Planbild
The planned state of your property – visible before the first tradesperson arrives.
Most purchase decisions are made about a property that does not yet exist in the form being shown: the empty flat before refurbishment, the plot before ground is broken, the floor before fit-out. Planbild makes that intended state visible before it is built – as a photorealistic visualisation, as a virtually furnished room, or as a side-by-side comparison of fit-out options. Where Raumpuls records what is there today, Planbild works on what is meant to be there: it translates drawings, specifications and intentions into images a non-specialist buyer understands – and that still match what eventually gets built.
From drawing to image
Floor plans, sections and the specification become one view anybody can read.
Options, not guesswork
Two or three fully worked-through fit-out states instead of endless debates about taste.
Clearly labelled
Every image states what exists, what is planned and what is an optional extra.
What defines Planbild
Planbild is not a bundle of pictures but a way of working: we take the intended state of a property seriously enough to think it through before it is built. That means laying the floor plan, the section and the specification side by side and raising contradictions before they find their way into an image. What comes out is a view a buyer can read without any training in drawings, and one you can defend in a conversation, because every visible component reflects a decision. That is what separates a credible visualisation from an attractive picture nobody can deliver on.
What exists and what is intended
Raumpuls answers the question of how a property looks today, and does so measurably and verifiably. Planbild answers the other half: how it should look once the planned work is finished. The two perspectives need each other more often than it first appears. The most convincing way to present a refurbishment is to put the captured existing state next to the planned result from the same viewpoint, because the viewer then follows a change rather than comparing two pictures. Wherever an existing building is involved, capturing it properly first almost always pays off.
Why planning data matters
The better the source material, the less we have to interpret. Dimensioned floor plans, sections and elevations are ideal, along with the specification and, where it exists, a settled selection of flooring, sanitary ware and surfaces. CAD or IFC data lets us take the geometry over directly, which shortens review cycles considerably and keeps dimensions honest. Where those documents are missing, the geometry is built from whatever is available: an on-site survey, photographs, a 3D capture of the existing building. That works, but it costs time and shifts responsibility, so we record in writing whatever we had to assume.
When no drawings exist
In existing stock, missing or outdated drawings are the norm rather than the exception. The pragmatic route then runs through a capture of the current state, from which we derive the load-bearing edges, ceiling heights and openings. Expectations matter here: a model reconstructed from photographs is a sound basis for marketing, but it is not construction planning. Wall thicknesses, service routes and structurally relevant elements remain assumptions until a specialist engineer confirms them. We flag such points and state them as caveats, so that nobody later takes dimensions from a visualisation that was never meant to carry them.
Virtual staging for empty rooms
An empty room is the hardest thing to sell, because it consistently reads smaller than it is and suggests no particular use. Virtual staging places furniture into existing photographs or into a model without a removal van ever turning up. Scale is what decides the outcome: a sofa dropped in two sizes too small makes the room look bigger, and that is precisely the problem once the buyer is standing in it. We work with real furniture dimensions and check every scene against a simple test — could this arrangement actually be placed in this room?
Virtual renovation and fit-out options
For refurbishment properties the real leverage lies not in the furniture but in the condition. A bathroom from the seventies, a dark kitchen, a worn-out floor: rooms like these sell badly, even though the work needed to renew them is manageable. A virtual renovation shows what the room could become and turns a cost estimate into something people can picture. Fit-out options apply the same logic at plan level: open or closed kitchen, two small bedrooms or one large one, dressing room or workspace. Visible alternatives shorten decisions noticeably.
How many options are worth showing
The temptation is to work through every conceivable combination, and it reliably backfires. Two or three clearly distinguishable options per room is the practical ceiling. Beyond that a familiar effect sets in: the viewer stops comparing and starts postponing, because each additional option feeds the suspicion that the right one is still missing. Options are worth showing when they differ in something structural — layout, use, overall brightness — rather than in the colour of the sofa. Keeping the selection to a few well-considered states produces faster feedback and far more reliable evidence about what the market actually wants.
The legal picture: non-binding illustration
Visualisations are non-binding illustrations, and that note belongs on every image showing an intended state. It is not, however, a blank cheque. An image is a statement: show a fireplace, a balcony or a walk-in shower and you create an expectation the contract documents have to meet. Where the built result departs from the image, that quickly becomes a liability and handover issue, regardless of how any individual case would ultimately be judged. The workable rule is therefore simple: the rendering and the specification should describe the same building. This is general orientation, not legal advice on your particular project.
Labelling virtually furnished imagery
Imagery that has been virtually furnished or renovated must be recognisable as such. A brief line in the caption — noting that the furniture was added digitally and is not part of what is being sold — is normally enough and costs you nothing in impact. The same goes for optional extras: anything available only at additional cost should be named in the image. Skipping this saves one line of text and buys you arguments during handover that cost considerably more than carrying the labelling consistently from the start.
