Digital Materials

Digital Product Creation Software is increasingly used in the fashion industry to streamline developments, minimize sampling time and waste, visualize products and make decisions before having physical samples on-hand. But the effectiveness of digitalization also depends on how much time it takes to prepare the actual digital fabric data and how effective the communication is with the manufacturer.

Although many platforms streamline readily available fabrics in the market and can visually represent digital products on screen, it does not account for a new fabric development, design/pattern/color modifications, nor any fabric manufacturing reference. In recent years, the allocation of physical fabrics and materials is becoming increasingly troublesome from issues related to logistics, costs, and carbon footprint.

This session, recorded at PI Apparel New York 2022, Hayato Nishi, from SHIMA SEIKI U.S.A. Inc., and Manami Hayashi, Chief System Consultant, Total Design Center at SHIMA SEIKI MFG., LTD, showcase ways the APEX can “Accelerate Digital Fabric Sourcing for 3D Digital Product Creation”.

Have you recently faced one or more of these issues:

• Do you have issues communicating your designs to your manufacturers?
• Are you spending too much time scanning fabrics for digital product creation?
• Are your digital products on hold, waiting for new fabric developments or revision swatches?
• Do you wish to edit fabrics digitally instead of requesting another swatch?

This video covers:

1. Introduction of Speakers and Topic: Hayato Onishi introduces himself as the PR manager at Shima Seiki USA and introduces Manami Hayashi, visiting from Tokyo, Japan. They highlight the potential of “accelerating digital fabric sourcing for 3D product creation.”
2. Current Practices in 3D Design: Hayoto and Manami explain their current use of 3D software for creating digital product samples, including the use of scanning to digitize fabrics.
3. Challenges in Traditional Fabric Digitization: They highlight the current limitations of traditional fabric digitization methods, like the need for readily made fabrics and the long lead times in procuring physical samples, especially for new fabric under development.
4. The Long Process of Fabric Sampling: They provide a detailed description of the lengthy and complex process involved in requesting and receiving fabric samples, including the weaving, finishing processes, and potential delays due to lack of specific yarn colors.
5. Digital Fabric Sourcing and Scanning Challenges: Discussion on the limitations of online platforms for fabric sourcing, like limited fabric options and inability to modify or change fabric colors.
6. Solution with Shima Seiki’s Apex Phase: Introduction of Shima Seiki’s Apex Phase as a solution, capable of creating realistic digital fabrics based on production data, editable in terms of color and pattern, and able to export information for production to minimize miscommunication with suppliers.
7. Demonstration of Apex Phase Software: Manami Hayashi demonstrates the use of Apex Phase for creating various types of digital fabrics, highlighting its intuitive interface, library of patterns, and ability to generate production data alongside digital designs.

SHIMA SEIKI is a leading fashion tech solutions provider dedicated to delivering a digitally optimized value chain for the fashion industry.

An established fashion technology innovator, SHIMA SEIKI is known particularly for its realistic virtual sampling technology. Based on actual yarn data, fabric simulations generated on its SDS-ONE APEX series and APEXFiz software are unparalleled in quality and photo-realism. Simulated fabrics are output in a format compatible with a variety of 3D software and can be of great use in 3D virtual sampling projects.

Being an industrial knitting machine manufacturer, SHIMA SEIKI’s specialty is knitwear, but the sublime quality of its virtual fabrics is a common denominator in digital materials that span textiles, embroidery and towels as well, allowing smooth communication for digitally bridging the gap between the studio and factory across various fields.

SHIMA SEIKI is also famous as pioneer of WHOLEGARMENT knitting technology wherein a garment can be produced three-dimensionally in one entire piece without sewing, using only the minimum amount of yarn required to knit a single garment. Combining WHOLEGARMENT with virtual sampling, only SHIMA SEIKI is capable of providing a total solutions package for sustainable fashion.

https://www.shimaseiki.com/

A full transcript of this session can be found here.