Materials are the key to an attractive presentation of furnishing ideas. With the manufacturer catalogues linked to pCon.planner, a wide variety of material combinations can be implemented. In order to illustrate the diversity of the real world, it is possible to download textures from the Internet and create your own high-quality materials from them.

In the following Blog we have summarized how textures can be found on the Internet and edited in pCon.planner.

You will find a wide varity of free textures on the web. Just search for your desired material, for example “parquet” and attach the term “texture” to it. For high-quality visualizations make sure to choose a high-quality texture which fits to your needs. You can also see the image size in the bottom left corner. Make sure to choose squared and “seamless” textures, because textures are displayed tiled in pCon.planner.

After you have found the right texture for your purpose, you can download the image file and save it to your computer. In pCon.planner, you can simply apply the texture to your desired surface via drag and drop.

Once inserted, the texture is converted to a material with many more parameters. By opening the “material editor” you can select the material and adjust height and width, rotation or the roughness to reduce reflections.

One more thing we want to mention is “Normal Maps”. Those maps simulate surface relief and will boost your inserted textures to a new level for visualization. To create a Normal Map fitting to your texture you can use image editing software or just upload it to a website like www.smart-page.net/smartnormal. After you have created your surface relief, you can download it and attach it to your material in pCon.planner.

Did you know? Your created materials can be exported and used in all your different plannings.

Start right away and create high quality materials with the free version of pCon.planner! Download now!

*The download button is for the free standard version of pCon.planner.

The Catering industry has been booming for years and every year new kitchens are created in restaurants, canteens and social areas. As in private households, every commercially used kitchen requires detailed planning and conception. It is important to take the specific conditions into account in every new construction or conversion project.

Every kitchen is individual as standard. This fact alone reveals that there is always a cost factor involved. The individual requirements for the required appliances and their properties are also immense and therefore cost-intensive. The proverb “Trial and Error” does not apply here, because mistakes quickly become noticeable in the budget. A well thought-out, functionally coherent kitchen planning right from the start is therefore all the more important.

The competition doesn’t sleep. The contract catering company BONVITA 360° HOSPITALITY GmbH, based in Baden-Baden (Germany), is planning its own kitchens as well as third-party orders for other companies focusing on communal catering in addition to its main business in the catering market. Niklas Wille, who works for BONVITA as a specialist planner for commercial kitchen technology and in sales, plans his projects only to a limited extent with the conventional kitchen planning program; for visualization and presentation he exclusively uses the pCon.planner.

He simulates processes, traffic routes, equipment arrangements and much more in three-dimensional rooms until they are perfect for him and the client. Materials and decors are tried out and redesigned in real time during the customer meeting. Significantly higher completion rates and larger orders are the result of his digital conversion. He says:

“The planning and trade industry for canteen kitchens must rethink! Our competition, especially from neighbouring EU countries, does not sleep, and other industries such as the office furniture market have long since arrived in the world of attractive 3D presentation.”

Efficient planning, authentic advice. Whether restaurant kitchen, special solutions for communal catering or catering concepts – with the pCon.planner specialist planners accompany the entire process of canteen kitchen planning. Fast, dimensionally accurate floor plan processing, playful ease in placing furnishings coupled with interactive visualisation options pick up the customer at any time. The icing on the cake: In projects of this size and complexity, a virtual reality presentation creates a very special experience between the flow of information and the involvement of the customer.

“2D creates no emotions and leaves the customer in the dark when it comes to getting a sense of space for the project and the associated investments. By visualizing and involving the customer in the planning process, you create transparency and trust in the service you provide.” This is how Niklas Wille sees the digital future of his industry.

You don’t just want to read, but see how pCon solutions can be used in the area of canteen kitchens and how consulting competence can be sustainably increased? Contact us to arrange a non-binding presentation appointment!

We have great news: a new version of pCon.planner is available! Below we’ve highlighted just a few of the many great features you’ll find in pCon.planner 8.2:

• New dialog for vector graphics
  Thanks to their quality and scalability, vector graphics are a highlight. With the new dialog Vector Graphic, you can export views of your plan directly as PDF, SVG, DWG/DXF or EMF.

• Edit images in the Planning & Layout Area
  Show off your sales content to its best advantage! Clicking on an image in the planning or Layout Area opens up new editing functions: Adjust saturation, contrast, transparency and much more using intuitive sliders.

• 3D models for MS Office 2019
  Create impressive presentations faster. The new pCon.planner interacts better than ever with modern Office solutions. Copy 3D objects to the Enhanced Clipboard and paste them directly into PowerPoint.

