Month: August 2023

We’re excited to announce the launch of Spectrum 3DTrue, our newest rendering engine that brings our clients’ products alive with crystal-clear, photo-realistic 3D. 3DTrue’s best-in-class visualization offers high-level animated states, multi-variant lighting and true to life material representation. With 3DTrue,  the variety and complexity of materials are represented with 100% accuracy,  including glass, translucent plastics, iridescents, detailed fabric, metallics and much more. Lastly, 3DTrue is future-proofing today’s 3D assets with the ability to apply existing product aesthetics to future product images, saving time and money on future photoshoots. 

See below for more details:

Unique Capabilities of 3DTrue

Image Based Lighting

Image Based Lighting (IBL) is a technique in which we are able to dynamically light 3D scenes, assets, or environments using an .HDRI image instead of only using 3D lights.

• 3DTrue captures real-world light, and simulates how that environment would physically impact a 3D asset, leading to more realistic looking models. 
• We can leverage clients .hdri images to exactly match their existing product lighting requirements for increased consistency.
• Can be used in conjunction with 3D lights for the optimal look.

Physically Based Rendering (PBR)

Physically Based Rendering (PBR) is a way to render a 3D object using properties that mimic how light interacts with objects in the real world.  PBR materials have specific properties (roughness, metalness, diffuse/albedo, normals) and can be created using industry standard software. 

Spectrum uses an array of industry standard approaches to author materials following a PBR workflow, allowing the team to seamlessly integrate them into our pipeline to be visualized over the web.

Real-Time Rendering

Real-time rendering is the act of rendering 3D models and textures in a live environment, such as via a website/WebGL. This is critical for Spectrum because, unlike some 3D customizers, we aren’t just rendering still images and switching between them. Our process more closely resembles video game development by rendering products right before your eyes.

Keyframe Animation/Rigging Capabilities

When animation can assist in demonstrating a product’s full benefit, 3DTrue utilizes keyframe animation to create fluid and complex animation movements. Keyframe animation provides the ability to use a rig, allowing for rigid animations, where no product part is being bent, deformed or stretched during the animation, such as a knife opening from its handle

Glow and Emissive Properties

With these tools, we are able to use the emissive properties of materials to have parts of a model cast their own light.

Translucency

Translucency is the physical property of semi-transparent materials and how light passes through them. By utilizing translucency, we can more realistically represent products with transparency, such as jewelry and glassware.

Clear Coat

Clear coat is a 3D property of a material that simulates the coating of a transparent layer of paint over a colored layer. Commonly used when rendering car models, clear coat allows Spectrum 3DTrue to provide more realistic looks for any product that is manufactured with a similar process.

Anistropy

Anistropy is a special property where the shape of light reflection changes based on the direction from which it is viewed. This allows 3DTrue to render specific materials more realistically such as brushed metal, vinyl, and velvet.

Camera Animation

With 3DTrue technology, we now have the ability to animate models within our scene as well as the camera itself. This allows us to create dramatic entrances and effects within customizers, and support a range of dynamic movements.

Post Processing Effects

3DTrue provides a host of capabilities for applying specific filters and 2D effects after the image is processed on the screen, in real-time 3D. This opens a whole new world of dynamic and efficient effects that can be applied to our clients’ models, mimicking how real-life cameras operate. Effects include:

• Bloom:  Mimics how light is imperfectly captured within a real camera lens, as a gaussian effect where the light spreads out.

• Chromatic Aberration: Captures how colors are imperfectly rendered within a real-life camera.

• Depth of Field: Represents how a camera focuses on elements within the scene.

• Grain: Imitates film grain on a camera, for more realistic filmic scenes.

• Color Processing:Includes various settings and filters that can affect how colors are interpreted by a camera and rendered within our 3D scenes.

.GLB/.GLTF Support

We offer support for the two most ubiquitous file formats in 3D animation, allowing us to render and integrate multiple file formats with minimal effort. 

• GLTF is a file format for 3D scenes that aims to become the “JPG” of 3D file formats, a standardized format that will work across multiple platforms 
• .GLB differs from GLTF in that it allows textures and animations to be directly compressed within it instead of being referenced externally. Platforms like Facebook are starting to standardize this format, which will make 3D products easier to share across social media.
• Spectrum uses .GLB files a bit differently than other 3D programs. We don’t use the texture information imbedded in the files, allowing us to set-up assets to be more customizable 
• We also are able to work with .OBJ, .FBX, .STP and .STEP file formats

Component Swapping

This capability allows for live swapping between models on a webpage. One model is rendered and easily switched to another, sometimes accompanied with a real-time animation, without a page refresh.

