Render a House

Untextured model view of a museum gallery before rendering

Photorealistic render of the same museum gallery

Archicad rendering software

Render your Archicad modelin the browser.

Save an OBJ or a PNG straight from the 3D window. Upload it, describe the scene, and a photorealistic image comes back in seconds. No Redshift queue, no ray-tracing card.

Free to start. No card needed.

PNG, JPG, WebP views
GLB, GLTF, OBJ models
Nothing to install

Drag to compare

Your model, not a lookalike.

The engine reads the OBJ the 3D window wrote and keeps it: massing, storey heights, window and door openings, facade rhythm, proportions. It fills in only what the BIM model never held — material weathering, real daylight, planting, and the street the building sits on.

Photorealistic render of the same chapel

Archicad viewRender

Drag the line to see the source underneath the render

The same project, drawn and rendered.

Drag any pair. Each is one project shown twice, as a drawing and as a render, so you can line the geometry up yourself across twenty-five of them rather than one.

Drag the line to see the source underneath the render

Drawings and renders produced with Render a House. Drag any pair to compare.

Change the material, keep the building.

Same OBJ, four finishes. Testing a facade this way costs a sentence, where in the model it costs a surface, a building material and a rebuilt 3D view.

Timber

Material

What to export from Archicad.

Render a House does not open .pln files. It reads what Archicad writes out, and the 3D window's File > Save As dialog is the whole story: it writes a WaveFront OBJ and a PNG or JPEG of the current view.

What you export	How to get it out of Archicad	What it is good for
OBJ (WaveFront)	From the 3D window, choose File > Save As, then pick WaveFront (*.obj). Archicad writes a companion .mat file next to it. Upload the .obj on its own — Render a House reads the OBJ mesh and the standard .mtl companion, not Archicad's .mat.	The most complete native path, and a geometry-only one. Massing and openings hold their proportions; the surfaces themselves do not travel, so name the materials you want in the prompt.
PNG or JPEG view	From the 3D window, choose File > Save As, then pick PNG Image or JPEG Image and set the pixel size in Options.	The fastest route. One clean, tightly cropped view of the model is enough to start a render.
glTF, via a plugin	Archicad has no built-in glTF or GLB writer. Graphisoft lists the gITF Exporter, a paid add-in from its partner Bimdots for Archicad 26 through 29, as the documented route.	Only worth adding if glTF is required elsewhere in your pipeline. The native OBJ export does the same job here, with nothing to install.

Export steps come from Graphisoft's own help site, from the Model and 3D Formats (Save) and Image Formats articles for Archicad, and from Graphisoft's partner-solutions listing for the glTF add-in.

Everything you can do.

Nine things you can do with one Archicad export, without opening another application.

Render

Photorealistic, from your exported view or model.

Edit and adjust

Change materials, furniture, planting and surroundings without redoing the design.

Enhance and upscale

Raise resolution to 4K and sharpen the file for print or a client presentation.

Video and animate

Turn a still into a clip with a camera move, straight from a render you approved.

3D

Place the camera on the exported model and choose the framing before you render.

Image to 3D object

Generate a 3D model from a single image, for a piece the source file never contained.

360 render

A navigable panorama of the project: the client looks around from inside it.

A direct link for the client to open the project. No account, no software, no file transfer.

Pro model

The maximum-fidelity pass, for the image that goes in the final deliverable.

Everything you need, in one platform.

Archicad models and documents, and the bundled Redshift engine renders what you built. This is for the other job: testing eight visual directions before you commit to one, on hardware that is not your workstation.

3D integration

Where the application exports a mesh, upload it and set the camera in the browser, then render from that view.

Rendering

Photorealism in seconds, not a queued calculation you leave running over lunch.

Video

A camera move across the same project, generated from a finished still. Nothing to animate.

Design

Try materials, light and surroundings until the right version exists, without touching the source file.

Refinement

Fix one part of a render — a facade panel, a tree, a sky — without starting the image again.

Precision

Your geometry is respected: the walls, openings, heights and proportions you drew stay put.

Collaborative

Share a link and take comments on the image itself, so feedback lands on the render.

