In this age of rampant Photoshopping and digital manipulation, it may not come as a surprise to learn that 75% of the ‘photography’ in an IKEA catalog is actually comprised of computer generated images.
This eye-opening fact was revealed by Martin Enthed, IT Manager for the Swedish furniture brand’s in-house communication agency, in a recent interview with the Computer Graphics Society website.
According to Enthed, who first presented his team’s work at SIGGRAPH in 2012, the first fully CGI room appeared in an IKEA catalog back in 2010.
The shift towards CGI started in 2004, when IKEA decided to overhaul how its product images are made. Compared to traditional photography which requires prototyped furniture to be built and shipped to be photographed, rendering images simplifies the process by removing logistical barriers, reducing costs and speeding up delivery.
Amid the switch to digital images, IKEA wanted to retain the look and feel of its pictures, and the sense of a “lived in” environment. Most importantly, it wanted to ensure that customers wouldn’t notice any difference.
This led to a massive cross-training exercise that saw both the photographers and 3D artists learning the tools and techniques of each other’s trade.
There was skepticism from some quarters initially—“There were people who said, ‘It’s CG, so it can’t be as good’. But the real turning point for us was when, in 2009, they called us and said, “You have to stop using CG. I’ve got 200 product images and they’re just terrible. You guys need to practise more.” So we looked at all the images they said weren’t good enough and the two or three they said were great, and the ones they didn’t like were photography and the good ones were all CG! Now, we only talk about a good or a bad image—not what technique created it.”
Enthed also revealed that the team pulls from a database of 25,000 models, with product images rendered at “ridiculously high resolution”, whether they’re used as large-scale prints or web graphics.
Chockful of technical details and insight, the article is a fascinating read for graphics artists and anyone who has ever wondered how IKEA achieves the impossibly perfect lighting and uniform look for its products.
Read the full article—which is sure to give you some food for thought the next time you peruse the glossy pages of an IKEA catalog—here.
What do you think—is the trend of traditional photography taking a backseat to CGI disconcerting, or is it merely a highly evolved way of creating detailed, pristine images?
[via PetaPixel and