Real time 3D web site for furniture store

Basically picture a modern stylish provider of office furniture. They want to offer the ability, on their site, for customers to view all the styles of chairs, tables, screens, pedestals etc. in a office type environment. With that the colour of each chair, table and so on needs to be selectable, like from a swatch pallet.

Now I do have a few solutions to at , but I just wondered if anyone had done or seen anything of this nature before. I know about some car and mobile phone sellers that offer demos of their products, in 3d, with selectable colour/components. in the main www.cult3d.com seems to be a popular avenue.

The altern. being the use of static, raster images and dynamically tinting the colours. The main aim is to provide the most hands of for me (as a developer) so I don’t have to go and craft various tinted images/models.

do you follow ? any links, tips, prods or pokes would be accepted gratefully.

Thanks all.