IC3D SUITE

IC3D Suite

Project Info

Description

Inspiring 3D creativity for label and packaging designers

iC3D Logo The all-in-one design tool that gets brands to market faster

If you’re at the cutting edge of CPG supply and demand, you know all about balancing consumer tastes and market forces with the reality of ROI. When it comes to packaging, you need to source the right skills at the right time to ensure a smooth transition from concept to shelf in the shortest possible timeframe.

Better, faster, more versatile

At iC3D Software we believe we offer the unique capability – in iC3D – to tackle head-on the issues you face. Whether your products require carton, glass, cans, flexible packaging, labels or shrink-wraps, iC3D produces fast, accurate and photorealistic 3D visuals and prototypes on-the-fly, and ready for print.

The iC3D all-in-one package allows your designers to give full rein to their creative instincts and allows you to innovate with your brand. It offers the tools and the opportunity to review, bench test, troubleshoot and refine, to get timely buy-in from stakeholders and market.

The results speak for themselves: our users report getting their new packaging designs to market up to 80% faster.

 

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN FOR YOU?

3D MOCK-UPS IN A FLASH

IC3D SuitePackage designers aren’t faced with massive learning curves or downtime trying to get up to speed. If you’re familiar with Adobe® Illustrator®, using IC3D Suite will be second nature. IC3D Suite includes a model library of common packaging models which can be selected by simply dragging and dropping into the workspace. IC3D links directly into Illustrator so 2D artwork immediately maps onto your 3D model as base artwork or labels.

BETTER COLLABORATION

IC3D SUITEAnything created in IC3D Suite can be shared with your customers or department staff for comments and markup. Output high-resolution images, 3D PDFs for sharing by email, or create an animation with the built-in Movie exporter. You can even output IC3D models to any 3D printer to create rapid prototypes!

STILL WAITING? NOT ANY MORE!

IC3D SUITEThe end results matter for customers and now you can show them how their product packaging looks when placed on a grocery store shelf or other retail environments – in real time. IC3D Suite immediately generates the required 3D shaders to correctly render all changes to models, materials and environments on the fly. There’s no need to wait for the display to update because changes are applied in real-time, meaning you can instantly tweak them to create the perfect effect everyone is looking for.

AWARD-WINNING TECHNOLOGY

IC3D SUITEIC3D Suite has a patented Smart Wrap function which allows labels and artwork to be slid/wrapped and placed accurately onto complex 3D models without the need for tedious UVW mapping of texture coordinates. That means the software works the way you’d expect it to. Want to change the placement of artwork or labels? Click and slide into place, it’s that easy!

“IC3D Suite Receives Printing Industries of America Technology Award for Innovation: It enables more customers to better engage with the packaging because it’s so quick, and greatly reduces the time to production. Incorporating an entire team in the design and refinement of the packaging lets all the voices be heard without having to wait weeks between mock-up production. Being able to see packages and labels from all angles, as well as in real scenarios brings the design to life on screen in a way that has been difficult to replicate in the past.”
-Dr. Mark Bohan, Vice President of Technology and Research at Printing Industries of America

FEATURE DETAILS

REAL TIME 3D ENVIRONMENTS

IBL_Icon

IBL LIGHTING MODEL

The 3D rendering model is based around Image Based Lighting, which use HDRI or EXR environments to calculate accurate and realistic lighting. Like a ray tracer it calculates the correct amount of lighting to apply and the environmental lighting influences on a per pixel basis for every rendered frame, however, unlike a ray tracer it is able to do this in real time.

REAL TIME 3D RENDERING

The 3D environment generates the required 3D shaders on the fly in order to correctly render all changes to models, materials and environments on the fly. No need to wait while your display updates, changes are applied in real time, meaning you can instantly tweak them to create the effect you are looking for.

REAL TIME MATERIAL EDITING

Open an objects material in the materials editor, make changes and see those changes instantly updated at full rendering resolution to the model.

