See it before we build it.
Hand-rendered or SketchUp views from key vantage points on your property — what you’ll actually see from the kitchen window in October. Built into complex master plans where 2D drawings don’t quite tell the full story.
— Why 3D sometimes lies
Most 3D landscape rendering is fantasy.
The vibrant CGI renders shown by most designers are stylized illustrations. They don’t show what your actual site will look like — they show what a Pinterest board might look like.
Plants rendered at mature size, day one.
What’s drawn is what the garden looks like in year ten. Year one looks nothing like the rendering.
No real lighting.
Renders use fantasy golden-hour lighting. Your site has actual sun angles, actual shadows, actual seasonal variation.
Materials look wrong.
Stone textures imported from a generic library. Not the actual schist or bluestone you’ll have.
Created in isolation from the design.
Many designers outsource renderings to a 3D artist who never sees the site. The visual diverges from the actual plan.
— 3D studies, by the numbers
— What’s included
Honest 3D, not aspirational CGI.
Our 3D studies are built to inform decision-making — not to dazzle.
Vantage point selection
Five to seven views from the spots you actually look at the garden — kitchen window, primary entry approach, deck, driveway approach, neighbor view-line.
Existing conditions baseline
Each vantage point modeled with the existing conditions first, so you can see exactly what changes.
Year 1 view
What the garden actually looks like the day after install — sparse, planted, structural elements visible.
Year 5 view
What it looks like at meaningful maturity — plants filled in, hardscape weathered.
Real-material rendering
Stone, cedar, and plant textures match the actual specifications in the planting plan.
Hand-rendered alternative
For some projects, traditional pen-and-ink perspectives over photographs — beautiful, fast, honest.
— How a 3D study comes together
Four steps. Two to four weeks added.
3D studies typically add 2–4 weeks to a master plan timeline and are produced after the design is largely set.
Site visit
Two-hour walk with the architect. We listen, you talk. We measure light, slope, drainage, and existing material. No PowerPoint.
Design
Hand-drawn schematic, then full construction documents. Material specs, sections, footing detail. Two reviews built in.
Quote
Fixed-price proposal, line-itemed by trade. You see the math. Change orders signed before any change happens.
Build
Our in-house crew, on site every working day. Weekly progress photos. Architect at every milestone. We don’t leave until punch list is empty.
— Recent 3D work
Three recent design packages.
Lakefront master plan, 2½ acres.
Three terraced rooms stepping down to Lake Champlain. 240 ft of dry-laid stone wall, cedar pavilion, native pollinator beds.
Read project →
Seven-terrace hilltop garden.
Re-grading a north-facing slope into seven dry-stone-walled terraces of perennials, fruit trees, and a 60-foot meditation walk.
Read project →
1,400 sq ft contemporary courtyard.
Bluestone paving, cedar slat screening, a small reflecting pool, and three Japanese maples for autumn color.
Read project →5 views, year 1 + year 5
$2.5K–$6Kadded to design fee
Most master plans add 3D studies for $2.5K–$6K depending on number of vantage points and complexity. Hand-rendered options at the lower end.
You have a plan, want to see it in 3D
$4K–$10Kno design fee
If you have a design from another firm and want to see it in real 3D before committing, we can produce a stand-alone study.
— 3D study questions
What clients want to know.
Do I need a 3D study?
Not always. We recommend it for: lakefront properties (sight-line decisions matter), hilltop sites (vantage from neighbors and below matters), large estates with complex sequencing, projects with significant grade changes, and clients who think in pictures rather than plans. For straightforward residential projects, the 2D plan plus material samples is usually sufficient.
Hand-drawn or computer?
Either. Hand-rendered perspectives over site photos are faster, often more beautiful, and feel less manufactured. Computer-generated views in SketchUp are more accurate dimensionally and let us model material sun-angle variations through the year. We’ll recommend based on the project.
Can I make changes to the design after seeing the 3D?
Yes — that’s the point. The 3D study often reveals scale or sight-line issues we couldn’t see in plan. Changes after the study are normal. Major changes after the 3D do incur design revision fees, but most are iterative refinements that fit in the design fee.
Will it be photo-realistic?
Honest, not photo-realistic. We avoid CGI tricks (lens flare, hyper-saturated colors, fake lighting). The goal is for you to see what your site will actually look like — slightly desaturated, with real lighting, with year-1 plant sizes. The result feels more like a high-quality architectural drawing than a magazine cover.
Can you do video walk-throughs?
Available but rarely worth the cost. A 30-second walk-through video runs $4K–$8K and rarely informs decisions better than 5–7 still views. We’ve done it for very large lakefront estates; otherwise we recommend stills.