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How Can Apparel Companies Use 3D Software to Streamline Sample Development?
11 Nov, 2010 By: Ram SareenDigital models can help clothing companies create and market their products more effectively than physical samples.
Technology advancements have allowed companies in virtually every industry to streamline their product development processes, and the apparel industry is no exception. Time-consuming and costly processes such as pattern making, pattern grading, and marker making can all now be done with the help of design software. But what about sample development — one of the most time-consuming and costly components of product development? Well, now 3D technology offers the apparel industry several opportunities to streamline their sample-development processes. By producing digital 3D samples, apparel companies can save time and money, better meet buyer demands, and more quickly respond to consumer trends.
It's no secret that the majority of apparel manufacturing happens outside of the United States. And while apparel companies save production costs by sourcing to overseas manufacturers, they lose quite a bit of time in the product development process. But, of course, apparel companies cannot simply stop producing samples. So, how can they increase efficiency and lower production costs while still producing quality samples? One answer lies in 3D software.
The entire engineering world has been using 3D software for about a decade to design 3D prototypes of everything from cars to computer chips, and this technology has finally come to the apparel industry. Instead of building physical samples from real fabric and shipping them to the design house, manufacturers and designers can work digitally to make a 3D virtual sample of the garment. Draped pieces of 3D fabric are sewn together inside of the 3D software, and a fabric simulation is applied to realistically reproduce the proper drape and fit.
Garment models can be assembled by "sewing" pieces together within a software application, as shown here with Tukatech's TUKA3D software.
Then, the user of the software can save the 3D sample as an image or movie from any perspective, and with or without animation of a virtual model "wearing" the virtual sample. The sample can then be e-mailed, enabling designers, fit technicians, and executives to evaluate a sample long before it would have been cut and sewn from cloth.
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