Getting Ready for Your Visualization Project

Introduction: Getting Ready for Your
Visualization Project
Whether you’re about to embark on a project to improve your
visualization strategy or are just beginning to think about the process,
the Threekit Customer Success team has deﬁned six key readiness
components successful projects have in common.
1.
Product
Learn how to determine which
products will be included in
your project.
2.
Model
Discover available model
formats and how they should
be prepared.
3.
Material
Prepare your material types,
decide on their fidelity, and
organize them efficiently.
4.
Team
Identify team leads, approvers,
and decide on your internal
response time.
5.
System
Chart systems that will interact
with your visualization platform
and prepare environments.
6.
Quality Assurance
Plan out your QA process and
identify any potential blockers
in advance.
1

Part 1: Product Readiness
In our first section on product readiness, we're going to help
you think about your product catalog. We'll walk you through
priming your product data for your project and help you
strategize about how you'll want to organize your products.
Things to Consider
Which products will be included in your initial project?
Phases 2 and 3, if applicable?
There is likely a business reason you are including specific (or
all) products in your project – this reason should be top of
mind when you are working to build your configurator. Since
most companies have a limited budget for 3D assets, come
prepared with a list of products you would like to include in the
first phase of your implementation and a clear list of metrics
to measure success.
Example: A sporting goods company that sells hundreds of
products may decide they initially only want to create
customizable 3D models for their helmets, which are often
worn by professional athletes, in order to grow awareness of
their brand. Later, they may reevaluate their catalog and find
other products that would benefit from customization.
1.
Product Selection
Some products are inherently
better suited for a digital visual
experience. Here are some top
reasons to select a specific
product.
Production costs are high
If you have a product that
incurs substantial costs for
photography or product
production, visualization can
help reduce the shipping,
studio, and build costs.
A product is configurable
Customers want to customize
their products and see their
configurations before
purchase.
Customers care about fit
If size is a concern for your
customers during the
shopping process (e.g.
suitcases that have to meet
size requirements), AR can
help customers literally place
a product in space.
2

What is your current product structure? Are there
components that remain static?
Take a look at your product plans and highlight every part of
your product that will be configurable. Are there parts that can
be configured but that will not feature in your 3D model? Make
a list of all parts and/or components, separating out
configurable and static parts.
Example: A company that makes customizable footwear may
include the same sole in all of its shoes regardless of other
interchangeable features, which streamlines the design
process for the sole component.
Does every part of your product need to be designed in 3D?
Oftentimes, products may have hidden configurable features
that have no impact on the final 3D model during configuration
– think linings, stuffings, internal components, etc.
Example: A furniture manufacturer may want to offer different
stuffing options for their couches and would like to include the
options in their eCommerce configurator but not change the
3D model visually during customization.
2.
3.
3

Do you have a comprehensive list of SKUs or do you need to
export and organize them in advance?
Think about where you currently manage your SKUs. Whether
it's an Excel spreadsheet, a CPQ/ERP system, or a random
Google document that hasn't been updated in six months, this
is a great time to revisit your list if it needs to be reorganized
and renamed.
How many levels of configuration does your product
require?
Now that you've made a list of your parts, determine how many
separate steps you want your end user to take in order to
configure your product. Listing out the steps can help you
organize your product list and materials, which will save you
time on importing and tagging products and parts.
Download our configuration workbook to
help you build out your configurator
4.
5.
Configuration Workbook
Did you know?
The Threekit platform
will organize your
imported assets by the
name predetermined in
your import structure,
so make sure you
include any information
you need to find assets
easily.
4

Part 2: Model Readiness
In this section, we are going to discuss your existing models
and reference images and review model creation, formats, and
storage.
Definitions
Before we jump into discussing models, let's review what we
mean by specific terms. You can review our 3D Dictionary for
the full list.
Material
The physical nature of a configurable part. This can refer to
things such as color, texture, metallic nature, or glow. This does
not refer to anything that changes the underlying shape of a
part (see: 3D Asset).
3D Model
Any individual model that will be referenced as part of a
product being configured. Depending on the complexity of the
product, this asset may represent the entire product or a
single configurable piece.
Resource Links
THREEKIT
3D and AR Dictionary
5