Additionally, users of pCon.planner PRO can look forward to far-reaching improvements in the layout area:

• Direct PDF export
  You can now export PDF files directly from pCon.planner’s Layout Area. An external PDF printer is no longer necessary. It is also possible to export multi-page PDFs.

• Convenient placement of viewports
  Arrange viewports and objects in the Layout Area with more precision and less effort. Snapping and snap lines help you to exactly define distances and accurately align viewports and other elements within a Layout page.

That wasn’t all. More details about the new features can be found in our Online Help. Take a look, it’s worth it!

*The download button is for the free standard version of pCon.planner. If you are a pCon.planner PRO or ME user, we ask that you wait to download the newest version until you receive the dialog prompt from pCon.planner informing you of an auto update.

Many manufacturers provide high-quality product images on their websites or in PIM systems. These can now not only be inserted in the pCon.planner, but also edited. This enables planners and interior designers to create coherent presentations even faster without having to access an external tool.

The new dynamic tab “Image” opens immediately after the import and the subsequent selection of an image. Here you can find functions for rotating, flipping and cropping inserted images so that you can define the desired image section and orientation with just a few clicks in both the planning and layout area.

Der neue dynamische Reiter „Bild“, der sich bei der Bildselektion öffnet.

The pCon.planner 8.2 has another ace up its sleeve: the “Image Editor”, which you open by clicking on “Edit”. With it you can creatively combine filters for exposure, contrast, highlights, saturation and much more. In the layout area of pCon.planner PRO you can even apply these settings to the viewports of your planning!

In the new “Image Editor” you give images, viewports and materials a new appearance.

Have you always wanted to adjust the hue and saturation of a material directly while planning in pCon.planner? All operations of the image editor are also available for textures in the material editor. Simply click on the small pencil next to the texture and give your materials the final touch.

Do you want to test the new image processing tools yourself and let images and textures shine in new splendour? Download the current pCon.planner version below. An overview of all new features can be found in our online help.

*The download button is for the free standard version of pCon.planner. If you are a pCon.planner PRO or ME user, we ask that you wait to download the newest version until you receive the dialog prompt from pCon.planner informing you of an auto update.

Creating appealing presentations is a daily business for specialist planners and interior designers. The goal is to present changes and progress in the project, to promote new ideas and to create transparency. This often raises the question of which perspective shows the right details and gives the customer the best overview.

Users of the pCon.planner appreciate the advantages and interactivity of 3D: Furniture can be configured according to individual specifications and entire rooms can be viewed from every imaginable angle. When it comes to selecting a presentation tool with which various media and additional information can be combined, Microsoft PowerPoint has proven its worth.

A bridge can now be built between these two worlds: Microsoft’s latest Office solutions (Office 365 or Office 2019) allow users to insert 3D models into PowerPoint. With pCon.planner 8.2, specialist planners and interior designers are able to use this function and integrate individual models or even entire room plans into their PowerPoint presentations using copy&paste.

You can rotate the model 360°, tilt it up and down and seamlessly combine it with other content such as text, photos or sketches to interactively focus on the right details. With 3D models in your presentations, you no longer have to prepare every view, but focus on the essentials: convincingly marketing the project. Should there still be any unanswered questions, you will always be able to switch to a different perspective.

Note: You need Microsoft Office 365 or Office 2019 to insert and use 3D models in your presentations. Previous versions do not support this feature.

Here’s how it works: Plan the configuration you want to present with pCon.planner as usual. Then select the individual model or the entire planning, navigate to the clipboard and select “3D Model Microsoft“. Open your presentation and add interactive content to your slides using Copy&Paste. By the way: This function is available in the free and the PRO version of pCon.planner 8.2. Curious? Then try it out for yourself!

*The download button is for the free standard version of pCon.planner. If you are a pCon.planner PRO or ME user, we ask that you wait to download the newest version until you receive the dialog prompt from pCon.planner informing you of an auto update.

The layout area in pCon.planner PRO is a powerful tool to create project presentations and true-to-scale print pages. The requirements for this component are manifold: It has to integrate smoothly into the workflow, external media as well as planning contents have to be processed and important project information has to be accommodated. Of course, the output of the pages should also be as easy as possible.

