Rendering 3D illustrations for IKEA

Looking at the illustrations in the IKEA catalog, it’s hard to believe that 75% of product photos and 35% of interiors are pure computer graphics . In the other interiors, photography is only partially used. Actually, there are almost no real pictures there at all.

The company has created a “bank” of 25,000 three-dimensional models, of which stunningly realistic interiors are made. Anyone who furnishes an apartment or house would dream of such a program.

Model rendering and rendering is handled by a dedicated visualization department at IKEA Communications AB under the direction of Martin Enthed. In addition to digitization, their company is also engaged in the development and release of catalogs, instructions for assembling furniture, and updating the website. They also make a mobile application.
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The first renders began to do in 2004, they came out very clumsy. But by 2006, the first work of CG appeared in the catalog. It was a Bertil chair.



Martin Anted says that no one has anything against photography. The base of 3D models and interior rendering are needed only because it is simpler, cheaper and faster than composing each interior for real. For example, it is most difficult to make real kitchen interiors: there are hundreds of objects there, and for different countries you have to make different settings, in accordance with national traditions. Anyway, there are hundreds of options possible.


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However, initially no one thought that it would be possible to furnish whole rooms with furniture on a computer. They just wanted to make 3D-models of individual objects, but then it went. In 2010, the catalog printed the first interior, fully generated on the computer.

To make a beautiful interior on the render is an art. Experienced photographers at IKEA worked together with interior designers and honed their skills for 15–20 years to achieve the perfect transfer of impression and feeling that arises when visiting a room with carefully selected furnishings. All this knowledge had to be passed to specialists in 3D graphics in the computer department, some of whom had just graduated from school. At first it was not easy, cooperation did not work.

At some point, the director of the department made the decision that all 3D designers are obliged to study the photo business, and all photographers to master 3D editors. After that, a very intensive learning process began. It is interesting that later some photographers wanted to change their profession and went to work in the computer department, and some computer scientists, on the contrary, were professionally fascinated by photography. It was a really powerful merger and exchange of experience.



Now the IKEA bank consists of 25,000 three-dimensional models with “ridiculously high resolution of 4Kx4K,” says Martin nted (he probably means the resolution of 2D projections). It was necessary to raise the quality to such an extent in 2009, when the management caused computer users to carpet and expressed outrage at the low quality of the models. Now no one can find fault.

IKEA uses 3DStudio Max and the V-Ray renderer for digitizing and rendering. Other companies also use this program and even use WebGL to edit three-dimensional scenes in the browser .

IKEA mobile application with augmented reality


In recent years, IKEA representatives have become regulars at the Siggraph computer graphics conference. Now it is clear that they really have something to tell.

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