Things to Consider
Do you currently have 3D models or will they need to be
created from scratch?
Most 3D teams can help you create assets from reference
photographs, CAD files, and/or 3D/polygon files, but it is helpful
to know whether you have existing models before you begin
your project. Even if you have existing 3D models available,
many 3D artists will still want to evaluate at least one sample
before project kickoff to determine the complexity of the
geometry, lighting, and materials.
3D models can vary depending on your visual preferences and
project investment, so it's important to determine what is best
for your budget and desired final output. If your goal is to
render photorealistic images of a suit or sofa, for example, your
expectation of visual quality may be different than a company
who wants a custom workstation configurator for the purpose
of showcasing the thousands of custom-built options they
offer without needing to display every add-on with
photorealistic 3D.
1.
Mesh Matters
All 3D models have a
mesh, the structural
build of a model.
Adding polygons to a
mesh adds details to a
model; however, this
often creates a
performance tradeoff,
especially online.
6

What is the existing format for your models, e.x. CAD (STEP,
IGES), 3D/polygon (FBX, gITF, USDZ), etc.?
Depending on your existing model format, a 3D team may
need to complete more or less work to convert the models
into web-enabled visual assets. The Threekit platform, for
example, supports FBX, gITF, and USDZ imports for both
configuration and ray tracing and rendering.
CAD files, including STEP and IGES file formats, are often used
in sectors that require precise representation of curves and
shapes. Unlike 3D/polygon file formats, CAD files do not
convey material, lighting, or texture information when
converted to a 3D/polygon file. They can still be useful
references for 3D models, however, and are often a good
starting point if you have them available.
Photographs are helpful in referencing product appearance
and available colorways, but will require an artist to build the
3D model from scratch to make it usable in a 3D format if no
other visual files are available.
Depending on your final output plans, having 3D/polygon files
on hand will usually get you a head start in terms of product
modeling, as they will already include basic geometry,
dimensions, and materials. For more technical information on
2.
3D
CAD
Photograph
7

the benefits and challenges of each type, our founder Ben has
a series titled "Ben Houston's Ultimate Guide to 3D File
Formats," which provides comprehensive overviews
of FBX, gITF, OBJ, and USDZ file types.
Where are your models currently stored and how are you
planning to share them with your visualization platform?
Depending on how you've set up your models, you may have
specific naming, organization, and security systems in place.
It's important to decide on a mutually accessible location for
your assets and any additional components (materials, for
example) in advance of your project.
In particular, think about the following:
• How large are your asset files and are there size
restrictions for the storage option you've chosen?
• Are there security protocols and processes you need to
clear before sharing the files with a project partner?
• If a 3D artist is altering existing files, what is your plan for
updating your current files once the project is complete?
3.
8
Resource Links
THREEKIT
Ben Houston's Ultimate Guide
to 3D File Formats

Part 3: Material Readiness
In part 3 of our "Getting Ready” series, we will talk about
material prep. We will help you organize your proprietary
materials, give you guidelines on delivering your materials in
their current format, and help you decide on material fidelity.
Things to Consider
Do you have any custom proprietary materials (woodgrain,
fur, leather, custom patterns, etc.)?
While there are some materials that are readily available online
references for 3D artists, proprietary materials are often more
time-consuming to create. If you don't already have a visual
catalog of materials, start by creating a spreadsheet that
organizes materials by type.
Generally, glass, plastic, and some metals can be created from
images available online, whereas specific woods, fabrics, and
custom patterns will need to be scanned and generated by a
3D artist from scratch. Breaking out your material swatches by
category will help your scoping team better determine the
amount of work involved in your project.
1.
Scalable Texture
A 3D artist can easily find a
scalable fabric texture, like
this one, online to use as a
material.
Custom Texture
A 3D artist had to manually
create the above custom
texture for a plastic chair,
taking substantially more
time and resources.
9

Are your materials available as digital swatches?
You may already have digital swatches of your fabrics on hand,
which can save you hundreds of hours on your implementation
in both scanning and digitally rendering materials. To ensure
optimal quality, your files should be 2700x2300 pixels at 300
dpi. If you have files at a lower-quality resolution, reach out to
your scoping team to determine whether these files will still
work for your use case.
Are you able to provide physical samples?
If you do not have digital files, or if your digital files do not
meet the quality guidelines below, your implementation team
will need to scan your materials in order to create 3D assets
from the scans. Getting swatches or materials to your
implementation team can sometimes be more time-
consuming that anticipated.
Consider the following:
• Do you currently have all of your materials in-house and
are they easy to transport?
• Did you include budget for shipping materials and/or
swatches for scanning?
2.
3.
10
DPI
DPI or “dots per inch” is
a measurement of how
many dots fit into a
linear inch.
3D artists zoom into a
reference image in
order to see minor
details for modeling.
Below are two images
at different DPIs – the
right one become
blurry and makes
modeling difficult.
Resource Links
TECHTERMS
DPI

