Modern architects use services from computer graphic firms to create 3-dimensional models for both customers and builders. These computer generated models can be more accurate than traditional drawings. Architectural animation (which provides animated movies of buildings, rather than interactive images) can also be used to see the possible relationship a building will have in relation to the environment and its surrounding buildings. The rendering of architectural spaces without the use of paper and pencil tools is now a widely accepted practice with a number of computer-assisted architectural design systems.^[4]

Architectural modeling tools allow an architect to visualize a space and perform "walk throughs" in an interactive manner, thus providing "interactive environments" both at the urban and building levels.^[5] Specific applications in architecture not only include the specification of building structures such as walls and windows, and walk-throughs, but the effects of light and how sunlight will affect a specific design at different times of the day.^[6]

Architectural modeling tools have now become increasingly internet-based. However, the quality of internet-based systems still lags those of sophisticated inhouse modeling systems.^[7]

In some applications, computer-generated images are used to "reverse engineer" historical buildings. For instance, a computer-generated reconstruction of the monastery at Georgenthal in Germany was derived from the ruins of the monastery, yet provides the viewer with a "look and feel" of what the building would have looked like in its day.^[8]