3D Imaging Spreads to Fashion and Beyond

A body scan can save a lot of time in the fitting room, and fields from medicine to architecture are adopting 3D computing applications

by Rachael King

No longer just the stuff of Hollywood movies and Silicon Valley video games, 3D technology is changing the way people do business everywhere. Consider Lori Coulter, a women's swimsuit designer inside the Macy's (M) at the Chesterfield Mall about 30 miles west of St. Louis.

Lori Coulter clients needn't try on piles of swimsuits amid unflattering fluorescent lights in a cramped dressing room. Instead, they discreetly step into a room where the shop uses a scanner to take 140 measurements in less than a minute, then uploads them to a computer, which builds a 3D image and suggests an array of figure-flattering styles. The client chooses a style and pattern, and within as few as three days a custom-made swimsuit is ready to wear.

Lori Coulter is one of the scores of businesses that are being transformed by technology that lets you build and manipulate computerized three-dimensional models. "What we're seeing increasingly is the greater use of computer simulations," says Boyd Davis, a marketing director at Intel (INTC).

The widening use of 3D technology is being aided by advances in computing that render graphics more realistic than ever. Even the most mainstream computers possess 3D graphics capabilities, says Kathleen Maher, a senior analyst at Jon Peddie Research, a consulting firm that researches graphics hardware developments. Such advances have been driven by chipmakers including NVIDIA (NVDA), AMD (AMD), and Intel. A typical workstation based on two Intel Xeon processors delivers computing performance roughly equivalent to the fastest supercomputer in the world in 1993, according to Intel. Another catalyst in making 3D computing more mainstream is the video game industry, which has helped push high-end hardware out to consumers, Maher says.
Design Previews

One of the most common applications of 3D computing is what's known as 3D computer-aided design, or CAD, which lets a business create an exact replica or model of a product before it's manufactured. While the automotive and aeronautics industries have worked with 3D computer-aided design for at least two decades, it's now spreading to other industries and smaller companies as it becomes more affordable.

As of this year, the 3D CAD market generated about $3.4 billion, or more than half of the roughly $6 billion CAD market, according to a Jon Peddie Research report in March. Still, 3D computer-aided design users account for just 37% of total computer-aided design users. Until recently, 3D products have been expensive, but that's changing as more mainstream products such as Dassault Systemes' (ENXTPA:DSY) SolidWorks, Siemens'(DB:SIE) Solid Edge, and Autodesk's (ADSK) Inventor become available.

Even as computers become more well-equipped to handle 3D technology, the software for computer-aided design and manufacturing remains taxing for many people. "We need to create better tools," says NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang. "Right now it's not easy for the layman to use." Still, he sees hope in such areas as video game design. In Spore, the new game by Electronic Arts (ERTS), the Spore Creature Creator, which lets players create their own 3D monsters, is quite user-friendly, he says. "Somehow the Spore creators have taken computer-aided design and made it so simple that anyone could do it.