Digimode
[Project I was part of at Berge Consulting AB]
Thanks to Houdini Sportswear, TEKO Sveriges Textil- och Modeföretag, Johan Käll, Josephine Ahlengren, Fredrik Johansson, Rudrajeet Pal, Niina Hernandez, Marketplace Borås and Vinnova for making it happen!
The Aim
Digimode is a science project by Textilhögskolan i Borås and Houdini Sportswear as case company. The aim of the Digimode project is to develop a demonstrator for virtual design and sales with digitally enabled local production of apparel products that will enhance agility in the customer relation. The fulfillment of this purpose is made possible by digitizing current analogue systems in design, marketing, rendering, customization and fitting. With a local digitally enhanced demand driven value chains of fabrics and garments the entire value chain can be demonstrated.
My Contribution
I had the role as Lead Developer for the application. I worked closely with the designers and artists to produce the application for Houdini Sportswear to take the project forward. My main responsibility was to keep the development of the app flowing. Take the idea and make it into a prototype, and later the final version.
The Solution
We developed a virtual 3D fitting room application where the user could fill in her measurements, see how the Houdi fitted, make custom changes and order the garment. The application is built in Unreal Engine 4 and launched on iPad, but can run on PC and Mac as well.
Beyond the front-end where the user interact with the mannequin and Houdi, navigate through the application and order the garmet we developed a server and order handling system to store information each purchase and send correct data to the manufacturer in Borås.
The system
For each of the orders the follow process was conducted where the user used the app in an User Session which then follows by almost automatic process from order to delivered garment. For the manufacturing to know what customization and order specification the user has chosen we developed system which auto generated unique codes pointing different pre-made garment blueprints.
The Preperation
To be able to visualize and customize the virtual garments in real-time and send correct manufacturing data we prepared each of the garments specified to our system. We used cloth simulation data and then prepared the data in Maya before importing it to our UnrealEngine 4 project.
...and some app screenshots
The video at the top show the app in acition.
