Founded in 2011 by 3D designer Marius Kalytis, CGTrader set out to be the first designer-friendly online marketplace for buying, selling and creating professional 3D content. It has since become one of the world’s largest 3D stock marketplaces – prompting it to launch CGTrader ARsenal, an end-to-end 3D product visualisation and Augmented Reality (AR) solutions platform for ecommerce. Furniture News spoke to the Lithuanian company’s CEO and co-founder, Dalia Lasaite, to find out more …
“CGTrader ARsenal has a unique 3D model production system for ecommerce that can scale to thousands of 3D models/CGI per month, due to combining an extensive 3D designer network and proprietary technology,” Dalia explains. “This allows us to produce product visuals at much larger volumes, affordable costs, higher quality and with much more flexibility.”
Many businesses have already recognised the technology’s potential. CGTrader now boasts more than 150 Fortune 500 customers, including Made.com, Staples, and Nike, and manages a community of some four million professional 3D designers. Its extensive marketplace offers more than a million licensable 3D assets, which are employed within game development, computer graphics, AR/VR, architecture, 3D printing – and the furniture industry.
“With a number of powerful built-in capabilities, such as digital asset management and quality assurance systems, ARsenal offers businesses a seamless, all-in-one platform for sourcing, managing, sharing and deploying 3D content,” Dalia continues.
“We mainly work with furniture retailers, manufacturers and product brands. To streamline the visual creation process and ensure cost efficiency, we offer a pre-selected lifestyle scenes library, which allows customers to reduce CGI creation costs and speed up the go-to-market time even more.”
As well as 3D product visualisation for the conversion of products from photos to 3D, CGTrader ARsenal offers virtual photography – generating product images (including silo product shots), whitespace renders, custom-angle shots and lifestyle scenes using 3D rendering technology – and a 3D and AR platform, which delivers an all-in-one experience incorporating 3D product viewer, 360° product spinner, app-less AR for ecommerce, and a digital asset management system for 3D content.
CGTrader operates from Lithuania, which brings customers a host of benefits they would not enjoy if working with partners closer to home, says Dalia. “What we’ve learned from building the world’s largest 3D design community is that talented people live everywhere,” she says. “The world is shifting to a remote, distributed work model, and we think we’re at an advantage here, as we’ve been doing this for the past 10 years.
“What our customers care about is quality, speed and reliable service. And with offices in Lithuania and the US, and deep expertise in 3D, we’re able to deliver on all fronts. A lot of our key customers know us for our work with the Khronos 3D Commerce Working Group, which brings together industry-leading ecommerce companies and 3D graphics experts to accelerate the adoption of 3D in retail – we focus on building the best product, and customers know that.”
In recent years, CGTrader has witnessed an explosion of interest in 3D/AR solutions for ecommerce – and the pandemic has only served to catalyse demand. When global supply chains ground to a halt, photography studios were forced to close and millions of people entered self-isolation – and against this backdrop, computer-generated product content offered the perfect solution, says Dalia.
“Instead of physically shipping, staging and photographing products, companies were able to generate amazing product visuals with 3D technology. For example, Crate and Barrel saved their seasonal campaign launch by shifting to CGI technology while all the photo studios were temporarily closed.
“Another breakthrough we’ve observed was the growth in demand for AR solutions. As customers could no longer visit the stores physically, the standard buying journey was significantly disrupted. With app-less AR, furniture retailers could bridge the gap between the physical and online shopping experiences rather easily – in some cases even boosting retailers’ sales.
“Since the majority of the furniture trade shows were cancelled or moved online, many retailers pivoted to immersive 3D virtual showrooms. It became a great alternative to replicating the physical expo experience, and we saw a significant jump in enquiries and general interest in the possibilities of 3D experiences. Virtual showrooms have been quickly gaining popularity among furniture retailers, with companies like Ashley Furniture, Furnitalia and Made.com incorporating them within their marketing mix.”
Through AR- and VR-empowered virtual showrooms, visitors can explore 360° environments complete with furniture and decor, and engage with the products. “3D virtual showrooms also help build excitement for the brand, increase marketing ROI, and can be adjusted with ease,” adds Dalia.
This year has seen CGTrader build on its established offering with the launch of a free plan for CGTrader ARsenal, enabling retailers of all sizes to benefit from up to 20GB of free 3D model hosting and storage, up to 10,000 monthly 3D asset views, a digital asset management platform, 3D and AR model analytics, 3D and 360 web viewers, app-free AR, and AR QR codes for all products.
“In February, we raised $9.5m in a Series B funding round, which allowed us to invest in the growth and automation of CGTrader ARsenal,” says Dalia, explaining that the business is currently focusing on improving its processes with AI, which she hopes will enable it to: optimise delivery times and the pricing of 3D models; avoid (or at least minimise) human errors in QA; provide the best 3D model texture suggestions; scale 3D modelling services even faster for the big brands; partially (or even completely) automate the 3D modelling process, thus considerably lowering the production cost; automate the quotation and estimation process; and automate QA procedures.
If Covid-19 catalysed demand for such services, CGTrader is more than capable of staying ahead. “Technology is meant to make our lives easier and business processes even more efficient,” Dalia explains. “With 3D and AR capabilities, furniture marketing will continue to become even more interactive and engaging, giving shoppers the ability to have the best product experiences.
“And, thanks to technological advancements, 3D modelling prices and delivery times are projected to decrease in the future, making all types of 3D and AR solutions available to businesses of all sizes.”
Pictured: CGI by CGTrader
