Sixteenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices

Abstract

The fashion industry is at a critical stage of evolving. With the Covid-19 pandemic and the recent port infrastructure issues, companies have been pushed to find more economical and available ways to develop their products, including 3D digital apparel design. Digital apparel design provides opportunities to apparel practitioners and companies such as Cotton Incorporated, Louis Vuitton, and Emilio Pucci to evaluate designs in a low waste environment. As 3D digital apparel design continues to integrate its way into the industry, it is vital that the simulated garments match their physical counterparts. Realistic fabric behavior is necessary to virtual design creation for practitioners to prototype and evaluate designs. Comparisons from 3D apparel creation software, Browzwear V- Stitcher, and physical specimens were created to assess if fabric in a digital space matches the properties and appearance of fabric in the physical world. Five 100% cotton neutral gray textiles with twill, plain, sateen, jersey knit, and interlock knit structures were selected for the comparisons. Fabric properties, such as thickness, mass, stretch, bendability, friction, and color were gathered for fabrics using standard ASTM/AATCC lab tests and compared to the parameters provided by Browzwear. Fabric swatches that display different sewing techniques (darts, gathers, pleats, and tucks) were created with digital fabric in Browzwear. They were compared to physical samples for evaluation of the realism of the visual representation of each technique. The outcome of this research can be used by practitioners in evaluating the realism of digital fabrics as the software continues to develop.