3D Virtual Sampling:

Evolution or Revolution?

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 Virtual Sampling Journey:
1.What will you gain? (Or, rather, what will you lose if you don’t?). It has to
be measurable.

2.Are your products 3D CAD compliant?

3.Are your business partners all up to virtual sampling?

4.Have you developed the necessary skillset for virtual sampling development?

5.Have you clarified your objectives of using 3D?

6.Which 3D CAD solution to use?

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 Are your business partners all up to virtual sampling?

• 3D CAD/Virtual sampling is a communication tool. It is a platform for communication

that you can use to exchange comments and ideas with your business partners.

• If you are a brand, you need to motivate your suppliers to get on board and use the same
tool. You ought to develop a common objective to reduce lead time and reduce
sampling with your supplier(s). If you are a manufacturer and would like to develop a
virtual sampling communication channel with your buyer to accept your design, you need
to make sure they accept using virtual sampling for sample comments.

• You need to include virtual sampling as part of your workflow with your business
partner(s).
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Sampling is a burden in your development process

1. Cost of make (your sample maker’s time)

2. Cost of material (you have to develop a full material set)

3. Cost of delivery (logistic company flight charge)

4. Cost of wrong sampling and remake

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 The purpose of virtual sampling is to:

1. Reduce sample time

2. Reduce sample cost

3. Increase the number of design variations so that

you can sell more

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 Intangible calculations could be:

• Company image gain – Ability to show your customers you have

the latest technology, and are always incurring new opportunities

• Internal moral gain – Internal staff seeing that the company is

ready for a change which is motivating, especially for the
millennials

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 3 purposes for which virtual sampling

1. For a retailer or brand to be able to visualize a style in the early stage,

to place orders adopting the style

2. For a factory or trading company to provide design services for

brands to sell their product, and virtual sample is part of their value-
added service to their customers

3. For a brand wanting to put their virtual sample in their e-commerce

platform in the early stage of their development to test the consumer
market, or even get orders from end consumers.
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 Skill Set for Virtual Sampling

1. 3D CAD simulation skills – Developing the virtual sample from a tech pack
and pattern

2. Pattern making skills – Developing the garment engineering pattern

3. Hardware development skills – Developing hardware items such as zippers,

buttons, and badges to attach to the virtual sample

4. Graphical software skills – Developing 2D prints, embroidery design to place

onto the 3D garment
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  Are your products 3D CAD compliant?

• Lingerie – Lingerie is a technical product; it involves complicated padding, wiring and elastic structure.

Some 3D CAD software has the capability to do such simulation, but you have to check if such simulation

is accurate, by always comparing it with a real sample.

• Sweaters – In order to make up a realistic sweater, the first thing is to make up a virtual knitted panel by

virtual yarn, then you need to simulate the panel based on that virtual yarn. Some 3D CAD solutions have

these capabilities, but others simply use graphical image to simulate the sweater knit texture effect.

• Denim – Various washes or fabric ‘torn’ texture effects are done by trial and error, physically, and there are

a lot of new inventions of different kinds of effect. The rendering of those special effects by 3D CAD

solutions can only be done by graphical image manipulation

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 Virtual Sampling for Design Visualization
• In a design environment, 3D CAD can reduce time wastage between concept
design (where you develop a sketch, and a tech pack) and the look of the
apparel. The buyer needs to see how it looks and a virtual sample can
reduce tremendous amounts of time.

• The process of sampling is long – from proto, first, colour, fit, and then
finally to pre-production. There is a lot of guesswork between the designer
and the sample maker that can incur incorrect samples, wasted time and
effort (and, ultimately, cost).
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 Latest Developments
1. Virtual showroom and communication platform – Allows buyers and seller(s) to
communicate in a virtual room, adding comments such as modification instructions

2. High Quality Animation – This is based on the kind of industries that use different
type of posts: basketball player animation, golfing, cycling and all the way to the
virtual catwalk

3. BOM development with tech pack – 3D files that can develop tech packs, and
build BOMs (Bills of Materials) and costing

4. 3D Animated Fashion Show

5. Virtual Reality
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Assembly process of the prototype with virtual
sewing.

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Simulation typologies: Sketch, DFS
Realistic
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and on Tension graph. 16
Comparative evaluation
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Evaluation of a dynamic posture.
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Expansion of collection
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Thank you very much

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