3D Product Modeling

When there is CAD, we model straight from it: STEP, IGES, OBJ, FBX, SolidWorks, Rhino, or the native file from whoever engineered the product. The dimensions are exact by definition, and a render built from that model is accurate to the product in the box. Without CAD we rebuild the geometry from a dimensioned drawing, or from photographs and measurements of a sample, and send a greyscale model back for you to check before anything is lit.

A model also keeps pace with a design that is still changing. For Tekatron’s Griffin prototype, the scene was built once and each revision of the prototype was re-rendered into it, so every version was presented on the same terms.

A model built for rendering is made for one camera. It can carry heavy geometry and large textures because nobody downloads it. A model for a product page is the opposite: every polygon is paid for in download size and frame rate on a phone. Shopify’s guide for people making models for merchants asks for a total file size of about 4 MB, with no texture larger than 2048 pixels.

Getting there is a conversion with its own judgement calls, not an export button. Materials that the renderer calculated procedurally are baked into image maps, geometry is reduced where the eye will not miss it, and the textures come down to size. We have written up what that takes on Shopify in detail.

AR puts the product in the customer’s room at the size the file says it is. glTF measures in metres, so a model built in millimetres and exported without conversion arrives a thousand times too large. The dangerous error is a small one: a shelf that is 60 cm in the file and 80 cm in the listing, caught by exactly the customer standing in front of their own wall.

Every AR model we deliver is built at real-world scale, checked against the dimensions in your listing, and has its origin at the centre of its base, which is the point that lands on the floor or the shelf when the customer places it.

Shopify takes GLB and USDZ files as product media and converts whichever you upload, so the same model opens in AR on an iPhone and on an Android phone. Every Online Store 2.0 theme Shopify has built supports it. On your own site, or a store we build for you, we embed the viewer in the product page directly.

This is where Shopify gets awkward. A variant can switch the product image, but not the 3D model, so a range sold in several finishes needs a decision. The simplest route is one model in the best-selling finish. The next is a separate model per finish, each added as its own media. The most complete is a custom viewer that switches materials on one model, using the glTF extension built for exactly that. For a range like Wallniture’s, sold in several hand-applied finishes, the first is usually the right place to start and the third is worth building towards once the model has proved itself.