1. In a computerized architectural design environment in which a design program is loaded into memory and processed at a central processing unit, a computer-implemented method of efficiently rendering realistic three-dimensional views of a user's design choices in real-time, wherein the rendering allows a user to navigate a real-world depiction of the design essentially instantaneously in a three-dimensional space, comprising: displaying a design space on a computerized display; receiving from a user one or more user inputs regarding a layout of the design space on the display; generating, based upon the one or more user inputs, object data relating to a three-dimensional layout of the design space; processing the object data with a graphical processing engine, the graphical processing engine comprising one or more sets of computer executable code that are configured to prepare the three-dimensional layout of the design space for rendering by a hardware graphics processing unit; preparing, with the graphical processing engine, a combined data stream including the processed object data and a template of a visual effect for a design element; sending the combined data stream from the graphical processing engine to the hardware graphics processing unit; generating pixel information from the combined data stream with the hardware graphics processing unit; and sending the pixel information to the computerized display for display.