While doing some architectural visualisations recently, I got amazed by the tools available now. From costlier to the free versions, they are all around the place. However there are very few which work with the workflow of an architect.
The really nice tool in this space is SketchUp. Current version is only available for the web. However there are older versions available to download and they work offline.
The thing here is, SketUp does not support rendering out of the box. And for rendering, there are a lot of options available there too. However, I found Visualizer is a must tool. It is simple but very productive. Bad news is, they have stopped developing it, good news is, they made it free. Its available for download for free.
- Visualizer supports SketchUp till version 2016.
- SketchUp works offline till version 2018.
I found the combination version of SketchUp 2015 and Visualizer works best for me.
Here is a link where there are descriptions and discussions to download SketchUp 2015 and Visualizer is already available for 2015.
Happy rendering.