System and method employing variable size binding elements in virtual rendering of a print production piece

A system and method for a pre-print, three-dimensional virtual rendering of a print piece are disclosed. A plurality of modular/pipelined architectural layers are managed, operated, and organized by a controller. A product definition is provided to a job ticket adaptation layer where it is transformed into a physical model. The physical model is then transformed into a display model via the product model layer. The display model is transformed into a scene that can be displayed on a graphical user interface as a three dimensional virtual rendering by a rendering layer, where the rendering includes one or more binding elements to satisfy the product definition. The binding elements may include 3D binding models as well as 2D textures on 3D surfaces to simulate 3D models.