Visualisation in architecture – opportunities and threats

Development of computer technology, computing power of graphics cards and processors allows, with the use of appropriate software, to create extremely realistic three-dimensional images. The effects of generated visualisations can be difficult to distinguish from real photos of objects. Architects often verify the fulfilment of design goals based on a rendered digital image. Unfortunately, designers are often not fully aware of the limitations and simplifications of the tools used to create visualisations. An uncritical approach to the presented results may lead to design errors. This article presents the possibilities of visualisation in selected computer programs used by architects and cases in which correct visualisation is possible only with the use of specialised software. The article pays special attention to the possibility of errors in the visualisation of architectural lighting.