by [TC]²
Visualizing Success Through Texture Mapping
Diverse companies streamline the textile design process and put their products on the Web with texture mapping software.
By Alfred Dockery
Textile design departments must contend with the conflicting needs to take their designs from concept to marketplace faster than ever while cutting costs at the same time. Often they are asked to give their company’s products a web presence as well.
Many designers are achieving these goals through the use of texture mapping or digital draping, as it is sometimes called. This technology has been available for about a decade now. It allows designers to create photo-realistic three-dimensional renderings of designs, colors, surfaces and textures onto photographs or other images. While early texture mapping software was difficult and time consuming to use, recent advances in this technology have dramatically improved performance and ease of use. Designers can now generate life-like representations of products using scanned-in photographs of human models, furniture or even entire rooms directly from most major CAD systems.
In this article we will look at how four companies – Jockey International, Wrangler, Cranston Print Works and Hunter Douglas – are using NedGraphics Vision Easy Map texture mapping software to gain better control over the design process, cut costs and give customers interactive access to their product lines via the Internet.
Jockey Takes Control
Jockey International purchased NedGraphics CAD and texture mapping software in order to bring its design functions in house to gain better control of its processes and cut costs.
The company had been relying on outside vendors to do much of its design work. This had proved both time consuming and expensive. The system paid for itself within six months of implementation, according to Devin MacLachlan, senior designer, Jockey International.
“The bottom line was cost,” MacLachlan said. “When we looked at how much we were spending a season on outside vendors and studio work, it made sense to bring as much of that as we possibly could back in house.”
Jockey has found the system to be accurate and versatile. It gives their designers much greater control and allows them to generate new designs much faster. The time required to go from concept to sample has decreased from weeks to days, and in some cases just a day.
“We have been able to take, for example, a bra put it on a model or a form, take a digital picture, put it into the system, change color, change fabric, change textures. You’ve got a whole new line and haven’t incurred that much cost other than time and paper,” MacLachlan said.
In addition, the software’s texture mapping capability has improved Jockey’s ability to communicate both internally and externally.
“One of the biggest things that we have been able to do is use it as a communication tool,” MacLachlan said. “Many times sales and merchandising teams don’t necessarily have the same vision as a design team. They need to see it to understand it.”
“It has enabled us to go out to our key retail partners and show them boards and presentation materials with texture mapped imagery, and they have a better understanding of how it’s going to look,” he said.
MacLachlan has also been able to use the modular design of the CAD system to leverage the individual talents of his design team.
“When it’s crunch time everybody gets on the system,” he said. “Since it’s modular you can get key people to be the point person for specific modules. If there is a question about how to do something in that module, you go to them. If that fails you call the help line.”
Wrangler Western Wear Cuts Photography Cost
Wrangler’s CAD department is using texture mapping software to design Men’s shirts and Women’s tops. Its main use is to create photographs for swatch cards that the Wrangler sales team takes on the road to show customers. The technology has improved this process significantly, according to Trista Grieder, a Wrangler designer.
“At first it was a solution for a problem. Now it’s savings on time and money,” Grieder said. “Our costs are greatly affected because we save time and money on photo shoots. Once we got up and running on the software our speed was pretty good. We can drape about 10 T-shirts in a day.”
Implementing the texture mapping software went smoothly especially since the department primarily used a NedGraphics design system already. Sample garments are made up in solid white fabric for each style of shirt. The photographs of these originals are then digitally inputted into the computer and the designer uses the texture mapping software to generate several combinations of fabric, color and trim for each shirt, eliminating the time and expense of traditional samples.
Web-Based Rendering
 |
|
Dal Tile visitors can design complete rooms using texture mapping technology
|
Although quiltingtreasures.com is a business-to-consumer (B2C) site and tapestria.com is a business-to-business (B2B) site, both must provide their users with the same type and level of functionality. If quilters and designers are to become repeat visitors to these sites then they must be easy to use, interactive and perhaps more importantly fast.
