Industry Norms: Two National Standards For Digital Fitting Were Officially Implemented

With the "meta universe" opening the new era of fashion, virtual clothes, virtual human bodies and digital fitting, which are full of sense of technology and imagination, appear frequently, and set off a new upsurge in social media. According to McKinsey's report, the global consumption of virtual products will reach 110 billion dollars in 2021, of which 30% will be used for virtual fashion consumption. People enjoy the sense of scene experience and realism brought by modern digital technology. They can get the clothing trial effect online at any time, anywhere, more intuitively match the clothing style and determine the fitness, and can also "wear" virtual clothing displayed on the social platform.

However, it is not easy to achieve such a comfortable dress. At present, virtual clothing, virtual human body and digital fitting are lack of unified relevant standards and industry standards, so it is urgent to formulate corresponding standards to regulate them. Recently, two national standards on digital fitting have been officially implemented, marking that the digital fashion gradually integrated into people's daily consumption life is no longer "virtual".

　　 Digital clothing has standards

Facing the new environment of the Internet economy and the impact of COVID-19 epidemic, the pace of digital transformation of China's clothing industry has accelerated. The emergence of digital fitting software meets people's real-time and interactive needs. For example, a number of virtual fitting apps appeared in the early years, such as Yipai, Cubic, Dressing Assistant, Uniqlo fitting room, Men's Clothing Bond, Magic Mirror Online, etc. Then e-commerce platforms such as Taobao and Jingdong also joined in.

Examining the appearance of clothing is an indispensable part of digital fitting. One of the key technologies in the application of digital fitting is 3D human body modeling. Generally speaking, it is to build a model with 3D data through 3D production software. Virtual image can be built through 3D modeling.

However, due to the differences in the application degree and scene of technologies such as 3D at home and abroad, in order to truly accelerate the digital transformation of the global fashion industry chain and realize the unimpeded connection between upstream and downstream industries, the standard definition of relevant digital clothing and the standard system of structured data need to be implemented urgently.

Recently, China officially implemented the standards of GB/T 41419-2022 Terms and Definitions for Digital Fitting Virtual Human Body and GB/T 41421-2022 Terms and Definitions for Digital Fitting Virtual Clothing. The standard specifies the basic terms and definitions of virtual clothing and virtual human body in the digital fitting system, and describes the multi-dimensional standards in many aspects, such as virtual fabric, virtual fabric attributes, virtual clothing pattern, virtual pattern attributes, virtual suture, virtual clothing, virtual human texture size, bone structure, posture, etc, And the fitness of the virtual clothing on the virtual mannequin was evaluated.

The relevant person in charge of Zhejiang Light Industry Quality Inspection Institute, who participated in the drafting and formulation of the standard, said that the standard is applicable to many practical application fields such as clothing design, production, technology, teaching and trade, and is conducive to better use of computer means to smooth online communication and business cooperation of digital clothing fitting. On the other hand, it will effectively improve the information interaction capability of the whole industry chain in the apparel digital field, which plays an important role in improving the overall digital technology level of the apparel industry, promoting the development of the apparel personalized design and customization industry, and helping the digital construction and integrated development of the apparel industry in China.

Industry insiders said that the development of digital fashion, terminology first. The introduction of the standard will not only promote the standardization in the digital marketing display scene, but also enable the establishment of a more standardized intelligent production system, so that digital fashion creators can carry out standardized content design and collaborative production, achieve orderly docking between upstream and downstream industries, and ultimately optimize the user experience and healthy development of digital fashion. Based on this, we will build a multi-dimensional digital clothing standardization system to help China's digital fashion development become more standardized and unified.

　　 Virtual fitting works

Nowadays, digital fitting has become a breakthrough to promote the digitalization and intellectualization of the clothing industry.

Chen Jun, the brand operation director of Lingdi Technology Style3D (hereinafter referred to as "Lingdi Technology"), said in an interview with the reporter of China Textile News that after years of hard work in the field of clothing digitalization, Lingdi Technology has three major advantages: first, technical advantages, the core is to build a 3D flexible body bionic engine, and the main members of the core team are from Zhejiang University, Tsinghua University Stanford University, etc. Secondly, it is deeply integrated with the industry, and realizes the development of the whole industry by combining with industrial software. Moreover, Lingdi has built an upstream and downstream ecosystem including users and content.

At present, it has core products such as Style3D Studio, an industrial software for 3D flexible body simulation, Style3D Fabric, a software/hardware for digital fabric design, and Style3D Cloud, the world's first online collaboration platform for digital clothing. Through these products, Lingdi Technology provides the fashion clothing industry with a complete set of digital and online collaborative experience from fabric selection, style design, rendering simulation, display and sales, and helps the fashion industry to apply digital twin technology to improve the development efficiency and market precision of styles.

"At present, the 3D simulation engine of Lingdi Technology has ranked among the top three in the world in the field of clothing digitization, providing technical support for nearly 1000 clothing customers." Chen Jun said.

Yaying Group has also accumulated a lot of experience in digital fitting and participated in the drafting of relevant national standards. "Yaying Group has clearly done a good job in its own digital transformation first. We are down-to-earth in integrating virtual and reality, and strive to truly display each product, truly reflect the authenticity of various raw materials, the fashion sense of design, etc., in order to meet the new needs of some new customers to experience fashion consumption through online, and help consumers choose the clothes they want more efficiently Service. " Fan Xiangyu, the innovative project management manager of Yaying Group, told China Textile News that "it is planned to build the digital assets of the enterprise in the next 3-5 years, including fashion information, design elements, clothing patterns, etc."

