Developing Real Avatars for the Apparel Industry and Analysing Fabric Draping in the Virtual Domain

The youth of today are much more technologically adept than previous generations. This has led to many technological innovations, and the development of these innovations has in turn altered our perception of the world. The film, gaming, and clothing industries have been forced to embrace new technology to satisfy the demand of people for a more realistic virtual experience. These industries all rely on the use of 3D avatars to create virtual depictions of the human body. In the gaming and film industry, the accuracy of the avatar is not so critical. The avatars used in computer games and CGI sections of films have soft contours, which look visually appealing, but are not necessarily accurate to the human form. By contrast, the apparel industry needs to focus on creating very accurate avatars, which represent each person's body shape for virtual fitting to achieve realistic, well-fitted garments. This article describes the methods used to build an avatar and compares the draping between the following scenarios: the real avatar with a real garment, the real avatar with a virtual garment, and finally the virtual avatar with a virtual garment. This research will help to understand how the body shape can affect the virtual fit.