Cranston Print Works Makes Quilting Interactive
George Schuster, president of Cranston Print Works Co. wanted his company’s website, www.quiltingtreasures.com , to be fun and interactive. He had attended a seminar on web business where he saw an example of a gardening site that assisted the user to plan a garden layout. Schuster decided that the same approach could be applied to making a quilt.
Cranston wanted to reach out to serious quilting enthusiasts to promote its Quilting Treasures line, which is sold through independent fabric stores. The texture mapping software allows visitors to the site to scroll through several quilt block designs and then drag and drop a desired fabric onto the quilt, giving the quilter an image of how the quilt will actually look.
Many of the sites' visitors print out the quilt blocks and then take them to the store to purchase Cranston’s fabric. The web site also lists the nearest retailer carrying the line.
“This software allows our site to be truly interactive with the quilter making our website unique in the marketplace, therefore creating more traffic and ultimately more business,” said Allison LaBarbera, Marketing Services manager for Cranston. “Our site and business has continued to grow, with an average 10,000 hits a day and a 60% increase in sales for this segment.”
Cranston Print Works has been in operation since 1824 and is the oldest printing company in the United States. The company designs and manufactures 100% cotton fabrics for the over-the-counter and manufacturer markets.
The company has three brands under the Cranston name: Schwartz Liebman, VIP and Quilting Treasures. The Schwartz Liebman line is primarily apparel fabrics. VIP by Cranston is sold at large chain retailers such as Wal-Mart. These fabrics include craft panels and quilting designs. Quilting Treasures was launched last year and is a higher quality quilting line sold only to independent fabric shops.
Hunter Douglas Launches Tapestria
| Additional Internet Sites Using Texture Mapping Technology Dal-Tile is the largest tile manufacturer in the world. They utilize texture mapping to render tiles in room scenes. Suehac is a large German manufacturer of doors, doorframes, and accessories. The company uses visualization technology to display finishes and colors available in its product line. Vorwerk-Teppich
is the largest carpet manufacturer in Germany. The company uses
the technology to render carpet tiles in room scenes. Click on
red carpet under the category “Virtuelles Einrichten.”
When the window opens up, click on a room scene on the left and
a carpet tile on the right. Carpet tiles are texture mapped onto
the room scene. This allows customers to visualize carpets interactively. |
Tapestria is a new e-business venture created and supported by Hunter Douglas, the world leader in window coverings and a major manufacturer of architectural products. The site is intended to be a true e-marketplace and is designed to dramatically streamline the distribution process to the trade. The site’s purpose is to allow interior designers to quickly and easily source fine interior fabrics. The ultimate goal is to reduce the time it takes to launch a new product from 12 to 18 months to a matter of days.
NedGraphics Vision Easy Map software is a key resource for the site, according to Rocco Esposito, Tapestria chief technology officer (CTO). The software is used to create life-like previews of fabrics in use, for example, in draperies or on a sofa or a chair.
“It allows (the designers) to dynamically render and view fabrics in room settings to, for example, put fabric on a chair,” Esposito said. “The key is that it wouldn’t be possible to show all fabrics in room settings any other way. It would be impossible to shoot all the different combinations.”
During the implementation process Esposito’s team discovered that some of the most difficult fabrics must be pre-rendered using another program to achieve satisfactory results. Other than that, implementation of the texture mapping software was fairly straightforward.
Through exclusive agreements with over 40 leading European and American fabric mills, Tapestria currently offers designers access to 5,000 fabrics. By the end of 2002, it expects to have more than 25,000 fabrics available.
To find fabrics, interior designers use Tapestria’s search engine to filter through the site’s thousands of fabrics by specifying colors, fibers, intended uses, patterns, and weaves. In addition to real-time product, the site’s features include free sampling, as well as efficient ordering and supply tracking.
Hunter Douglas’ initial investment in Tapestria is around $25 million. The Hunter Douglas group is comprised of 145 companies, with 62 manufacturing sites, 83 assembly plants and marketing organizations in more than 80 countries.
Alfred Dockery is a freelance writer based in Clemmons, N.C. He has covered the textile industry for 14 years.