Defects must not disappear
The clear boundary lies where a visualisation stops adding and starts concealing. Damp patches, cracks, a sloping floor, a roof in need of work: conditions like these must not be retouched out of an image, not even as part of a virtual renovation. The distinction is easy to state. Placing furniture in an empty room adds something that plainly does not belong to the property. Removing a patch of mould removes information that is material to the purchase decision. We hold that line consistently and will say so if a requested edit crosses it.
What Planbild cannot do
Here too, the limits are part of the service. A visualisation is no substitute for viewing samples: how an oak floor really reads is settled by a sample in the room, not on a screen whose colour rendering varies from device to device. Materials, texture and sound stay outside what an image can convey. Lighting is interpretation as well: we calculate it plausibly, but the time of day and the weather are a choice, not a measurement. Anyone deriving claims about the eventual daylight situation from a rendering is asking more of the medium than it can give.
When the effort is not worth it
There are cases where we advise against it. For a property that will sell within days anyway, an elaborate visualisation only adds lead time. In a sale expressly for demolition or to a developer, nobody cares about the intended state, because the buyer is planning their own. Where the design is still moving, you end up with images revised three times and used none. And if the specification is not yet settled, the reference the imagery would need to align with simply does not exist. In those situations we say so before any work begins.
How the process runs
We start with the documents and a short conversation about audience and purpose, because an image for a sales brochure looks different from one for a planning committee. A rough model follows, which we show you deliberately unadorned: geometry, openings, viewpoints. Corrections at that stage are quick; corrections to a finished image are not. Only once perspective and massing are right do materials, lighting and furnishing follow. Approval happens in these two steps, because doing so avoids the great majority of expensive revision loops.
Choosing viewpoints deliberately
The choice of viewpoint governs credibility more than rendering quality does. A camera at eye level with a realistic focal length shows a room the way a visitor will perceive it. An extreme wide angle from the corner manufactures a sense of space that does not exist on site, and that gap is exactly what produces disappointment at the viewing. We therefore choose viewpoints that could be reproduced with a real camera, and add at least one view showing the room in its actual proportions — even when that view turns out to be the less spectacular one.
Reusing the models
A model, once built, is worth more than the first images produced from it. The same basis can later yield further viewpoints, additional options, a 3D floor plan, or a version cropped for a portal listing. When the design changes, the model is adjusted rather than rebuilt. That is why it pays to invest a little more care in how the model is structured on the first commission, even though nothing visible comes of it at the time. The return shows up on the second and third request.
Handover and use
You receive the images in the resolutions you actually need: for portals, for the printed brochure, for the website and for presentations. Along with them come the labelling notes in a wording that fits your project, so they do not have to be reinvented each time an image is used. We settle usage rights in writing beforehand, including whether third parties — a sales partner or a portal operator, say — may use the images as well. Sorting these points out up front takes one conversation and spares you the familiar queries mid-campaign.
Frequently asked questions
How does Planbild differ from Raumpuls?
Raumpuls captures a property as it is today, as a walkable and dimensionally accurate twin. Planbild shows the intended state: the new building before ground is broken, the flat after refurbishment, the floor after fit-out. For existing buildings the two work well together, because setting the captured reality against the planned result from the same viewpoint is far more convincing than two unrelated images.
What documents do you need from me?
Ideally dimensioned floor plans, sections and elevations plus the specification, and CAD or IFC files if you have them. A settled selection of flooring, sanitary ware and surfaces helps too. If none of that exists, we work from an on-site survey or from photographs. That is feasible, takes longer, and means we explicitly flag the assumptions we had to make.
Does virtually furnished imagery have to be labelled?
Yes. A short caption noting that the furniture was added digitally and is not part of the sale belongs on every such image. The same applies to any optional extras shown that are available only at additional cost. That single line costs nothing in impact and spares you arguments during handover.
Can existing defects be retouched away?
No. Damp patches, cracks or visible damage must not be removed from an image, not even as part of a virtual renovation. Adding furniture to an empty room adds something plainly not part of the property; making damage disappear removes information that is material to the purchase decision. We hold that line without exception.
How many options should we show?
Two or three per room, and they should differ in something structural — the layout, the intended use, the overall brightness. In our experience more options do not produce better decisions, only later ones, because every additional variant suggests the right one might still be missing.
When would you advise against a visualisation?
When the property will sell within days regardless, when it is being sold expressly for demolition or to a developer, when the design is still moving, or when the specification is not yet settled. In those cases either the benefit or the reference point the imagery would need is missing. We tell you before any work starts.
The services behind this concept
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Send us your pictures or floor plans. We will advise you free of charge on which visualizations will bring the highest return on investment for your property.