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Archviz glossary: terms of architectural visualization

The key terms around architectural visualization, explained briefly and clearly. Written for anyone who commissions visualizations or wants to make better sense of quotes and exposés.

Basics and image types

Architectural visualization: The computer-generated, usually photorealistic depiction of a planned or existing building. It makes rooms, facades, and materials visible before construction, and is used above all for marketing, design coordination, and approval processes.; What are architectural visualizations?→
Rendering: The finished, computed image produced from a three-dimensional model. The computer turns geometry, materials, and light into an image. Colloquially, a rendering means the final result image of a visualization.
Photorealism: The goal of making a visualization so believable that it is hard to tell apart from a photograph. It is achieved through realistic materials, physically correct light, and careful image editing.
Exterior visualization: The exterior view of a building, meaning facade, massing, and the surroundings with planting, paths, and sky. It is the classic eye-catcher for marketing a new-build project.; Exterior visualization→
Interior visualization: The depiction of interiors such as living room, kitchen, or bathroom, including furnishing, materials, and lighting mood. It conveys the living feel of a unit to prospective buyers before it exists.; Interior visualization→
Clay rendering (white model): An untextured depiction of the 3D model in a uniform, usually light gray or white tone, similar to a clay model. It shows massing, proportions, and light before colors and materials are set, and helps sign off perspective and geometry in early review rounds.

Perspectives and camera

Bird's-eye view (aerial visualization): The view of a project from an elevated position, angled from above, so that the entire site with buildings, open spaces, and surroundings becomes visible. It suits explaining how a development or several buildings sit in their context.
Drone perspective: A viewpoint that mimics the camera position of a drone, usually a low pass angled over the building. It combines the overview of a bird's-eye view with a dynamic, close angle, and can also be composited into a real aerial photo.
Eye-level perspective: The view of a building from the vantage of a standing person, at roughly 1.6 meters. It feels especially natural and approachable, because viewers perceive the project the way they would later stand in front of it.
Day and night visualization: The same building in different lighting moods, often combining a bright daytime image with a warm evening twilight and lit windows. The twilight variant emphasizes cosiness and quality and often works well as a cover image.

Services and products

Virtual staging: The digital furnishing and styling of interiors on the computer, based on a photo of empty rooms or a rendering. It shows the living and usage potential of a property without any real furniture being moved in.; Virtual staging→
3D floor plan: The spatial, furnished depiction of a floor plan from a slightly elevated perspective, often without the ceiling. It makes layout and proportions easier to grasp than a classic 2D floor plan.; 3D floor plan→
Architectural animation: A short film showing a building in motion, for example as a camera path around the massing or a walkthrough of the rooms. It conveys scale and the sequence of spaces better than a single image.; Architectural animation→
360-degree panorama: A full surround view of a room or location in which viewers can freely rotate the angle. Several linked panoramas form a virtual tour through an apartment or property.; 360-degree panorama→
Exposé visualization: A rendering produced specifically for a property's marketing material, such as the exposé, the project website, or an ad. It is designed for a positive first impression and clear selling points.

Process and collaboration

Plan set: The set of architect's drawings that serves as the basis for a visualization, typically floor plans, elevations, and sections. The more complete the plan set, the more precisely the 3D model can be built.
Feedback round: A coordination step in which the client reviews an interim result and requests changes, for example to perspective, materials, or planting. This sharpens the image before finalization.
Post-production: The post-processing of the computed image, usually in Photoshop. Contrast, color mood, sky, people, or planting are added and fine-tuned to round off the rendering photorealistically.
Moodboard: A collection of reference images that sets the style, color world, and mood of a project. It ensures that client and visualizer share the same expectation of the result.

Technique and formats

Render engine (V-Ray): The software that computes the finished image from the 3D model. V-Ray is one of the most common engines for photorealistic architectural visualization and simulates light in a physically realistic way.
Resolution and print resolution (DPI): Resolution states how many pixels a rendering consists of and determines how large it can be output sharply. For print, such as in an exposé, 300 DPI is common; for web use alone, a lower resolution is enough.
Aspect ratio (image format): The ratio of width to height of an image, for example 16:9 in landscape or 4:5 in portrait. It is set at the start because perspective and composition depend on it.

Last updated: July 7, 2026