Thomas Burke & Others: Game changer for 2D to 3D design

Design Visualizer

Local product imaging studio, Thomas Burke & Others (TB&O) is featured in the April/May issue of Develop 3D Magazine (p. 42 - 44) for their novel combination of an in-house software workflow solution powered by a new Nvidia GPU and running on a Lenovo laptop. This combination creates an elegant and lightning fast solution for product designers to move easily between 2D design software and 3D rendering software. 

Logos, colorways, and material finishes developed in Adobe Illustrator are easily ported into KeyShot (a 3D real-time rendering program) with the Design Visualizer workflow solution that was developed by TB&O and designers from Specialized Bicycle.

"We knew one thing: if we could build a bridge between Illustrator and KeyShot and we could get high ­resolution real-time renders, then a designer could jump back and forth between 2D and 3D to dial in their design. They could see how their design interacts with the lines of the product. And they could see how light behaves as they move their product around in a 3D space," said Mike James, TB&O managing partner.

Nvidia and Lenovo lent TB&O a pre-production machine and GPU to test and validate the workflow. Nvidia RTX A5000 GPU + Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 4 + Design Visualizer = a winning combination that was fast and portable, enabling designers to rapidly iterate.

Photo-real product visualization running on a laptop enables a cost-effective solution that increases collaborative opportunities with clients. "If we can render in an hour what used to take a week, we're apt to take more creative risks and push the envelope a bit further."