Embodee
Pioneer of Virtual Customization, Try-On, Sampling for Apparel

Many in the apparel and textile industry have a need to enable online customization or personalization of products. Many also want to reduce the high return rate of online apparel purchases caused by improper fit. And then there’s the costly inefficiency of making and shipping apparel and footwear samples for merchandising to wholesalers and retailers.

Embodee Corp., based in Portland, Oregon, tackles all three challenges with software and processes that transform physical products into streaming high-fidelity 3D product views, all rendered virtually and on demand from any desired angle.

Embodee makes things easy for its clients, which include some of the world’s largest prominent sports apparel brands. They just have to provide a physical sample and their task is done. “Our clients don't have to worry about every intermediary step of virtualization, of servers, cloud computing, high-speed rendering, or fabric simulation. We handle all that,” says André Wolper, CEO.

This approach runs counter to the traditional, expensive approach in which companies hire many subcontractors to try and build an in-house solution, which besides being costly becomes obsolete over time. On the other hand, Embodee’s solution enables ease of access and benefits clients with ready adoption.

Working from physical samples, “our digitization and virtualization process results in 3D-model replicas,” Wolper explains. “A replica has superpowers. It can assume different versions, different manifestations that a physical sample cannot.”

Once a 3D model is created, Embodee’s patented technology delivers it to clients’ websites. “We render the 3D model on-demand from any point of view, enabling interactions with the product that make it come to life,” says Wolper.

Embodee’s applications have the ability to reduce the number of physical samples required during design iteration process

The company’s applications enable digital interaction with products. This includes giving clients’ customers, such as online shoppers, the ability to see products in vivid 3D and customize or personalize them before they’re bought and made. This helps to prevent excess inventory while, at the same time, gives shoppers a stronger sense of ownership that comes from building a product themselves based on their individual tastes.

The company’s team of experts have backgrounds in IT, graphic design, multimedia, and movie special effects. The team includes an Academy-Award winner. The combination of these like-minded people and the technology they’ve developed enables 3D virtual portrayal of apparel and footwear at a level of quality that makes products look real even though they might not have been made yet.

Enriched with such high-end technology, Embodee will focus going forward “to make it ever easier and more effective to adopt for all types of customers,” says Wolper. Also ahead is making Embodee’s Online Try-On available to a majority of its clients so consumers can try on apparel virtually and reduce the return rate. The mantra is simple: “Make things better in business and in life, leverage new technology, and have fun with it,” concludes Wolper.