Our Process

At Orbital our experienced team of visualization artists makes extensive use of CAD, Computer Aided Design, the backbone for all modern product design and manufacturing. We work with files created during the product design process and translate them into fully realistic assets for visualization. Our team can process a wide variety of industrial design formats to create exceptional images for your product line.

How it works

  1. Industial Design Conference and handshake

    Not all designs and designers are the same. At Orbital we understand that every company has a unique approach to product development. Designs and file types can vary significantly, especially across industries. We’ve created a workflow that utilizes all of the most common (and some not as common) design application pipelines, including SolidWorks, Rhino, Autodesk Inventor, AutoCAD, and a wide range of other design file types. At the outset of all projects our team will meet with your product managers and complete a file survey to ensure optimal results.

  2. CAD Conversion and Material application

    Once Orbital has received files from your product design department, we process them to apply physically accurate visuals to the surfaces of your virtual product. What makes a material physically accurate? Metals, alloys, plastics, rubbers, fabrics, and other organic or manufactured materials all have specific reflectance and absorption properties. We use an extensive in-house material library to adjust for real-world properties such as reflection wavelengths, index of refraction, material roughness, and other factors. Once base materials are added we fine-tune the look and textural properties of each material to precisely match your product.

  3. Apply interactive lighting and camera solution

    We’ve developed a custom lighting solution that allows us to capture every angle of an asset with truly consistent lighting. Our visualization specialists can easily adjust the hardness and intensity of light to best render each specific product. This flexible system works seamlessly across a wide variety of products without needing to slow down or troubleshoot for a product’s physical dimensions.

  4. Render QA and approval

    At Orbital we have safeguards in-place to make sure our visualizations meet every expectation. Once materials and lighting have been applied to a product, our clients receive a series of images from a variety of angles for approval before entire 360° orbits are rendered. This steady communication reduces the need for re-rendering and ensures our clients are satisfied with the quality and accuracy of the visualization.

  5. Output Beauty and Additional Passes

    One of the significant advantages of working with a CGI asset is the output formats. Our images are rendered in 32-Bit Float, providing the widest possible range of color in a digital file (versus typical high-end digital SLR cameras constrained to 14-Bit rendering). Unlike photography and traditional retouching, our rendering process allows us to export a number of useful items with each pass. Masks and colorways can be rendered with each image or 360° orbit, eliminating the need for mark cutting and applying destructive color corrections when product matching. Final files are delivered as 32-Bit OpenEXR files or 8-Bit TIFFs and JPGs. All files are completely compatible with any marketing pipeline and Shopify, Woo, Adobe Scene7, and Magento ready.

What if you don’t have CAD files?

Most companies designing or manufacturing products produce a digital design file, but there are also instances when a product gets manufactured on demand by hand. No files? No problem. In these cases, Orbital can create an exact digital replica of your product for visualization.

THE SPEED OF OUR PROCESS

Speed is always a consideration when rendering large volumes of assets. We use next-generation render engines and cutting-edge computing systems with thousands of cores, allowing us to complete high-resolution rendering at a rapid rate. Orbital operates at the forefront of high speed rendering and our team actively pursues advancements in hardware development, render management, and workflow efficiency.

READY TO CREATE AN ENGAGING VISUAL EXPERIENCE FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS?