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Visualization Goes Beyond Appearances
14 Feb, 2011 By: Brett DuesingCreators of OXO gadgets unlock the marketing power behind digital rendering.
Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the Fall 2010 issue of Cadalyst, as a sidebar to the "Seeing Is Believing" feature article.
How have recent advancements in visualization affected international product development houses such as Smart Design? The award-winning firm, known for its reinventions of commonplace items, including kitchen gadgets from OXO, now relies predominantly on ray-tracing rendering to exchange visual ideas.
According to John Jacobsen, senior design specialist in Smart Design's New York studio, changes in the profession are happening on three levels: visual feedback, customer presentations, and conceptual designs for marketing.
Immediate Visual Feedback for Designers
Until a few years ago, a digital rendering of a 3D model was a project that required a few days and was so complex that you needed a software expert just to dial in the optical settings. But the new generation of ray-tracing tools generates a photorealistic scene in a few seconds.
Smart Design uses these new tools for its internal reviews of one of the firm's most commercially successful products: the OXO line of kitchen utensils. The biggest difference between the redesign process now and the original process 10 years ago is that designers now can better see the possibilities.
"Now very early on in our process we're looking at completely finished images of the product," said Jacobsen, who uses Luxion's KeyShot software. "The digital tools bring a new latitude. We're able to explore different variations and push the boundaries in a free way."
The realism of the rendering preview — complete with final materials, colors, and finishes — allows designers to make snap judgments as they're viewing all the elements holistically.
A KeyShot preview of an OXO toddler flatware set shows designers the play of light using different geometries and finishes.
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