HDR AND EXR SUPPORT

Import HDRI and EXR format environments directly into IC3D so your models are shown in the environment of you choices. In addition use the environment as a 3D background for your scene.

3D MODEL CREATION

MODEL IMPORT

Import models from all major 3D applications, using the common cross application formats such as:

  • Collada (DAE)
  • Modo (LXO)
  • 3DS Max (3DS and ASE)
  • Wavefront Object (OBJ)
  • Lightwave (LWO and LWS)
  • Milkshape 3D (MS3D)

Most models are imported with their materials (where applicable).

Where a model is not available you can take advantage of IC3D’s Model Generation Service to create the model you desire from your designs.

DRAG AND DROP MODEL LIBRARY

IC3D is delivered with an ever expanding model library of common packaging models. Your own packaging models can be added to the model library for quick and easy access when creating your packaging designs. To use a library model it’s as simple as dragging a model from the library and dropping it within the scene.

MODEL CREATION USING MODEL TEMPLATES

One of the slowest parts of packaging design can be creation of models. Especially if you need to keep changing the model as your concept develops. Model templates make this creation and recreation process considerably faster. IC3D ships with a range of model templates ranging from bottles, bags, magazines, and many common flexibles types, like Gusseted Bags, Pillow Bags, Sachets, Pouches and many more. This collection of auto generated template models is continually growing so if you don’t find the template you are looking for we may be able to create it for you.

MODEL OBJECT EDITOR

The model editor allows you to manage the multiple models and model components that are often used to build up a scene. The editor allows the user to interactively control of the objects, meshes and materials within the scene, including the ability to rename the scene components for better controls.

MATERIALS

MATERIAL IMPORT

If you are creating 3D models in your favourite 3D application and it supports the exporting of materials, then the likelihood is that those materials and the associated bitmaps can be loaded into IC3D.

MATERIAL CREATION

Where you need to easily create sophisticated materials like refracting glass or metallic effects like gold foil, holographic or even lenticular effects, the IC3D material editor is designed to simplify this process for you. Once you have created the surface materials for your model they can be easily applied to using drag and drop to the correct parts of your model or by using the Object Editor.

PACKAGING TYPES SUPPORTED

IC3D prides itself on supporting a large number of packaging type or discipline under one application. These include:

  • Bottles
  • Flexibles
  • Magazines
  • Packets
  • Cartons
  • Bags
  • Plastic Containers
  • Tins
  • Plus many more

All of these can have labels and or base artwork applied to them, directly from within Illustrator.

IC3D CARTON EDITION

All these features sound so great! But all you need is to work with cartons?
IC3D Carton Edition is a new product which takes all the carton, dieline, lighting, template and animation functions from IC3D Suite, but in an affordable package specifically tailored for carton designers and packaging professionals. New features include import of DXF and CFF2 dielines from leading CAD packages including ArtiosCAD, while maintaining previously specified cut and fold information. Best of all, IC3D Carton Edition can be simply upgraded to IC3D Suite when you are ready, with the same familiar “look and feel” interface.

STACKED SHELVING DISPLAY

It is possible in IC3D to display a shelf or display tray containing different products to they can be compared together. This is useful for the comparison of, Competitive Analysis, Version Comparison and Variant Comparison or for just checking how many with fit in the tray . This is simple process whereby several SKUs can be selected, the number of items specified and they will then be organised on the shelf automatically. Once placed on the shelf it is possible to interactive edit them, for example changing the colour of the label.

ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR PLUGIN

AI_Icon

REAL TIME EDITING OF AI ART

IC3D comes with a plugin for Adobe Illustrator. This plugin allows you to connect IC3D to your copy of Illustrator. When you create labels or base artwork within IC3D these are automatically created in Illustrator, where you can add artwork to the illustrator document and it will appear on your label or model within IC3D.