Jiang Yahong, the founder of Hangzhou Youlian Times Technology Co., Ltd., who has been exploring the "meta universe" of digital people for many years in China, believes that the technology of digital people has been difficult to break through because of its complex procedures and high research and development costs. Jiang Yahong and his team, after five years of research and development and three major iterations and upgrades, officially launched a 3D cloud array camera with 140 cameras, which can take 360 degree pictures of human body shape and color, and can create a real 3D digital avatar by taking pictures in one second at a cost of only 100 yuan. This changes the current problem of 3D human body scanning, breaks through the limitations of manual point arrangement and half an hour imaging, and realizes one second photography and 100% true restoration of the human body model.

　　 "To create a perfect 3D digital avatar for a real person, it includes four basic elements: human model, body movements, facial expressions, and voice dialogue, which determines the degree of completion of a real person digital avatar. In short, this technology can make it easy for everyone to create a digital avatar, open their own" Meta Universe "era, and experience the" Meta Universe "conference, brand promotion, and virtual reality Different application scenarios such as fitting. " Jiang Yahong said, "The core of clothing digitalization is 3D holographic technology. It will be more convenient to buy clothes in the future. Customers only need to take photos to create a digital part, so that the digital part can be easily fitted to choose the most suitable clothes."

"In recent years, the form of business cooperation and communication of enterprises has changed significantly." Hu Yong, who has been deeply involved in the field of women's fashion for many years, said that his company is a fashion group integrating foreign trade and domestic sales. In the past two years, he has more online communication with customers. In terms of style design software, virtual models are used for 3D display to ensure that customers with demand can be provided with a display and confirmation method in product design and samples, Increased opportunities to win orders.

　　 Digital transformation has potential

With the continuous combination of digital technology and clothing field, more and more enterprises begin to try digital transformation. However, many enterprises also find that digital transformation is not easy from the initial digitalization of enterprise behavior, the digitalization of enterprise service objects to the digitalization of products.

In the production and operation process of garment enterprises, designers, pattern makers, and the purchase of surface and auxiliary materials are involved in many links. Their corresponding roles have different division of labor, which will lead to collaboration efficiency problems, which cannot be completed by one person. Take the design of tempo as an example. Since it involves different roles, we need to communicate repeatedly. However, each communication and optimization of the physical sample clothing has to go through new surface material screening and physical sample modification, which leads to a long modification time and low efficiency.

The traditional industry is empowered by digital technology innovation, and the research and development, sample, interaction and display are carried out through the digital fitting system, which greatly shortens the product research and development cycle in the industrial chain process and reduces material waste.

Chen Jun said that Lingdi Technology provided 3D modeling software and a multi role collaboration platform, and later expanded software for designers and surface and auxiliary materials personnel, helping garment enterprises adjust their digital processes, upgrade their business processes digitally, and achieve "end-to-end" connectivity. "Turn the offline design process into the digital online design process, use tools to complete the digital transformation and deposition and application of digital assets, and ultimately improve the efficiency of the entire supply chain." He said.

According to the effect of a fashion clothing enterprise's use for two years, the number of modifications is reduced, the unit time of modification feedback is shortened, and the R&D efficiency is greatly improved (the overflow rate is reduced and the first edition rate is increased). The overflow rate has dropped from 2.0% to 1.4% in the past, that is, from the previous year when 20000 models had to be developed, 10000 models could be launched; now when 14000 models were developed, 10000 models could be launched, and the first version rate has increased by 20 percentage points. According to the effect of one and a half years of use by a down enterprise, 30% - 40% of structural models and 20% of complex models will be designed online this year, 100% of structural models will be designed online next year, and a certain proportion of sample clothes will be replaced every year.

Industry insiders said that there are hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises in China, and small and medium-sized enterprises account for a high proportion in the overall number of clothing industry, which is the real big market in the future.

Lingdi Technology is also expanding its SME customers. In terms of price, it is generally classified according to the number of accounts purchased by enterprises, the service content purchased by enterprises, and the deployment mode of products. At present, the charge is based on the annual fee system. For small and medium-sized enterprises, there is little pressure on procurement.

"The renewal rate of products is basically more than 80%. Only in 2021, the company's business grew three times. Although affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, it also grew about 1-2 times this year." Chen Jun said.

In response to the problem of 3D and other technical talents generally reflected by enterprises, Fan Xiangyu said that Yaying Group actively cooperates with Zhejiang University of Technology, Donghua University, Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology and other universities to increase the training of reserve talents. "Through short-term training, most designers, model makers, etc. can learn to use relevant software. The most important content of 3D based digital transformation is the talent digital management talents who lead the enterprise to plan and promote the implementation, and through them to continue to promote this model throughout all aspects of the enterprise, so as to achieve the success of enterprise digital transformation and upgrading. At present, the market This type of talent is the most scarce. " Chen Jun said.

At the same time, enterprises are also actively trying to protect digital assets converted by 3D and other technologies. The principals of several enterprises involved in the drafting and formulation of standards also said that while continuing to carry out technology self research and content production, they will continue to play a strong supporting and leading role in standards. In the future, they will continue to promote the construction of standards and specifications related to research, development and design of digital clothing, data models, intellectual property rights, and help digital fashion develop healthily, orderly, and healthily.

Author: Ma Rui