Render a House

Untextured model view of a clifftop house before rendering

Photorealistic render of the same clifftop house

Chief Architect rendering software

Render your Chief Architect planin the browser.

Export Picture saves any view as a PNG, at sizes larger than your screen. Upload it, describe the scene, and a photorealistic image comes back in seconds — on a laptop with no ray-tracing card in it.

Free to start. No card needed.

PNG, JPG, WebP views
Works from a plan
No ray-tracing card

Drag to compare

Your plan, not a lookalike.

The engine reads the view you exported and keeps it: the massing, the roofline, the window and door placement, the deck, the framing you chose. It fills in only what the plan never held — material weathering, real daylight, mature planting, and the street the house sits on.

Photorealistic render of the same house at dusk

Chief Architect 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 house.

Same exported view, four finishes. This is the conversation that closes a residential job, and it costs a sentence rather than a rebuilt material list.

Timber

Material

What to export from Chief Architect.

Render a House does not open .plan files. The picture export is the route here, and it works from any view — a 3D camera, a floor plan, or an elevation.

What you export	How to get it out of Chief Architect	What it is good for
PNG from a 3D camera view	Open the camera view, then File > Export > Export Picture (BMP, JPG, PNG). Clear Use Active Window Size and set a larger pixel size and a pixels-per-inch value.	The best starting point. A rendered view already carries the massing, the roof and the openings, so the render has real information to hold on to.
PNG from a plan or elevation	Make the floor plan or elevation the active view, then run the same Export Picture command.	Turning a plan or an elevation into a concept image early, before a camera view is worth setting up.
3D model (DWG or DXF)	File > Export > Export 3D Model (DWG, DXF) exports any perspective or orthographic camera view. Chief Architect states these files carry no material or texture information.	Not this workflow. Render a House reads GLB, GLTF and OBJ, not DWG or DXF, so the model route needs a conversion step outside Chief Architect. Use the picture export instead.

Export steps come from Chief Architect's own knowledge base: the articles on saving a view of a plan as a picture, converting plan files to DWG or DXF, and the Import and Export category index.

Everything you can do.

Nine things you can do with one Chief Architect picture export, without a ray-tracing card.

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.

Chief Architect draws the house and renders it: a Ray Trace pass for the final image, and Physically Based and Clay views that Chief Architect gates on a ray-tracing-compatible card. This is for the other job: showing a homeowner four exteriors on a Tuesday afternoon, from any machine.

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 Chief Architect 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.

AutoCAD rendering

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

Vectorworks rendering

OBJ and more, from Vectorworks.

Who this is for.

If you design homes in Chief Architect and sell the work to the people who will live in it, this is the part of the pitch that closes.

Home designers
Remodellers
Custom builders
Kitchen and bath designers
Interior designers
Deck and outdoor specialists

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 Chief Architect.

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 .plan file. Export a picture first — there is no direct Chief Architect 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 Ray Trace pass when a homeowner is signing off on a specific finish in the exact materials specified.

Common questions about Chief Architect rendering.

Can Render a House open a Chief Architect .plan file?

No. Export a picture first. File > Export > Export Picture (BMP, JPG, PNG) saves the active view, whether that is a 3D camera, a floor plan or an elevation, and the PNG uploads directly.

Does Chief Architect export OBJ or GLB?

No. Its 3D export is Export 3D Model (DWG, DXF), and Chief Architect notes those files carry no material or texture information. Render a House reads GLB, GLTF and OBJ, so use the picture export rather than chasing a model conversion.

Do I need a ray-tracing graphics card for this?

No. Chief Architect asks for a ray-tracing-compatible card for its Physically Based and Clay views. Rendering here runs on hosted hardware, so the card in your machine affects Chief Architect itself, not how fast a render comes back.

Does this work with Home Designer as well as Premier?

Yes. The picture export exists in both product lines, and this workflow only needs an image. Nothing about it depends on which SKU produced the view.

Should I export a rendered view or a plain one?

A rendered camera view usually gives a better result, because the shading already describes the form. A plain or Clay view works too and gives the render more freedom over materials, which is useful when you are exploring finishes rather than confirming one.

Can I render a kitchen from an elevation?

Yes, and it is a common use. Export the elevation as a picture, then ask for the cabinet finish, counter, backsplash and lighting you want. Expect to check appliance and hardware detail, which is where these renders drift first.

Can I use Chief Architect 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 plan before a homeowner treats it as what will get built.

Export the view. Get the render.

Keep Chief Architect as the source of truth for the plan. Let this handle the picture of it.

Working on something bigger? Talk to us.

Render your Chief Architect plancamera viewelevationkitchen designChief Architect planin the browser.