LiquidPixels Blog: Industry Insights from the Dynamic Imaging Experts

The Perfect Gradient: LiquiFire ImageMap

Written by Amanda Ross | July 12, 2022

The Perfect Gradient: LiquiFire ImageMap

By: Amanda Ross | July 12, 2022 | 3 Min Read

A change in season means new colors, fresh styles, and updated patterns.

With the flip of the calendar, consumers get excited to see new product offerings from their favorite retailers. But businesses need to plan months in advance to meet the time-to-market production schedules for each new season.

What if you could simplify production of your e-commerce images by utilizing one powerful gradient?

Take for example a furniture company that designs their pieces in 3D modeling software, but never use the 3D assets beyond the concept and development phases. What if it were possible to leverage those 3D assets when presenting the final product to consumers? Mind-blowing—and yet, true, as well as cost-effective.

With a powerful solution like LiquiFire® OS, companies are able to extend the life of their 3D assets by leveraging them in new ways throughout the entire product lifecycle. 

Revitalizing 3D Assets

Using 3D software requires an extensive amount of knowledge and skill. In time, it can be mastered; however, no matter how skilled you are, it is time consuming to create high-quality renderings of each fabric pattern or color.

To improve upon this process, simply replace your 3D texture with the perfect gradient. You can instantly update all of your texture content and render a new 2D version immediately, for any media. With one final output rendering, you can instantly change the color or pattern of your 3D asset right in LiquiFire OS.

For a superior viewing experience, the most advanced websites use LiquiFire Viewer Suite™, Surround Viewer™, which can accept, customize, and present 3D files, allowing you to leverage your library of 3D assets. Surround Viewer gives customers an in-person experience in a virtual setting by providing real-time alterations of a particular product. This includes immersive details—such as varying colors, patterns, and textures of a product—that cannot be achieved in person.

Arm chair / Furniture by maxsbond.work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution.

Additional Advantages for 2D Imagery

The perfect gradient is vital to 3D assets, but it can also be used for 2D imagery, as well. Most designers are familiar with using a smart object in Photoshop. A smart object allows the designer to place textures and patterns that can be replaced without needing to warp or transform the object every time.

While this process is indeed easier than modifying every single item, it is not dynamic nor scalable. Each image will still have to be resized and exported.

With the help of the perfect gradient and LiquiFire OS, designers no longer have to worry about the repetitive tasks for their 2D images. For example, in the image series below, users can utilize the perfect gradient to add patterns and textures onto complex surfaces to create a realistic view of a final product.

How LiquiFire ImageMap™ Helps

For e-commerce brands, a set number of fabrics may be scheduled for a season, and when the season ends, a whole new set of fabrics may need to be photographed for the next season. This is time consuming and an outdated workflow for most e-commerce retailers.

Instead of having to repeat this process of painstaking redundancy, LiquiFire OS streamlines this workflow by creating images dynamically. Users can create an image in real-time with a simple text change to the LiquiFire Image Chain™. With just a few basic command changes, new colors, patterns, and fabrics can be available immediately on an e-commerce website. 

The importance of this is that there is no need to re-shoot a product, and there is no need to edit and spend the time to resize the images. Everything is done instantaneously.

The time-to-market is optimized, in addition to every image for an entire website. This workflow is not only the most advantageous, it is the future of website imagery.

Check out the following demos which use the perfect gradient to produce dynamic visualizations:

If you would like to learn more about harnessing the power of product visualization, please contact us.