Some commercial AV design decisions are difficult to understand until they are in front of you. A floor plan can show where the displays should go. An elevation can show their optimal size and install height. Drawings can show how the technology fits into the space, but none of those effectively show what it will be like to sit in the room, move through the space, or experience the technology from the intended point of view.
That is where building information modeling (BIM) and 3D visualization take over. For Chris Ludwig, Creative Director at McCann, that shift is noticeable. With a background in theater arts and scenic design, Chris was accustomed to a process that started with a sketch, moved into a model and rendering, and eventually became the technical and shop drawings needed to build that set. Traditional audiovisual design approached the process in almost the opposite order.
“The technical drawings were the deliverable, and no one really thought about visualization as something important at the beginning,” Chris explains. In the past, renderings were too expensive to produce, so when they were created, they were often used to help market an idea. Today, visualization serves a different purpose: communicating the design, revealing potential problems, and experiencing the space.
One of the clearest examples is something that can be easy to overlook in a conference room: the camera and its placement. A client may know that a video conferencing system is being installed, but that does not mean the client has considered what the people on the other side of the camera will see. The camera can appear positioned correctly on a plan, but when it is in use, it could be angled to look down at the tops of people’s heads. A traditional 2D layout can check every technical box and still create a poor experience for users in the room and on the far end.
Visualization makes those issues solvable before the room is even built. Rather than telling a client that a particular layout would not work, visualization allows them to reach that conclusion independently. “It allows them to see what was wrong or could be improved,” Chris says. That distinction matters. A rendering does not exist to prove the design team right; it gives everyone the same view of the space and removes the ambiguity from a conversation.
The earlier the problem is found, the easier (and cheaper) it is to fix. “Moving a table 18 inches either way, in a model that’s a couple clicks, and it’s super easy to do,” Chris explains. “But if you move a table 18 inches because you placed it on room-center as opposed to wall-center where the display is, now you’re dealing with a core drill. You’ve got to patch up the wall, rewire everything.” Chris points to this as one of the practical advantages of pre-construction AV design visualization. Small issues that are easy to miss in a drawing can create significant work once construction is in progress.
But visualization is not only about catching complications. The goal is to understand what a space will feel like, and that is where a static, two-dimensional image reaches its limits.
A 2D rendering gives the viewer one selected, locked perspective. The camera angle, lens, and frame are chosen to show a particular part of the space. A 3D flythrough is different. Instead of seeing a handful of carefully selected views, the viewer moves freely through the space. Clients get a virtual walkthrough, seeing the entire space from different points of view and catching details that are not obvious in a single picture.
Chris approaches a flythrough from the perspective of the person who will use or visit the space. He and his team consider what someone will see as they move through it, and which movements and processes need to be understood. That becomes particularly important in experiential design projects. When the space is something a client has never exactly experienced before, a drawing package alone can only show so much.
“It would be very difficult to sell an experiential project without a vision of what it looks like and a way to invoke the emotion and the experience,” Chris says. “You’re not selling a conference room display. You’re selling the experience.”
A series of static images can show individual moments, but moving through the space provides a sense of the experience. That is where flythroughs can turn any idea into one that inspires confidence before construction begins. They can also expose things that carefully framed images can leave out, such as glare on a display as the sun moves, or a featured display that disappears from certain sightlines if the room is full.
The visual side of a space, however, is only part of the equation. Audio and acoustic design are just as important and can be even more challenging to communicate to a client before a room exists. Chris points to a specific example: a boardroom with a large marble table and tile flooring. Visually, the materials fit the desired aesthetic, but acoustically, that combination can create an environment where sound reflects throughout the room. “That’s just an echo chamber,” Chris says.
As visualization tools continue to develop, Chris sees an opportunity for the same models used to understand the visual experience to eventually help address the audio side as well. That possibility reflects a shift in how Chris approaches AI today. The goal is not for AI to create the finished rendering. The goal is to use AI to help create tools that can speed up the creation process behind the deliverables. Automating portions of certain processes means less time spent on tedious tasks and more time available for the design work, iteration, and client collaboration.
“AI isn’t completing any of the design thought process,” Chris says. “I am still the judge in the end of it. It just takes care of all the little tedious stuff.” That distinction is important. AI is not replacing the person making design decisions. It gives that person more time to focus on the decisions that require human experience and trustworthy judgment.
That same idea applies to visualization. Its value is not in creating a more polished picture of a finished room. It gives the people investing in, designing, building, and using a space a clearer understanding of what is being created and what the experience should be before it becomes physical. And for experiential projects, it can answer an even bigger question: What will it feel like to be there?
That is where advanced 3D visualization in audiovisual integration has moved beyond simply showing a picture of a finished room. It allows clients and project teams to experience, evaluate, and refine a project before the first piece of equipment is installed. Are you ready to see your project before it’s built? Contact McCann Systems for a commercial AV design consultation.
