Everything in 3D: developing the fashion digital studio

Current thinking beyond the trends of mass-customisation and personalisation are towards more social, sensual and experiential notions of how Fashion is consumed and communicated. The notion of a commodity or product, and of mass appeal is fading in a multi-sensorial and always connected world, where personal identity is key. The Fashion Digital Studio aims to address the notion and development of Fashion both as a product and as experience. The primary focus is on the translation of the real world fashion experience in its entirety into the world of digital, and managing the seamless interaction between the two. Computer vision, fast low-cost processing and high quality real-time visualisation of cloth is becoming possible and will drive the development of much higher levels of user experience and intervention in online retail, fashion media and publishing. This paper will present the key outcomes of the development of 3D body scanning over the last 10 years. Highlighting the issues of adoption needed to successfully enable the mass-customisation model predicted by many, but which has yet to fulfill its potential. It describes new and emerging approaches in photogrammetry which may have significant impact over the next 10 years, enabled by low-cost accessible hardware and software, with the potential to democratise scanning for home and mobile internet shopping. Conclusions and recommendations will be made on how the future of inderdisciplinarity may drive innovation and skills in digital fashion