For your workflow. Individual projects require individual processes. Therefore, the various media such as stamps, logos, images, viewports or texts can now be placed even more intuitively on your layout pages. In other words, new intelligent auxiliary lines make it easier to align elements so you can keep track and work precisely. And for those who like it accurate: The size and position of all objects can now be defined with millimetre precision as they are inserted.

Score with details. It’ s often the little things that decide whether something is visually appealing or not. This also applies to layouts. In the new version of pCon.planner, use advanced settings for drop shadows and background-transparency to make your content stand out from the crowd.

Your results will impress with quality and scalability by outputting lines, edges and text as scale-independent vectors. You can use the Wireframe or Hidden Line rendering modes as the basis for vector graphics and adjust line width, line- and area-color settings. And by the way: All the new image editing functions we reported about in this post are available in the Layout section for both images and inserted viewports!

Easy to print. After you have created your layout, you want to output it. The pCon.planner now has its own PDF printer with which you can create PDF files directly from the layout area. The direct integration ensures that your ideas look exactly as you imagined them, even outside of pCon.planner.

Test the improvements of the layout module in pCon.planner PRO and update your existing system. If you want to test the PRO version without obligation, you can download a free test version here.

If you want to present your plannings well, you also have to think about lighting. It is crucial for simulating a realistic illumination to create a unique atmosphere for your rendering. In this blog we have summarized how the basic illumination in pCon.planner works and what possibilities there are for using additional light sources to illuminate your planning as naturally as possible.

Ambient Light: In order to provide a basic illumination for less experienced users, pCon.planner provides ambient light. It is set as standard for each new planning and is it secures, that there is any source of light visible. The ambient light is well suited to render single products or open rooms without ceiling.

A rendering with just the basic settings and without ceiling.

When rooms are closed with a ceiling, less ambient light falls in from the outside. So that’s where other light sources come into the game. All these light sources can be found under the Tab “Start” and “Room elements”.

Directional Light: Let us first look at the light that can come from a certain direction – that is, the “directional light”. It is used to simulate light and shadow conditions on a sunny day and illuminates a design evenly and over a large area. It can be used to represent the incidence of light from the sun.

With directional light you can represent the light from the sun.

Area Light: Because the directional light is not yet sufficient to brighten up the room, the task now is to ensure that the interior is illuminated. Area light is suitable for this. It simulates rectangular light sources such as fluorescent tube fields in offices and is well suited to illuminate small rooms or individual areas evenly from above or from the sides.

To illuminate a closed room, you can draw an area light over the entire surface of the room and set the intensity quite low. This brightens the room quickly and evenly.

In this picture you can see the big area light with low intensity and even smaller area lights to illuminate the sideboard.

Spotlight: The next step is to shed light on the highlights of a plan. Spotlights are suitable for this, which produce a light cone similar to that of a flashlight. The opening angle and the hotspot angle can be adjusted, making this type of light source very versatile.

Point light: The last light source is the so-called “point light”, which, as the name already suggests, emits light in a 360° angle from its source in any direction. It can be used to equip lamps that are open on both sides or placed in the middle of a room to brighten up certain parts of a design as a whole.

With the spotlight or point light you can illuminate highlights of your planning.

We don’t dare to say whether spotlight or point light fits better in this planning, that is up to you. In conclusion, it can be said that light always influences the mood of a planning and is therefore something highly subjective. However, by cleverly combining the individual light sources, our users always manage to create breathtaking images of reality.

There you have it – these are the different light sources in pCon.planner you can try out. If you want to learn even more, check out our detailed online help center here.

Nowadays, interior designers are no longer just specialists in the field of spatial planning, but also creative minds who manage extensive project data and prepare it for customer presentations. In order not to lose the overview and to be able to quickly access the right information such as pictures, assembly instructions, brochures, delivery and contact […]

The post New in pCon.planner 8.3 – Product information for projects and presentations appeared first on pCon-Blog.

Interior design is about more than designing visually appealing spaces and creating pretty pictures while you are at it. It is about creating concepts and selling solutions to specific requirements a space needs to meet. While creating designs that convince aesthetically is important, you’ve got to know and show the facts about the products and […]

The post pCon.planner 8.4 – Use Multi Content Pictures to seal the deal appeared first on pCon-Blog.

Some of our users have already noticed – when rendering with OSPRay, the “Sunlight” setting no longer exists. The good news: In pCon.planner 8.0, the sun doesn’t only shine in the rendering, but already illuminates rooms while planning. In order to imitate the sun, we use a method that is not new, but has simply […]

The post pCon.planner 8.0: Where did the sun go? appeared first on pCon-Blog.