OPEN IN AI

The process also works in reverse, where you can select within IC3D to open your already designed label artwork (.ai and .pdf files formats supported ) and it will open this artwork for you with Illustrator and create an IC3D label linked to it automatically. Once opened the artwork will appear on you label which can then be interactively positioned on your model.

LABELING

IC3D SUITE

ADD LABELS TO MODELS

IC3D’s Auto Mesh Mapping software allows labels to be placed accurately onto complex models without the need for tedious UVW mapping of texture coordinates. As UVW mapping of a model takes often as much time as modelling the model in the first place this can be a considerable time saving.

2D AND 3D LABELLING VIEW

Labels can be seen both in 3D on a model or in 2D using the separate 2D views. These 3D and 2D Views can be exported to PDF to allow for accurate mark-up.

GAP JUMPING

IC3D’s Auto Mesh Mapping software can also be adjusted to jump gaps allowing labels to flow smoothly over gaps like ridges in tins or plastic water bottles.

SIMULATE REAL PRINT EFFECTS

IC3D Suite

IC3D labels and base artwork can have many effects applied to them. In the Adobe Illustrator artwork, specify a spot colour to represent where the effect should be placed, then select which effect to associate with the spot colour. The rest is done automatically for you. IC3D has many predefined effects but allows you to also design your own.

Predefined effects include:

  • Hot and Cold Foils
  • Emboss and Deboss
  • Holographic
  • Lenticular
  • Opaque White
  • Metallic Inks
  • Many Other Effects

SPECIAL EFFECTS

FLEXIBLE PACKET FILLING

All the flexible templates allow the packets to be animated from empty to full. So you can see the effect on your artwork in different states of fullness. In addition if you have a model that has two versions, a full model and an empty version of the model, you can create your own flexible models using the IC3D Flexible Model Editor.

FILLING OBJECTS WITH LIQUID

Models that should contain liquids can also be filled with liquid in order to see the effect the liquid has on the design. The opacity and colour of the liquid can be individually controlled.

REAL TIME SHADOWS

IC3D has the ability to cast real time 3D Shadows, on other meshes within the model, creating an even more realistic rendered environment.

REFLECTIONS IN THE FLOOR

Reflections of models can be projected in the floor plane to give the impression they are sitting on a shiny surface.

COMPLEX SCENE STAGING

ComplexScene_Icon

All of the above comes together to allow the staging of complex and dynamic scenes using cross discipline packaging type. An example might be: an accurate model of scotch is created and labelled, then placed to an equally accurate model of the box the scotch goes in. Then a glass of scotch with ice is added to the scene, and the materials for the glass and ice are applied. Finally liquid is filled in the bottle and glass to represent the scotch, and the background is changed to grouse moorland. The result is a complex scene which can be saved and exported as a high resolution render or as a 3D model for others to view. The labels and artwork used in the generation of the scene can automatically be output with screen shots of the scene to a PDF for collaborative review and mark-up.

EXPORT

HI RES EXPORT

High resolution renders can be exported to be further adjusted in Photoshop. The exported images can be specified to contain an alpha channel so the models can be divorced from their backgrounds so they can be placed in other scenes

PDF EXPORT

An auto generated PDF containing several screen shots of the 3D scene as well as 2D renders all the labels and base artwork in the scene, can be easily exported to allow for easier collaborative review or mark-up.

COLLADA EXPORT

Models created or edited in IC3D can be exported with their materials in Collada format or editing in other third party 3D applications. They can then be reimported as Collada files back into IC3D if required.

IC3D SUITE

MOVIE EXPORT

A Quick Time Movie (MOV) file can be recorded and exported to allow the 3D content to be viewed on other devices and platforms, such as the Apple iPhone or iPad. The Movie exporter uses high quality video compression to create iPhone and iPad compatible movies. The user can also manually animate the object during the recording, to zoom in on a certain section or spin the objects / objects so they can be viewed from all sides.