AI Counter Display Design, From a Hand Sketch to a Line Drawing in One Session

When a brand asks its agency or its manufacturer for a render of a display, or of any other POP material, it usually takes days, sometimes weeks. I wanted to show what AI counter display design looks like when the starting point is a hand sketch and the tool is AI POP Displays.

The sketch was for a counter glorifier, a countertop display for a cordless glue gun. Drawn by hand, with notes written all over it. I could have started from a written brief instead and had the tool come back with a few ideas, but this time I wanted to see what it did with a drawing.

I've spent close to four years in point-of-purchase, and I build AI POP Displays. The video is in Spanish. This is the written record of the session, step by step.

What did I start from?

Three files. The sketch, the brand's logo and a photo of the product.

The first choice on the sketch route is how closely to follow the drawing. There are three settings, faithful to the sketch, balanced, which leaves room for ideas, and free interpretation. I left it on faithful.

Then I created a new project. The display type was counter display, and for the sector I picked electronics, though on a piece like this it barely matters. I left the notes field empty, because the notes were already on the sketch.

I uploaded the logo and the product photo, which was the glue gun itself. Graphics or more product shots can go in here too. I asked for two concepts at standard quality.

What came back in the first two concepts?

Two concepts that stuck closely to what I'd given it. I liked both at first sight.

Opened at full size, the one I looked at carried what the sketch asked for. An infographic section. The battery, with a short description of its specs. Some buttons and a touchscreen. More infographics, the logo, and the holder for the glue gun with a green LED, next to the gun's own specs.

One difference was the gun, which one of them had flipped around. I picked one to keep working on.

Two things stood out once I opened it in the editor. The panels for product info and how to use were there, but filled loosely, because I hadn't given it that information. That's copy we'd have to add ourselves. And it had put a second logo at the top, where the sketch asked for none.

If there's a customer's drawing in your inbox right now, run it through the free plan and read the notes back off the render.

How did I take out a logo the sketch didn't ask for?

With the bottom of the editor, which is where changes are made. It has two kinds.

The first is the mini-apps, ready actions on the image. Generate other angles, remove the product, convert to a line drawing, change the background, or convert to real life, which puts the display in a real setting and makes it look as real as possible. What you have at this point isn't a render as such, it's an image, and the angles are how you see its other sides.

The second is edit with prompt, where you describe the change in your own words. I wrote that I wanted the top logo removed and only the bottom one kept, and applied it.

Every version lands in a version tree on the right. Each change adds one, and you can keep working on the version you like, or delete it and go back to the one before. The edit came back with the top logo gone. It did what I asked.

What did the three angles show?

Generate angles opens a menu. You choose the sides, flat or perspective, photo or line drawing, with or without the product, and whether to keep the background or clean it.

I chose three sides, in perspective, as photos, with the product, and left the background as it was, already plain. Each angle comes back as its own image, so you see how the AI imagines the display from each side and can work on anything that doesn't convince you.

The front view held very well, except for the position of the glue gun. The side view showed the incline of the display, which you'd adjust to the height it's going to stand at, so it's easy to read. The third showed more of the top. The gun was the only thing slipping. The LED and the battery were there, and overall the result was very good.

There's also compare. You pick any two versions and see what changed between them. Here, the logo.

What does real life add, and how did I fix the glue gun?

With the version and the angles settled, I converted it to real life. It always fits the shot to the angle of the display. What came back was a real store, closer to a hardware or paint store, more industrial, with a table that looked completely real.

Then I went back to the glue gun, because it wasn't the way the sketch had it. In the sketch the gun stands upright on its base. In this version it sat diagonally.

I wrote that in edit with prompt, that the gun was placed diagonally and needed to stand upright. Then it occurred to me that I had the product photo, so I dragged it into the edit as a reference and asked for the gun to stand upright on its base, like in the reference photo.

The result was much better. The gun sat the right way.

If the product on your render is standing the wrong way, attach its photo to the edit and say how it should stand.

What did the line drawing give the manufacturer?

To finish, I converted it to a line drawing, the technical drawing version. You can get that from generate angles too, with flat projection and line style, but here I only tried it on the front view, with convert to line drawing.

I'd worked at standard quality the whole time. Ultra is there too, at 4K, but standard is a bit faster and at this stage I didn't need 4K.

What came back was the display as a line drawing, like a technical drawing. From there you could add measurements on top and make the job easier for the manufacturer, the agency, or whoever picks it up next.

What do I take from the session?

A hand sketch with notes all over it isn't a problem. The concepts followed the drawing and picked up most of what was written on it.

What you don't give it, it fills in. The product info and how-to-use panels came back with loose copy because I'd given it none. If the panel copy matters, it goes in with the files.

The product is the detail to watch, because it's what the piece is built for. In this session the glue gun was the thing that moved, flipped in one concept, off in the front angle, diagonal in the version I went to fix. A photo of the real product, attached to the edit, put it back. Why details move between versions is in why your AI render changes details between versions, and how to get the real product in from the start is in getting your actual product into an AI display render.

The edits were plain sentences. And working from a brief, which I didn't do this time, the tool writes all the prompting itself, so nobody has to be an expert in it. How the sketch route works in general is in sketch to render for POP displays.

The whole session, two concepts and every edit after them, came to 10 credits.

Where the line drawing goes next

A line drawing of a concept is where the image stops. The measurements still come from someone with a ruler, and that step is the half we're building now.

Bellto is an AI agent for brands and agencies that takes a POP campaign from brief to shop drawings. It proposes the campaign mix and materials, floor stand, glorifier, shelf strip, stopper, with the budget split per store, and designs every piece with you at real scale in parametric 3D, proportions derived from the product and the facings. A dimension change recomputes the whole piece and re-runs the manufacturing checks in seconds. Every approved piece comes out as a 3D model, a part-by-part cutlist, dimensioned drawings, a STEP of the assembly and a cut DXF per part, a package a workshop can quote without redrawing. The quote comes from the manufacturer.

We're building it now. The waitlist is open to any brand, and we're contacting the first ones soon to run the first real campaigns end to end. It opens by invitation, in small groups. Pricing goes first to the people on the list, and there's no card. POP manufacturers can sign up too.

For the sketch on your desk today, signup is free with 15 one-time credits and no card required, enough for the drawing, the logo, the product photo and the first concepts. Edit with prompt, the angles, real life and the line drawing are Pro edits, and Pro is $49 a month for 150 concept generations at the founding price, with the $69 list price stated openly. Nothing you upload or render trains AI models, on any plan.