Quote:
In the summer of 2004, IKEA decided to change the way they produced their product images. They made the first tentative moves toward CG rendered, rather than photographic, images. “We made 8 or 10 quite bad product visualisations by today’s standards,†says Martin, “but it sparked something and we continued to work at it. In the fall of 2006 we first showed a product in the catalogue. The first CG piece of furniture was a chair called “Bertilâ€.
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Today, around 75% of all IKEA’s product images are CG, and they have a ‘bank’ of about 25,000 model
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The first entire room image to be created in CG for one of IKEA’s catalogues was in 2010. “There were a LOT of people involved in that image,†says Martin. “As you can imagine, the first time you do something, everyone wants to have a look! But then the catalogue after that had four or five images and it really took off.â€
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Now, about 35% of all of IKEA Communication’s non-product images are also fully CG (i.e not photographic composites).
...
Today, around 75% of all IKEA’s product images are CG, and they have a ‘bank’ of about 25,000 model
...
The first entire room image to be created in CG for one of IKEA’s catalogues was in 2010. “There were a LOT of people involved in that image,†says Martin. “As you can imagine, the first time you do something, everyone wants to have a look! But then the catalogue after that had four or five images and it really took off.â€
...
Now, about 35% of all of IKEA Communication’s non-product images are also fully CG (i.e not photographic composites).
Full article.
Pretty fascinating stuff, I've been looking through the IKEA catalog I still had laying around and even knowing all this I can't say for certain with any image that it's CGI. I knew this was already done to some extend with cars because cars are so problematic to photograph (round, reflective surfaces everywhere!) but that IKEA uses this much CGI surprised me.