• Are some or all of your swatches located in an offsite
facility? Who do you need to contact to ensure those
materials arrive at the scanning site in a timely fashion?
• Do you need approval to ship materials offsite?
• What is your material refreshment lifecycle? Will you be
able to complete this project before the next batch of
materials is released?
• Do you know where you need to send your materials?
Have you compiled and saved your materials in a readily-
identifiable naming convention?
Whether you are generating materials in-house or are working
with a third-party designer, think about the current
organization structure – are you receiving a folder with
arbitrary numbers or SKU numbers that provide little reference
to the final material itself?
Providing a clear organization structure can majorly streamline
your implementation. If you are generating a bill of materials
(BOM) based on part SKUs, you may need need to maintain a
SKU structure for your material files. In that case, provide a
spreadsheet that lists out your SKUs, their corresponding
materials, and ideally, a link to the folder where the
corresponding material file exists.
4.
11

If you have more flexibility with your organization structure, you
might consider simply creating folders with each material by
type. If you are completing your implementation in phases, you
can prioritize your materials by their respective
implementation deadlines and organize by type within these
date folders.
Will all of your materials need to have the same fidelity and
3D representation?
When creating a model, some materials may be in a hard-to-
see part of the model or, conversely, require more attention to
convey specific details.
A Threekit apparel client recently added a configureable suit
option with professional team logos emblazoned on the linings.
Because customers had to be able to zoom in on these logos
to see pattern details, the images for this line needed to be
more detailed than the standard single-color linings we
created for the company's initial offering.
Below are some additional considerations around quality:
• Do materials show up in parts of the model that are hard
to see? If so, are you comfortable having the 3D team
spend less time on these components?
When Details
Matter
A Threekit apparel
client provides an in-
store customer
configuration
experience by showing
lining upgrades for their
suits to potential
clients.
They opted for high-
detail modeling for
their custom linings
and measured a 30%
increase in upsells.
5.
12

• Are there some materials on the model that matter less
in quality, e.g. inside apparel shots, mechanical
components, etc.?
• Do you have premium materials that need higher fidelity
to show specific details or finishes?
• Can you stagger materials so they are released at a later
date to allow for budget timing?
13

Part 4: Team Readiness
Now that we've reviewed the product, model,
and material prep requirements, we're turning our attention to
the team managing your project. Today, we'll make sure you
have the right individuals assigned to manage the project and
provide insight into project success and adoption.
Things to Consider
Have you identiﬁed a project lead and relevant Subject
Matter Experts (SMEs)? How much experience does your
lead have with 3D/AR projects?
Most projects begin with the assignment of a Project Manager
(PM). PMs evaluate the budget, assign resources, and act as
your main point-of-contact during your implementation.
Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) can either work at your
company or be a part of a contracted team. They have
specialized knowledge that will be relevant to some portion of
the project, whether it's the 3D assets themselves or the
website integration you will need to undertake as part of the
ﬁnal product rollout.
1.
14
Resource Links
THE BALANCE CAREERS
What is a Subject Matter
Expert?

Relevant SMEs for a visualization project might include:
• 3D or digital artists
• Members of the eCommerce team
• Internal or external product experts and designers
Do you have a clear internal approval structure for the
project?
Approvals can often be one of the bottlenecks in a project,
particularly if you have not cleared the appropriate internal
hurdles before the project kicks off. Let's say you expected
your project manager to have the ability to approve a 3D
design. However, six weeks into your project, you realize that
you also need the internal pattern team's approval of 3D model
quality on all models – this will likely impact your timeline.
To streamline the approval process:
• Ensure you have clear internal guidelines on who will be
approving your 3D models/images.
• Determine whether any of the individuals required for
approvals will be out-of-ofﬁce or on other high-priority
projects during the weeks planned for approval.
2.
15
Approval Plan
An approval plan can
seem simple, until you
realize you need
additional input half-
way through a project.
Designate your
structure before your
project starts.
VP of Product
Digital Director
Head of Design
3D Artist