Mobile and web

Runs in the browser, including on a laptop that would struggle with a local render engine.

4K

Delivery resolution, ready to print or put on a board without a separate upscaling step.

Works with designs from other CAD software too.

Export an image or upload the model. There is no plugin to install and no format to learn, so the same workflow runs from Archicad and from every other package below.

Trademarks identify the software this works with. Render a House is not affiliated with any of them.

SketchUp rendering

GLB (GLTF Binary) and more, from SketchUp.

Revit rendering

GLB (via FBX) and more, from Revit.

Rhino rendering

GLB (GLTF Binary) and more, from Rhino.

AutoCAD rendering

PNG or JPEG from a 2D view and more, from AutoCAD.

Vectorworks rendering

OBJ and more, from Vectorworks.

Chief Architect rendering

PNG from a 3D camera view and more, from Chief Architect.

Who this is for.

If you model in Archicad and present to clients or a competition jury, this replaces the slowest and most expensive part of that loop.

Architecture practices
BIM managers
Interior designers
Competition teams
Developers
Design-build firms

958,000 renders generated so far.

128,000 architects and designers have an account.

A first render takes about ten seconds.

Available worldwide, in the browser, with nothing to install into Archicad.

Counts are extrapolated from a measured baseline and tick live.

Pricing.

Try it out, go Pro when it starts paying for itself.

Free

Try it out, no credit card required

Freeforever

3 credits per day
Standard model

Start for free

	Pro 240 credits	Studio 1000 credits
Render Pro 2 credits each	120	500
Render Standard 1 credit each	240	1000
Render Standard 2K 1.5 credits each	160	666
Render Pro 4K 4 credits each	60	250
Render Standard 4K 2 credits each	120	500
Video 0.8 credits/sec	300s	1250s

What this cannot do.

Open a .pln file. Save an OBJ or an image from the 3D window first — there is no direct Archicad import.
Produce construction documents, BIM data, or anything dimensionally reliable.
Guarantee every detail survives. Thin mullions, small hardware and text on signage are the usual casualties.
Inherit the camera you set. The model carries no usable one, so you frame the shot in the 3D view after uploading.
Replace a Redshift pass when a client is paying for a final image in the exact surfaces the model specifies.

Common questions about Archicad rendering.

Can Render a House open an Archicad .pln file?

No. Export the model first. Archicad's 3D window writes a WaveFront OBJ, and the same File > Save As dialog writes a PNG or JPEG of the current view. Either upload works.

Does Archicad export GLB or glTF?

Not natively. Graphisoft's own list of 3D formats the 3D window can save stops at OBJ, 3DS, FBX, SKP, STL, DAE-adjacent formats and a few others; glTF is not among them. Graphisoft lists a paid third-party add-in as the documented glTF route. For rendering, use the native OBJ export instead.

Do my Archicad surfaces travel with the OBJ?

No. The OBJ carries the geometry. Archicad writes a companion .mat file alongside it, which is its own format — Render a House reads the standard .mtl companion instead. Name the material you want in the prompt; that is the control you have.

Do I need a plugin or an add-on in Archicad?

No. Nothing is installed into Archicad. You save a file from the 3D window the way you already would, then upload it in a browser.

How does this compare to rendering with Redshift?

Redshift is bundled with Archicad and renders the model you built, with the surfaces you assigned, on your own GPU. This works from an export and is directed with a written description. Redshift gives more control over an exact specification; this gets to a presentable image sooner and needs no card.

Do I need a ray-tracing graphics card?

No. Rendering runs on hosted hardware. The card in your machine affects how Archicad navigates the model and how fast Redshift finishes, not how fast a render comes back here.

Can I use Archicad renders in client work?

Yes. Renders you generate are yours to use commercially. Review them first — an AI render is a concept image and should be checked against the model before it stands in for a design decision.

Save the view. Get the render.

Keep Archicad as the source of truth for the building. Let this handle the picture of it.

Working on something bigger? Talk to us.

Render your Archicad modelPLN export3D windowBIM modelArchicad modelin the browser.