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Photo Studio Equipment & Software: Today’s Industry Leaders
3D eCommerce uses 3D modeling to create an advanced product viewing experience. Read on to find out exactly what it is, and how to produce 3D models in-house.
3D eCommerce deploys 3D modeling for online product visualization, product configuration, and VR / AR to bolster digital marketing and sales. Sometimes also called 3D commerce, 3D modeling commerce, or immersive commerce, 3D formats offer more informative and visual eCommerce photography.
Meanwhile, brands and retailers use it to generate higher customer engagement, better conversion rates, larger average orders, and reduced returns. In this guide, we’ll cover the basics of 3D eCommerce, key terminology, best practices and 3D model production. We’ll answer:
Read on to learn more, including how to adopt 3D eCommerce technology to develop your business and overall product experience.
Let’s not confuse 3D eCommerce with 360 spin photography, or 3D product photos. To clarify:
3D modeling in eCommerce has evolved along with a wide range of use cases. Some common examples of today’s applications for 3D modeling include:
These applications allow shoppers to browse virtual catalogs, and to see virtual previews of product features. They also provide the ability to run product simulations, and overall create a more informative and immersive product experience.
In order to produce 3D eCommerce content, it all begins with 3D modeling. 3D modeling enables us to create an accurate, photorealistic representation of an object, which consumers can view digitally. Getting started calls for special scanning or photography studio equipment and software to render a 3D model. However, there are three main approaches to 3D modeling:
Businesses host 3D models online with a 3D product viewer, or with VR / AR technology. 3D viewers enable both web and mobile viewing. VR can simulate the physical experience of a product. Meanwhile, AR uses smartphone / tablet cameras and displays to project objects into a virtual space.
In eCommerce nowadays, and at PhotoRobot, we support our automated photography equipment with the photogrammetry scanning technique. Most recently, we experimented with Apple Object Capture to make a simple 3D model from photographs in under a few minutes.
Other popular solutions today include RealityCapture, Adobe’s Substance 3D Painter, and Blender (a free open source software). You might also be familiar with Alice Vision’s Meshroom. In fact, Meshrom’s open source photogrammetry software has helped advance the software to what we know today. They also provide an apt definition of photogrammetry technology.
“Photogrammetry is the science of making measurements from photographs. It infers the geometry of a scene from a set of unordered photographs or videos. Photography is the projection of a 3D scene onto a 2D plane, losing depth information. The goal of photogrammetry is to reverse this process. The dense modeling of the scene is the result yielded by chaining two computer vision-based pipelines: “Structure-from-Motion” (SfM) and “Multi View Stereo” (MVS).”
In other words, photogrammetry involves obtaining reliable information about a physical object via recording, measuring, and interpreting imagery. We then use this information to replicate the object in the form of a digital 3D model.
Using 3D product content in eCommerce provides brands and retailers a wealth of benefits. Among these, some of the most prominent include the following.
The use cases for AR in e-commerce and retail are numerous. Shoppers can now use their mobile phones to virtually try on clothes or footwear. They can project furniture into a virtual space to see how it fits and if it suits their home. Brick-and-mortar stores even use AR to help shoppers compare prices or learn more about products on shelves.
Further, AR shopping apps make the customer both the content consumer and the content creator. They give users the ability to personally interact with, customize, and personalize products both online and offline. Consumers can customize colors, sizes, styles and designs, however and wherever they wish.
AR provides an immersive product experience, from rotation and zoom to exploding views, annotations, and animations of moving parts. It can demonstrate complex items, as well as large or heavy products that otherwise would be difficult to transport. Take for example refrigerators or heavy-duty automotive parts. AR can transport items like these directly to consumers, clients or investors to experiment with, and see how they operate.
To begin creating 3D models in-house, special 3D product photography equipment and 3D modeling software is necessary. Usually, this includes a special product photography turntable with an optical glass plate for 3D photography. Many businesses also deploy a robotic camera arm or multi-camera rig to automate camera elevation and achieve consistent image capture.
Devices (like PhotoRobot’s Frame) allow the camera and background to travel completely around the product, even under the glass. This provides shadow-free views from all sides and top-to-bottom that can be used to generate a 3D model. Studios also often combine turntables with the Multi-Cam to capture photos from 2 or more cameras. These dramatically reduce production times, allowing photographers to capture multiple rows of photos simultaneously.
Software like PhotoRobot’s can then post-process images (automatically), and integrate with photogrammetry software. Photogrammetry algorithms measure, record, and interpret images to produce a photorealistic representation of the product. With software like Apple’s Object Capture, the 3D model is produced in USDZ file format. USDZ 3D models can be viewed in AR Quick Look, or via <model-viewer>.
3D model files can then be embedded on any webpage using a 3D content viewer. Take for example Emersya, an end-to-end 3D & AR experience platform.
The initial investment into 3D modeling will begin with an appropriate camera, a suitable lens, lighting, and a rotary turntable. Let’s look at the most popular choices when working with PhotoRobot in-house systems.
Now, the most important element to cost-effective, in-house 3D modeling will be the additional hardware, the software, and automation.
Software like Object Capture and RealityCapture allow businesses to generate a 3D model from photos. Usually, this calls for a multi-row spin consisting of photos from at least 2 or more rows. Uploading these photos into 3D modeling software then renders a file which can be viewed as a 3D model. These can be embedded on webpages, or transformed into product configurators or AR / VR experiences with 3D content hosting platforms.
3D hosting platforms such as Emersya can also use 3D models to generate a range of visual assets, whether 2D or 3D. The higher the quality of the 3D model, the higher the scalability. In fact, sometimes all you need is an individual photoset to produce hundreds of 2D / 3D visuals. The platform enables businesses to represent products in different colors, designs, patterns and formats, nearly eliminating logistical concerns.
For companies with a wide stock of highly customizable products, 3D model hosting platforms can be extremely effective. A capable hosting platform will facilitate easily organized, accessible and deliverable content. It can provide a wealth of customizable, visible assets to deploy on demand, while saving on time, energy and costs.
Finally, with 3D product content online, it’s important to see how much return on investment you’re achieving, right? Your marketing teams will already deploy a range of tools to track performance. However, there are a few major KPIs to focus on to determine the overall efficiency of your 3D eCommerce strategy.
Tools to analyze KPI data include those for: web analytics, social media analytics, shopping eCommerce analytics, and AI business intelligence apps.
PhotoRobot is here for all of your 3D ecommerce needs, for businesses large or small. Whether it’s a small webshop or an industrial-scale photography warehouse, our solutions meet a wide range of needs and budgets. Simply reach out to discover if PhotoRobot can assist with your 3D ecommerce planning, strategy and production.