Sub-surface Scattering  

Sub-surface scattering is the physical diffusion of light within a semi-translucent material, such as the glow of your skin when you hold a flashlight up to your hand, and is utilized to achieve greater realism of products.

Please reach out if you’d like a more in-depth demonstration of Spectrum’s 3DTrue capabilities and how they can benefit your ecommerce program.

Spectrum Customizer began helping clients with their custom product programs over 10 years ago. Since that time, we’ve been singularly focused on becoming the global leader in product personalization. Never content to simply be a “configurator,” we place our emphasis on first ensuring proper integration with our client’s facilities to ensure the custom products can be produced exactly to their customers’ expectations. This focus has resulted in a 100% factory integration rate with our clients, resulting in Spectrum’s broad client portfolio, with specialties in outdoor equipment, apparel, technology and accessories.

If you haven’t considered product customization within your product line, there may be a few surprising benefits that you hadn’t considered.

INNOVATION WITH DISTINCTION

Brands have no shortage of retail outlets anymore. Unfortunately, between supply chain challenges and competition from 3rd party retailers, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for brands to maintain the margins they’re used to. Thankfully, this is one of the largest benefits to product customization – the ability for your brand to innovate with distinction. Offering exclusive product personalization in your own distribution channels, reduces friction and/or competition with 3rd party retailers. Custom products, accurately portrayed with best-in-class visualization, such as through Spectrum 3DTrue, reinforce your brand’s innovative qualities and provide additional and unexpected buying opportunities.

As users navigate and build their own products, tools like Spectrum Creator provide your users with customization options – everything from photo integration, text and color options, stickers, and monograms. Every interaction is tech-forward with visually rich 3D assets, fast visualizations, intelligent moderation of user imagery, etc. Your biggest brand fans have the ability to completely customize their favorite products, making them uniquely their own, while providing your brand with retail innovation opportunities.

INCREASED ENGAGEMENT AND CONVERSION

No digital initiative can be considered without evaluating the potential ROI it can provide. With product personalization, your consumers are naturally inspired to engage deeper within your site. They can explore more options within your product line, perhaps even products they had never considered, providing even more reasons to stay longer on the site. In fact, Spectrum clients routinely see 5X increase in time on site.

As consumers immerse themselves and invest more personal time customizing products, price sensitivity drops. More personal investment of time and emotion means consumers are more likely to feel “compelled” to complete their transaction. Need proof? Spectrum clients’ custom SKUs are their best sellers, outselling stock SKUs by 3X on average.

And in the event your user spends time creating a masterpiece, but doesn’t purchase, there are opportunities for highly-personalized re-marketing. Customer data and details from custom orders, combined with existing eCommerce data, provide valuable insights into a brand’s most loyal customers, their preferences, purchase behavior, etc. When combined with a feature such as Spectrum Intelligence, these insights can inform very specific profiles of your custom audiences, offering highly-personalized marketing opportunities or even future product line insights.

INCREASED LOYALTY

Brand fans already come to your site, but product personalization gives them a reason to stay longer. Personalization turns your website into their studio and your products into their palette, where features like Spectrum Creator gives fans a chance to go even further, customizing with photo integrations, stickers, colors, stickers, fonts and even monograms. These customization options, cleanly integrated into a consistent UX experience keep your site sticky, reducing bounce rates by up to 50%.

Product customization can come with potential risk, as you open up your brand and IP to unknown ideas and modification, even to your most loyal fans. It’s a common concern, but one that can be well mitigated through moderation. Cutting edge AI-driven moderation, such as Spectrum Protect, allows for maximum protection of your brand, by scanning for profanity in text and visuals, saving your team’s time while protecting against copyright infringements, vulgarities and inappropriate content.

GETTING STARTED

We understand an enterprise-wide custom product program has a substantial impact across multiple departments. In our experience, the first step is to determine personalization opportunities within your product line, taking into consideration things such as the products’ popularity, new release schedules and products that might present the best creative “canvas.” For more detail on early decisions you’ll need to consider, you can refer to our Ready Assessment blog. And as you progress in your decision-making, Spectrum can provide ROI modeling to better help inform product decisions.

Usually the last, but most important, consideration is to evaluate your current supply chain. Begin by opening up discussions with your current factories to understand their full capabilities vs. what you are looking to implement. If your facilities are able to take on the customizations you’re looking for, Spectrum can easily integrate directly your new customization program with them. Or we can assist in finding 3rd party facilities to ease the last mile of production and fulfillment.

The advantages of product customization are untapped by many brands. With a turn-key process refined over dozens of successful integrations, Spectrum Customizer has the experience to successfully onboard your brand, offering unrealized revenue streams for you.