Digital Product Creation
Cotton in Digital Product Development
Cotton is a vital part of many fashion and textile products. As such, it’s important to be able to work with accurate, reliable cotton fabrics in the most popular 3D garment design tools on the market.
That’s where CottonWorks™ comes in. As a free industry resource, we can equip designers with a constant influx of new cotton fabrics for inspiration and/or direct application into product lines. New developments from the FABRICAST™ collection, Cotton Incorporated’s inspirational cotton and cotton-rich fabrics, are made both digitally and physically.
Registered users can download a digital fabric and find that fabric’s specifications—a path to manufacturing the cotton fabric you want based on the inspiration provided. For those working directly in 3D software, our digital fabrics are individually measured in both CLO and Browzwear physics testing kits to provide the most accurate representation of the fabric.
Ready to get started? Explore FABRICAST™ digital fabrics.
Explore FABRICAST™ digital fabrics
Download Digital Fabrics from CottonWorks™
Cotton Incorporated’s FABRICAST™ library has over 350 digital fabrics available for download.
How to Access & Download
- Sign in to your CottonWorks™ account
(Don’t have an account? Create a free one now!) - In the main menu, under the Resources tab, select FABRICAST™
- Select the Digital Fabrics category
- Click the CLO or Browzwear button on the fabric you are interested in to begin downloading
Digital Garment Renderings vs. Actual Garments
What is a digital fabric?
A digital fabric is a representation of a physical fabric that can be used in a 3D design environment, such as Browzwear or CLO3D.
Sometimes called digital twins, digital fabrics must reflect the visual and physical characteristics of their real-life counterparts—having the same drape, weight, and texture, and behaving the same under light and in motion.
To do this, digital materials consist of two components: physics and texture.
Physics
A set of measurements describing the fabric’s physical properties, often referred to as physics. These are taken using proprietary testing kits or offered as presets in 3D design software.
Texture
A set of images of the fabric’s surface, often referred to in digital product creation (DPC) as the texture. This is usually derived from a high-quality scan of the physical fabric.
Why are digital fabrics important?
Digital fabrics offer the fashion industry many advantages. As part of digital product creation workflows, digital fabrics allow designers to iterate and visualize new styles much faster than traditional physical sampling allows. Tech designers and patternmakers rely on accurate physics measurements to begin fitting garments in 3D before a physical prototype is ever made.
This has allowed many companies to greatly reduce physical sampling, thereby decreasing waste and time to production, and conserving resources associated with manufacturing, shipping, and storing garment samples.
Beyond the Design Process
Once digital prototypes are made, they can also be used for other purposes beyond the design process, from sales presentations to consumer marketing.
View Digital Fabrics in Augmented Reality (AR)
The digital fabric library offers the ability to view fabrics in augmented reality (AR), which overlays a 3D model of the fabric into your physical space using a smartphone.
How to Use
- Choose a FABRICAST™ fabric with AR capabilities
- Select the 3D icon below the image
- Click “View in AR”
- Scan the QR code with your smartphone
- Point the camera at an empty spot on the floor
Explore the Digital Collection
Log in or create your free CottonWorks™ account to start exploring the digital collection now.
Digital Fabrics 101
Get an introduction to the basics of digital fabrics, why they’re important, and how they’re created. In this webinar, we’ll explore the advantages of digital fabrics and digital product creation, and how you can begin implementing them in your brand.
Speaker
Katherine Absher, Manager of Fashion & Digital Design Marketing at Cotton Incorporated
Digital Product Creation: Best Practices
Discover the standards you’ll need throughout every step of the product creation process. We’ll also delve into the unique challenges you might face and the opportunities that lie ahead in 3D scaling, fabric libraries, and consumer applications.
Speakers
Miguel Huidor, Textile Education Consultant
Pearl Malikul, Textile Education Consultant
Making the Case for Digital Product Creation
Discover the unexpected benefits of digital methods and gain valuable insights from real-life case studies of successful implementations.
Whether you’re looking to save time, cut costs or reduce waste, tracking and reporting KPIs can encourage support from your leadership team. Learn about successful methods to maintain support from cross-divisional partners, vendors, and leadership on your DPC journey.
Speakers
Miguel Huidor, Textile Education Consultant
Pearl Malikul, Textile Education Consultant
