Hexagon

3D Experiences for Smart Manufacturing

Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence launched Nexus, a cloud platform that enables manufacturing teams to collaborate in real-time. Nexus connects Hexagon's portfolio of software applications and devices, as well as third-party technologies.

Ginetta designed and built 3D Nexus Experiences to provide a playful exploration of Hexagon's catalog of software products for electric car, wind turbine, and airplane manufacturing. Ginetta believes that 3D experiences can enhance the user experience and aimed to deliver a fantastic experience by ensuring fast loading time and beautiful design.

Go to Nexus Experiences

CHALLENGE

The fastest possible 3D experience on mobile

The challenge when working with 3D objects directly in the browser is how heavy they can be. Especially when it comes to complex objects like airplanes, cars or wind turbines, as was the case for this project. A huge amount of polygons can slow down the page, which is not helpful for a smooth user experience. But as soon as you reduce the complexity of the 3D models, the quality of their appearance decreases, which isn’t ideal either. Our designers and engineers solved this in a very elegant way.

“The process is not that different from preparing assets for a video game. The limitation lies in the device. A game console was made to handle these files. An iPhone, on the other hand, wasn’t made to explore a 3D world”
Mariana Hurtado, UX Designer at Ginetta

Solution

As complex as necessary, as simple as possible

The process we developed addresses several requirements: Number of polygons, maximum dimension and file size. What sounds like a poor 3D model without details is exactly the opposite: detailed, fast and the best integration and processing of existing data.

The 3D models make it possible to discover HMI's products without loading delays and to find the right product with unprecedented ease.

[Fast]

The real magic happens when all the technologies used work together perfectly: the code from React Three Fiber for the browser and the data for the hotspots from the CMS. But that's not all. Our designers focused on easy navigation, seamless camera transitions, effortless fading in and out of elements, all at the same time and with no loading delays.

[Simple]

Natural movements and simple processes are the focus of all 3D models. A storyline developed by motion designers ensures that complexity is not overwhelming and that camera angles, movements and scripting follow a concept. Just like directing a film!

[Beautiful]

Here, too, we found a sweet spot to meet all of Hexagon’s requirements and create a beautiful experience.

Photorealistic textures, custom shaders and micro-animations have been added to immerse the audience in our experience. Our highlight is the simulation of sunlight which has been achieved via a mix of light sources, HDR environments and lens flare shaders.

Especially with the limitations of WebGL, we inspired ourselves by workflows from the gaming industry to create these beautiful & stunning experiences.

Conclusion

Reaching Customers Worldwide

With accurate, natural-looking 3D animations of cars, wind turbines, planes, and more to come, we provided an explorative experience of the products on offer from Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence. Customers can now easily discover and better understand which software solutions meet their needs based on their individual industry applications. A better user experience here naturally means generating more qualified leads for Hexagon’s product offering.

Our conceptual foundation for these 3D experiences is designed in such a way that it can easily be applied to countless other industries in the future, allowing Hexagon to reach more customers and increase sales.