RealTime Conference 2022: Retail & 3D Commerce

In November the virtual RealTime Conference 2022 took place. For the second time DGG’s CEO Max Limper and Head of Operations Felix Limper were curators of the session “Retail and 3D Commerce”. Below is a short summary of the 3 hour session.

3D Commerce and Metaverse applications are two of the current technological megatrends. With the advent of advanced XR hardware, as well as the increased popularity of virtual online worlds for everyone, brands and retailers are positioning themselves to be present in the metaverse – with real-world products, as well as with dedicated “virtual only” products, specifically tailored for online experiences. Within the session we explored this trend together with leading companies of related industries.

Our session at RealTimeConference 2022 contained two blocks with 3 presentations each and a panel discussion for both blocks. Max Limper moderated the panel discussion and the Q&A sessions afterwards.

3D First – Joakim Tennfors – Fibbl

The first presentation was given by Joakim Tennfors from Fibbl. The Head of 3D Production explained the impact of real-time 3D on shopping in the metaverse with his motto “3D First”. The Swedish company Fibbl sees the potential of AR marketing. Therefore they offer a visual marketing platform that primarily helps brands and retailers harness the power of 3D and AR for their marketing and e-commerce product experience.

3D Production Pipeline – Tobias Nientiedt – OTTO

Tobias Nientiedt is responsible for CGI & Digital Content Production at the German online retail company and marketplace Otto. He gave an insight into how they approach 3D model production. The creation to the final delivery in the online store can take up to 6 weeks. By using RapidPipeline the optimized 3D models can then be used directly for web, AR and other applications. This saves Otto a lot of time in their 3D production pipeline.

3D Avatars – Chris Wrobel – Virbe

Moving on to Chris Wrobel, CEO & Co-Founder of Virbe. He showed how interactive 3D avatars can be used to level up customer experience on your website, mobile app and/or in the metaverse. In his talk, Chris’ explained the benefits with the example of an unmanned autonomous business in Poland.

3D & AI – Perry Nightingale – WPP

The first block was closed by Perry Nightingale, Senior Vice President for AI at WPP. He described how their company uses real-time 3D rendering and consumer analytics to create engaging e-commerce and marketing experiences for customers.

3D Shopping Experience – Russ Maschmeyer & Eric Florenzano – Shopify

Russ Maschmeyer (Product Lead) and Eric Florenzano (Senior Developer) from Shopify opened the second block. Their presenation was about how real and virtual worlds can merge to improve shopping experience.

Trends in Retail – Dmitry Sokolov – HP Retail

Following and building on the previous session Dmitry Sokolov, Global Vertical Lead at HP Retail gave his view on current retails trends and how to connect online and offline.

Omniverse ACE – Alex Qi & Stephanie Rubenstein – NVIDIA

Lastly, Alex Qi and Stephanie Rubenstein from NVIDIA shared insights into the NVIDIA Omniverse Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE). This Engine is a collection of cloud-native AI models and services that facilitate the creation and customization of interactive avatars. Background is an enormous industry worth billions of dollars is being driven by the growing need for avatars, virtual robots, and digital people, which will help us in all facets of work and play.

The session was closed by the panel discussion which was about the merging of real and virtual worlds in Spatial Commerce and XR.

The full session recording with more insights is now available for free.

At this point we want to thank all speakers again for their inspiring talks and the deep insights into companies involved in megatrends metaverse and 3D commerce. Furthermore, many thanks to everyone for joining our session and the exchange in the chat.

We were very happy to be part of the RealTime Conference once more. In addition, we are thankful for the exchange within the community and look forward to future conferences.