, the user may opt to switch to a different floor or to view a different room or set of rooms during the tour. With the amount of information at the disposal of the client during this tour, they do not have to figure out the features or layout of any room as the tour realistically shows household items and the spacing between them.
Creating pre-build Virtual home tours via 3D Renderings and Augmented reality technology
But what happens if you don’t have a building to take photos of? This is where 3D rendering comes in! As part of our services, we also offer pre-build virtual home tours for prospective clients.
A key difference between existing and pre-build home tours is that unlike the former, the latter doesn't require physical property to create a virtual tour. Our pre-build virtual home services allow our clients to have VR tours created no matter where in the world they are, without them having to build a property beforehand. Once we have the renderings for the VR tours, we can easily work backwards and create still renderings and floorplans or dolls house renderings for you from the same files.
FAQS
How long does it take to create a dolls house rendering?
Clearly understanding the impact of timely delivery on business, we have streamlined our processes to ensure we meet our client's expectations. If you choose to work we us, our delivery times vary based on the nature and scope of the project. However, the average duration required to render a 3D dolls house or building cross section is about 2-3 days.
How many cross sections will be required in order to design my home?
In general, cross sections go a long way in showing many things including external wall layers, stair construction, and other details like floor and ceiling heights etc. As such, the details you want your cross-section to show will determine how many cross-sections you'll need, but you may only need one.
Can you add people to cross section or Dollhouse Renderings?
Yes, we can add people to cross sections or dollhouse renderings, although we don’t typically do it unless requested, as we feel it sometimes takes away from the photorealistic quality of the renderings. One area it can be useful, however, is in helping clients better visualize certain features of the room such as the height and size of the space, by using the people inserted into the renderings as a contextual reference.
Can You Create Exploded House Views?
Yes! If you require an exploded view of a house for marketing or other purposes we would be happy to oblige.
If you would like help with a rendered building cross section or dolls house rendering we would be more than happy to assist. Send us a quote request or give us a call on 1-877-350-3490 to get a quote on your project in 5 - 10 minutes.
Alex Smith
Manager & Co-Owner Render 3D Quick
Alex Smith is a manager and co-owner at Render3DQuick, with over 6 years’ experience project managing their large team of 3D rendering professionals. Alex is obsessed with architecture and is a CAD design specialist in his own right and an expert in the field of architectural visualization, 3D rendering, and virtual reality tours.
As the first point of contact when you get in touch with Render3DQuick, Alex loves sharing his knowledge and answering any questions you may have about architectural visualization or the latest technologies and techniques they utilize.
Connect with Alex on LinkedIn here.