Kindra Sauna: Red Dot Design Award Visualizations

Kindra Sauna: Red Dot Design Award Visualizations

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The Process: From CAD to an Australian Summer Dream

For a start-up like AusAir, the Red Dot Design Award is the ultimate seal of approval. To submit their new Kindra Sauna , they needed imagery that would convince the jury. The problem: at that point, the sauna existed only as a CAD file. There was no physical model, no wood, no glass.

Our mission was to create a completely digital reality. We didn't just need to visualize a product; we had to stage the sauna in an Australian backyard.

The key to a credible sauna visualization lies in the wood. Standard textures often look flat and lack variation. For the Kindra Sauna, we combined procedural shaders with high-resolution scans of real wood. We added microscopic imperfections, subtle color variations, and grain patterns that refract light in unique ways.

For the sauna heater, we drew from our internal asset library . Instead of modeling every detail of the lava stones from scratch, we were able to utilize existing high-end models and adapt them to AusAir's design.

The Highlight: Full-CGI Environment

‍A product like a sauna sells through emotion. We created a complete full-CGI outdoor shot: a sun-drenched Australian pool garden, built entirely in 3D.

Plants, water reflections, lighting – everything is digital, yet it looks like a photo from a high-end magazine. This gave us absolute control over the "weather" and "sun position" to perfectly illuminate the sauna.

Or would you prefer daytime?

Maximum flexibility through AI integration.

For us, a finished 3D rendering isn't a dead end, but the perfect starting point. We see 3D product images as a foundationthat we can seamlessly build upon using artificial intelligence (AI).

This AI-powered workflow gives you completely new options down the line: we use the perfect perspective and geometry of the 3D rendering and let the AI reinterpret the mood, the season, or the environment. This turns a night shot into a daytime scene in seconds, or a summer campaign into a winter setting – without the need for time-consuming re-lighting of the 3D scene. This saves budget and makes your content future-proof.

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The result

The final images are indistinguishable from photographs. They convey warmth and exclusivity. AusAir was not only able to use the images for award submissions but also launched pre-sales and marketing with them long before the first sauna was delivered.

^Services

• High-end product cutouts
• Full-CGI environment (outdoor)
• AI variation
• Material & Texture Development
• Award Visualization

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