Retail
Innovation

Augmented reality and Photogrammetry are transforming customer retail experiences.

The Challenge

MEC, Canada’s go-to place for outdoor gear, partnered with Finger Food to co-develop a solution that solves the problem of how to showcase the company’s vast range of tents without taking up valuable real estate. 50 assembled tents would easily take up the floor-space of a typical MEC store.

The Solution

Using its proprietary Photogrammetry rig and Azure-powered data processing pipeline, Finger Food created an Augmented Reality app that works on mobile devices and is adapted for the Hololens.

The Result

An app that showcases highly realistic, life-size ‘virtual’ tent models that communicates key product information such as size, capacity, and aesthetics. This is all viewed through an augmented reality viewer or Hololens, allowing customers to quickly make tent buying decisions, without necessarily setting foot in the store.

The Process

creating
photo realistic
3d models

Photogrammetry is at the cutting edge of photo-realistic object creation.

It is the quickest and most scalable way to accurately create true life-like texturing. Finger Food’s custom rigs lead the industry, when it comes to multi-scale photogrammetry.

Topology

UV Map

Textures & Materials

Topology

100s of photographs were taken from every conceivable angle to calculate the accurate 3D geometry. Capturing translucent canopy mesh and thin poles was a challenge! Special techniques were developed to facilitate the capture.

UV Map

To increase graphical performance on mobile devices, a skilled artist created an optimized UV-map with fewer and less visible seams. This UV map determines how 2D textures are mapped onto 3D objects.

Textures & Materials

In another custom process, the texture was projected onto the tent, creating a fully coloured, photo-realistic model. Material properties such as transparency, glossiness and metallic effects were manually added to maximise the realism of each object.

Scanning every
tent imaginable

Augmented reality
app integration

The culmination of the project was in the launch of an AR-based iPad application, that utilises AR Kit, Microsoft Azure and Unity to bring the tents to life!

Immersive
user experience
as a result

The app is designed to create a seamless highly visual customer experience that bring tents to life, right before their eyes.

Endless Options

Finger Food’s custom photogrammetry rig is built to capture images large and small. In the past 18 months, we’ve had cars, teddy bears, food items and many other objects come into our Holodeck.