• If you realize you do need to bring in another team, let
your Threekit project manager know as soon as you find
out so they can adjust your project timeline.
Be realistic about the time the project is dependent
on your feedback.
When an external project manager scopes a project, they are
making some assumptions about the time it will take your
team to provide materials, reference images, configuration
requirements, and other key project details. In order for a
project to kick off on time and subsequently progress on
schedule, both teams need to stick to project milestones or
risk impacting the eventual go-live.
A simple spreadsheet can help you track whether your team is
providing feedback and required materials on time. It's worth
investing a little upfront time to check for inefficiencies in your
process so you can resolve them before they become an issue
for the project timeline.
• Who will be managing the platform & products once the
implementation is complete?
• Do you have somebody on staff who understands how to
add new products, upload models, and render them (if
necessary)? If not, do you have the budget to hire an
external partner or undertake additional project scope
3.
16

every time you need to make changes?
• You should have a sense of this process and budget
before you even sign the Statement of Work (SOW) for
your current project; otherwise, you might be taking on
substantial tech debt before you complete your new
initiative.
Who will be supporting the change management process
post-implementation?
If your project impacts speciﬁc teams or individuals on those
teams, have you discussed training and support for those
team members as part of your project SOW? Is this something
you want to undertake internally, and if so, do you have a
rollout and adoption plan as part of your internal project
checklist?
There is nothing more disappointing than completing a project
(especially if it's a substantial investment) and not having team
buy-in. A good strategy is to bring in early adopters during the
implementation process for feedback and eventual testing.
Getting key performers excited about a novel technology that
will help them increase revenue, whether online or in-store,
can really help adoption and visibility to your project.
4.
17
Resource Links
PROSCI
What is Change Management
and How Does it Work?

Part 5: System Readiness
In part five of our six-part series on project readiness, we're
going to help you think about the systems that are a part of
your visualization strategy. We will discuss your existing data
streams and provide recommendations for identifying the
steps you need to take to ensure your data is primed for
deployment.
Things to Consider
Are any 3rd-party systems involved/required?
If you are considering a more comprehensive visualization
solution, it helps to make a flow chart of the systems involved.
Here are some common data sources to consider when
drawing out your necessary integrations:
• Creative Inputs:
• Model & Material Import: do your 3D assets begin
their lives outside of your visualization platform?
• 3D Design Tools: do you use a separate set of 3D
design tools for your models? Are you importing CAD
files instead of web-ready 3D asset files like WebGL?
1.
18

• Commercial Inputs:
• Product Catalog: do you have an existing product
catalog? What system does it use for identifying
products and parts? Is your product catalog up-to-
date?
• ERP & CPQ: do you have pricing that is updated
elsewhere and needs to be incorporated into the
configurator? Is your pricing up-to-date?
• Spreadsheets: are you using spreadsheets to manage
your order data? How will you be tracking whether the
necessary products have been imported into your
visualization platform?
• Outputs:
• External Outputs (In-Store Demos/Kiosks, Mobile App,
Print): does your configuration need to send data to
an external or proprietary system?
• Bill of Materials (BOM): will you need to send BOM
data to an external system to manufacture the
product?
• Marketing: does your marketing team need to be able
to access customer configuration data in order to
follow up with them about their order?
19

Do you have a dedicated testing process before pushing to
production?
The recommended best practice for any digital project is to
have a designated test process in place before ﬁnalizing
changes or updates to live conﬁgurations, which often requires
managing both a test instance and a live production site.
Some companies choose to push their changes from testing
to production on a regular cadence (Threekit, for example,
pushes changes live from our test site every Wednesday), and
some companies opt to only publish changes once they’ve
completed a testing checklist.
2.
20

Whichever method you choose to manage your company’s
updates, make sure you designate a timeline, process, and
owner for this process in advance.
Will your visualization project team need access to these
systems, and if so, can it be easily provided?
If you are working with a visualization project team to develop
an integration with some or all of the aforementioned systems,
speciﬁc team members may need access to each system.
If this access will need to come from another team or
department, make sure you have the appropriate permissions
to provide access and will not need to wait for a formal
request to be completed.
Many SaaS platforms and products enable companies to
provide temporary access to their respective instances or
organizations for a set period of time – this can be particularly
useful for project access.
Will any data need to be cleaned up prior to project kickoff?
Having incomplete or redundant data can create some major
delays for your project; it should, therefore, be a top priority to
clean up any data systems impacting your conﬁgurator prior
to project start.
3.
21
Temporary Login
Access
Click on a logo below to
learn about granting
temporary access on
each respective
platform.
Saleforce CRM,
Commerce Cloud, CPQ
Magento eCommerce
Shopify eCommerce

