Houzz
3D Rendering: Helping Pros and Homeowners Visualize Home Design Projects
web
3D
Product Activation YoY
+5.6%
Avg. Monthly Renders
3.6K+
Role
Product Designer
Core Team
1 Product Manager
4 Engineers
2 3D Artists
1 Data Scientist
Website
Remodeling a home is a major investment—and when clients can’t clearly envision the end result, they don't have the confidence to commit. Without the ability to create photorealistic visualizations of a project in Houzz’s 3D Floor Plans, home remodeling pros had to rely on basic screenshots that lacked the realistic lighting and depth needed to convey a true sense of space, leaving their clients hesitant to move forward.
Recognizing the impact on our customers’ businesses, I led the design of a new 3D rendering feature to close product gaps and drive activation and retention. Within six months, this feature launched at the 2024 International Builders’ Show, giving pros a fast, intuitive way to create photorealistic visuals that build client trust and win projects.
Snapshot of the new photorealistic rendering and cameras feature
Our approach
Generating photorealistic renderings with traditional 3D tools typically requires complex setup and technical expertise. Given that many of Houzz’s customers are transitioning from hand-drawn workflows to digital 3D for the first time, our vision for 3D Floor Plans has always been to create a simple, accessible tool for pros of all experience levels.
With this in mind, and given the high operational cost of running a rendering engine, I prioritized helping pros easily navigate within a 3D scene and frame strong compositions on their first try. By focusing on intuitive controls and streamlining rendering flows, I aimed to minimize costly rendering retries while helping pros create convincing photoreal visualizations that build client confidence.
The process
Although many members of our team came from 3D design and architectural backgrounds, our familiarity with complex industry-standard tools initially clashed with the simple, easy-to-use experience that Houzz aims for. To align on the right approach, I led a competitive analysis of professional tools, consumer platforms, and related 3D experiences to identify opportunities for simplification.
Working closely with my PM, Sean Corriel, we explored ways to make our 3D navigation and camera setup intuitive even for first-time users. We structured the project into two tracks: one focused on improving 3D controls and the other on optimizing rendering outputs.
Given the tight six-month timeline, I partnered closely with engineering to prototype and internally test 3D control behaviors, information architecture, and task flows. Through iterative testing, bug bashes, render QA, and design reviews, my team and I quickly delivered and launched the MVP.
A usability test session of an early concept design
Redesigning 3D navigation to help pros perfect their compositions
While low-quality screenshots were a key issue for homeowners, we discovered that pros were struggling even earlier—just composing basic screenshots was a challenge. Our controls were confusing, overly sensitive, and unpredictable, making it hard to manipulate our viewer and focus on key views.
Inspired by consumer street view and virtual touring experiences, I redesigned the controls to reflect common navigation behaviors our pros are already familiar with. I introduced a new camera directory, point-and-click focus, viewpoint bubbles, and more forgiving interactions—making it significantly easier for pros to navigate in 3D space while framing compositions.
The Select tool—which originally performed 7 different actions—was split into separate tools to reduce confusion
Save time by jumping between saved cameras
Rendering: Turning 3D spaces into photoreal visualizations
With the recent addition of outdoor spaces and ceilings, 3D Floor Plans finally has all the elements needed to support photorealistic rendering. Given the feature's impact on activation and retention, I focused on streamlining the entire flow—from camera setup to render handoff.
Rendering a view
Pros can fine-tune their shots with options like field of view and distortion correction, preview their composition, and render with a single click. The result is a high-quality image of their 3D space that helps clients clearly visualize the remodel and feel more confident moving forward.
Before render
After render
Photorealistic rendering for 3D Floor Plans officially launched in February 2024
After six months, we announced photorealistic rendering at the International Builders' Show in Las Vegas. This feature alone contributed massively towards new contracts signed that same day.
After a controlled rollout, our team achieved a 5.6% increase in total activation rates YoY and an average of 3,600+ renders being generated per month.
3D rendering was announced at the 2024 International Builders' Show (Photo: Houzz)
Reflection & next steps
Pros have been absolutely happy to finally be able to share more realistic end results of their home design projects with clients. While the MVP has now been in the hands of our pros for a few months, we still have a lot of work to optimize usability, wayfinding, and rendering results. We also can't wait to introduce more camera customizations like time of day (light position), outdoor/sky backgrounds, and image ratios.
It's been a very rewarding project to work on, especially going back to my roots as a 3D artist and bringing 3D environments to life. My PM and I drew a lot of inspiration from our past frustrations with 3D cameras and rendering to deliver a feature we hope will greatly improve our pros' workflows.