Render a House

Line drawing of brick terraced housing before rendering

Photorealistic render of the same terraced housing

AutoCAD rendering software

Render your AutoCAD drawingin the browser.

Most AutoCAD work is 2D, and that is enough. Write the view out with PNGOUT, upload it, describe the scene, and a photorealistic image comes back in seconds. No 3D model required.

Free to start. No card needed.

PNG, JPG, WebP views
Works from 2D drawings
Nothing to install

Drag to compare

Your drawing, not a lookalike.

The engine reads the plan, elevation or section you exported and keeps it: the wall lines, the openings, the bay spacing, the proportions. It fills in only what a 2D drawing never held — depth, material, daylight, planting, and the street the building sits on.

Photorealistic render of the same housing block

AutoCAD drawingRender

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 drawing.

Same elevation, four finishes. A drawing cannot answer the material question at all, which is exactly why it is the one a client asks first.

Timber

Material

What to export from AutoCAD.

Render a House does not open .dwg files. AutoCAD writes four raster formats on its own — BMP, PNG, JPEG and TIFF — and two of those, PNG and JPEG, upload directly. That is the whole route for most drawings, because most drawings never become a 3D model.

What you export	How to get it out of AutoCAD	What it is good for
PNG or JPEG from a 2D view	Enter PNGOUT or JPGOUT at the command prompt to write the current plan, elevation or section as a flat image.	The default path for AutoCAD work. One clean, cropped view is enough to start a render.
PNG or JPEG rendered from a 3D view	With materials and lights already on the model, run -RENDER at the command line and set an output file, width and height to write the result straight to disk.	Drawings that already carry a real 3D model. The export keeps the depth a flat plot cannot.
A 3D model, via another Autodesk product	AutoCAD has written no FBX since 2019: Autodesk removed FBXIMPORT and FBXEXPORT at that release. Its own guidance is to append the DWG in Navisworks and export FBX from there, or to import the DWG directly into 3ds Max.	Nothing here, for most people. It is a second application before the conversion even starts, and the image path above is faster and just as reliable.

Commands come from Autodesk's own AutoCAD help: the PNGOUT and JPGOUT command references and the Render Output File topic. The FBX removal is from Autodesk's support article on importing and exporting FBX files in AutoCAD products.

Everything you can do.

Nine things you can do with one AutoCAD export, without modelling anything first.

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.

AutoCAD draws. Turning a drawing into something a client can read usually means modelling it first, or paying someone to. This starts from the drawing you already have.

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 AutoCAD 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.

Archicad rendering

OBJ (WaveFront) and more, from Archicad.

Rhino rendering

GLB (GLTF Binary) and more, from Rhino.

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 draft in AutoCAD and have to explain a drawing to someone who cannot read one, this is the shortest route to an image.

Architects
Drafters
Civil and MEP engineers
Builders
Developers
Interior designers

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 AutoCAD.

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 .dwg file. Write the view out as a PNG or JPEG first — there is no direct AutoCAD 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.
Invent the third dimension reliably. A flat elevation gives the render no depth information, so what sits behind what is inferred.

Common questions about AutoCAD rendering.

Can Render a House open an AutoCAD .dwg file?

No. Write the view out first. PNGOUT and JPGOUT write the current view as a flat image, and both formats upload directly. There is no DWG or DXF import.

Can I render from a 2D drawing, without a 3D model?

Yes, and it is the normal case here. Most AutoCAD work is plans, elevations and sections, and the render adds the depth, material and light the drawing does not show. Expect to check what sits behind what, since a flat drawing carries no depth.

Does AutoCAD export OBJ or GLB?

No, and there is no FBX route either — Autodesk removed FBXIMPORT and FBXEXPORT from AutoCAD at the 2019 release. Its own guidance is to go through Navisworks or 3ds Max, which means a second application before any conversion starts. For rendering, write the view out as a PNG instead.

What is the difference between PNGOUT and the RENDER command?

PNGOUT writes what is on screen, whatever the view is. RENDER runs AutoCAD's own render engine over a 3D model with materials and lights, and can write the result straight to a file. If the drawing has a real 3D model, the rendered output gives this a better starting point.

Do I need a plugin for AutoCAD?

No. Nothing is installed into AutoCAD. You write an image out with a command you already have, then upload it in a browser.

Will the render keep my dimensions?

It keeps the proportions of what you exported, but it is a picture, not a measured drawing. Nothing that comes out of it is dimensionally reliable, and the DWG stays the source of truth.

Can I use AutoCAD 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 drawing before it stands in for a design decision.

Write the view out. Get the render.

Keep AutoCAD as the source of truth for the drawing. Let this handle the picture of it.

Working on something bigger? Talk to us.

Render your AutoCAD drawingDWG planelevationsectionAutoCAD drawingin the browser.