Some of the top data streams you will want to verify include:
• CPQ and/or Product Catalog Data: if you plan to use
these systems as inputs into your visualization platform,
avoiding redundancies or product misalignment prior to
the initial setup will be particularly important. As time-
consuming as this data cleanup can be, now is the time
to ensure your data is squeaky clean.
• CMS/Model Data: make sure you build out a clear
workﬂow for model import. Even if you are simply storing
models in shared folders outside of a formal CMS, ensure
they are labeled and you have a clear method for
knowing if they have already been imported/processed
by your visualization platform.
• Material Libraries: ensure your material libraries are well-
labeled/tagged and up-to-date with the latest version.
22

Part 6: Quality Assurance
In the ﬁnal part of our six-part series on project readiness, you
will learn about best practices for approvals and User
Acceptance Testing. We will review creating an approval chain
of command, agreeing upon an approval timeline, and making
sure that everyone on your project team is onboard with your
model quality standards.
Things to Consider
Will you have a clear chain of command and internal process
designated for QA approvals?
Before your project kicks off, you need to sit down with your
internal project team and determine your approval matrix. This
matrix should include the chain of command for approving
models, materials, UI, and conﬁgurations and list out the
various teams who will need to provide timely input in each of
these project scope areas.
If you have products with different levels of complexity, make
sure you determine how the approval matrix needs to change
in order to accommodate your needs. For example, a furniture
company might simultaneously be working on a sofa model
and seasonal fabrics for their project. Perhaps the sofa
requires four levels of approvals, but the fabrics only need to
1.
23

be approved by two individuals. Ensure your matrix reﬂects
this.
Threekit simpliﬁes the approval process by including a built-in
approval module in the platform; this allows your team to build,
review, and approve/reject models and materials directly from
the platform itself.
Do you have an agreed-upon response time for your QA
process?
In order for any project to proceed in a timely manner, there
should be a predetermined timeline for systematic approvals.
Many project managers will actively build these approvals into
their schedule, but it is the client’s responsibility to ensure
that your team is approving materials on time.
Go through your approval matrix and identify potential time
blockers in advance of your project – will Joe, the VP of
Product, be going on a month-long vacation when you are
expecting to approve the model designs? Make sure you either
have a delegate in place of Joe or you are comfortable with a
month-long delay in your project proceeding.
There are existing project best practices around feedback:
Threekit builds a three-day response time into our QA
process, which we can modify in the case of a more complex
build or approval structure.
2.
24
Threekit
Approval Module

Does everybody on your team agree with the expectations
around visual quality for all parts of your model?
We discussed model readiness in the first part of this series
and it is critical that all of your project team members
understand and agree on the quality of your model parts
before project start.
The matrix on the next page highlights how quickly model
complexity, quality, and existing asset files can quickly impact
your project scope and budget. If your VP of Marketing
expects photorealistic images at the end of your project and
you planned on created web-ready 3D assets instead, you
could be in for a substantial surprise during the approval
process.
Do you have well-defined use cases and related scripts for
User Acceptance Testing?
There are generally two methods for User Acceptance Testing
(UAT): use cases and user stories. Whichever one you decide
to use for testing, your team should define end-state, click-
by-click test scripts and communicate these to your project
manager, ideally when you send over your configuration and
UX/UI requirements.
3.
25
4.
Resource Links
VISUAL PARADIGM
User Story vs Use Case

26
Stock 1.25 hours .5 hours .5 hours
CAD 8.75 hours 3.5 hours 3.5 hours
Scratch 10 hours 4 hours 4 hours
Stock 1.75 hours 1 hours 1 hours
CAD 12.25 hours 7 hours 7 hours
Stock 3.5 hours 3 hours 2 hours
CAD 24.5 hours 21 hours 14 hours
Sizing & Complexity Chart
Resources
THREEKIT
Services Scoping Algorithm

Getting Ready for Your Visualization Project

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