ENLIGHTEN3D

By Joshua Koopferstock

This post follows Christian’s post on advancements in 3D technology for hair reconstruction. One immediately apparent application of the technology is for digital effects in film. We would expect a reduction in the time needed to model hair versus the current methods, thus giving better realism for the buck.

Why don’t we look at this technology through a wider lens. Allow me to momentarily step into the shoes of the brand manager of L’Oreal’s Redken hair products brand. As the brand manager, I understand well two properties of hair: each person’s hair is distinct, and hair is a “living” and moving part of the body.

Photo by Jurijus Azanovas

To address the first property and promote my product effectively, I can offer samples of the product so that the consumer can see how it will affect her own unique hair. However, this is risky for the consumer who has to try something new in her hair, and risky for me as the brand manager because the exact result (and the way that the consumer interprets the result, since beauty is, of course, subjective) is out of my control. For the second property, “living” hair, I can show hair in motion with video, but this approach ignores the importance of personal distinctiveness.

What if, using technology like the Hair Photobooth, you could quickly and automatically recreate a 3D model of yourself and your hair so that you could see what your hair would look like with different Redken products? This gives me, the brand manager, a much better control of the resulting look (some automatic touch-ups wouldn’t harm the realism much), and reduces the risk for the consumer who no longer has to put his or her hairdo on the line.

As the development of this technology progresses, we can expect that it will not only be able to automatically model hair, but also automatically make it animation-ready. With this, we can take it a step further and allow the consumer to run the 3D model of themselves through a few preset animations. Now I, the brand manager, am even more in control of the context in which the consumer first sees the product in her own hair, and I have drastically improved the realism by giving the hair “life” and portraying it in motion. And let’s say that as an added feature, I let the consumer share the animation with her friends through facebook or embed it in her blog, and maybe even vote on which of the results is the best.

Community building, personalisation and customisation in an environment controlled by the brand; this is what every brand manager dreams for and where the future of branding, driven by 3D technology, is leading us.