What avatars are available today and when do I use them?

In today's product development of clothing, different requirements apply to avatars. These should basically enable digitally developed clothing to be assessed on a human body before the designs are produced. This is because quality assurance prior to production saves an enormous amount of time and money. However, during product development there are different requirements for avatars and we basically differentiate them into three categories:

• Technical Avatar
• Design Avatar
• Virtual human

The technical avatar is developed based on the company specific size chart and represents the typical measurements and shape of a certain standard size (e.g. DOB size 36). Thus, each individual avatar represents a unique size and it takes different avatars to represent a size range. The technical avatars have a very technical look with corresponding dimension lines (as a counterpart to the technical avatar, there are the corresponding manikins available, which have a surface suitable for pinning. This ensures that there are no discrepancies between the real and the digital world). The technical avatar is mainly used for communication between the brand and the supplier or producer.

The design avatar looks a bit more like human and represents the design size that makes up the look & feel of the brand as well as the brand. Attention is paid to the best possible combination of proportions and appearance. The avatar looks attractive but is reduced to certain characteristics and features (e.g. hair is left out).

In the next stage, the virtual human is the digital answer to the model and is mainly used for sales. The virtual model looks very good (photorealistic) and represents the character of the brand. The avatar here can and does look like the real dimensions of the corresponding company model. This avatar is mainly used for sales and marketing.