Bring your configurations to life with 2D and 3D visualization
Product visualization in Hive CPQ allows your customers to interact with highly accurate, lifelike models of your products during the configuration process. This feature provides immersive experiences that help users better understand product options, improves engagement, and instills confidence in their choices.
Why use 3D visualization?
3D visualization elevates the product configuration process in several ways:
- Engages and inspires customers: 3D models provide a realistic, interactive experience that simplifies complex product options, boosts confidence, and sparks interest, making it easier for customers to visualize possibilities and make informed purchasing decisions.
- Reduced errors: Visualizing products in 3D helps users make accurate choices, reducing errors, and shortening the sales cycle.
- Reflects innovation: Showcasing your products in 3D reinforces your brand’s modern, forward-thinking image.
- Improved training for staff: New team members can quickly understand complex products, ensuring effective sales support.
Choose between dynamic vs static 3D visualization
Choose between dynamic and static 3D options depending on your product and user needs:
- Dynamic 3D: Models update with each option selected, showing real-time adjustments in dimensions, colors, and materials. Ideal for a fully immersive experience, dynamic 3D adds a “wow” factor to the configuration process.
- Static 3D: A simpler, static model offers a consistent view that users can rotate and inspect. This approach is faster to implement and still provides valuable visual context.
3D visualization in Hive CPQ
Technology
We have a team of 3D engineers who will handle all aspects of the 3D process.
They will use your CAD or STEP files as a foundation for their 3D work and translate the files into a parametric model that seamlessly integrates with the configurator. Using Verge3D and Blender, they create brand-new 3D models that are clean and lightweight. These models load much faster than a regular CAD file, since their purpose is sales-driven (and not technical-oriented).
Advanced 3D options
Take your product configurations to the next level with Hive CPQ’s 3D features. Provide clarity and precision with the following:
- Drag & drop to change configurations to your liking.
- Animations, such as opening and closing the window blinds or turning lights on and off.
- Display measurements, functions as an extra check to avoid errors.
- Show cross sections of the configured product, to make users understand the intricacies.
- Virtual photographer
Custom environments & upload photos
Bring your products to life with custom environments. These 3D visualizations represent typical settings where the configured product would be used, giving users a realistic view of their selections. Configurator users can turn the environment on and off to their liking.
You can also let customers upload a photo of their own space – for example, their garden – to see how their newly configured pergola would fit in. They can adjust the placement, tweak the configuration, and refine the design until it feels just right!
Switch between 2D & 3D
Do you need to work on detailed plans too? With Hive CPQ, you can effortlessly toggle between 2D and 3D views during the configuration process. This flexibility ensures a smoother workflow, allowing you to work in the visualization mode that best suits your needs – whether it’s precise technical planning in 2D or product exploration in 3D.
Optimized for speed
Hive CPQ’s 3D visualization is designed to deliver high performance without compromising user experience. Our approach is optimized to work fast, even when working with complex configurations:
- Avoids heavy CAD files that slow down loading times
- Allows continuous configuration even while 3D models are loading, keeping users engaged
- Displays a placeholder image until 3D models are fully loaded for seamless interaction
Add 3D models to quotes using the virtual photographer
Hive CPQ’s virtual photographer tool captures images of configured 3D models, and embeds them directly in quotes and technical sheets. This helps you to visually communicate the final product specifications.
Technical sheets made in Hive CPQ also provide customers with cross-sectional views of the 3D models, clearly showing the measurements and dimensions of various components, increasing the understanding more.
Best practices
Not sure where to begin or how to improve the performance of your 3D models? We’re sharing some of the best practices we’ve learned about over the years:
- Optimize models: Simplify models to avoid heavy loads and maintain fast performance
- Prioritize key features: use animations or interactive elements for essential product options, enhancing the user experience without overloading the interface.
- Leverage CAD files carefully: While CAD files are essential for model accuracy, optimizing them for sales visuals is crucial for speed and efficiency.
Not ready for 3D? Try 2D visualization or work with pictures
Is your company not ready for a full 3D implementation? Consider starting with a more accessible solution: 2D visualization. In our Hive Design Studio, you can upload images of your products for users to explore. Engage and inspire customers by showing multiple images in a carousel-like view.
You control which images are displayed based on the user’s selections. For example, when a user selects wood as the material, only images of wooden doors will be displayed, while metal doors remain hidden. This approach provides a visually engaging experience without the need for full 3D capabilities.
Ready to enhance your product configurations with 3D?
Book a demo to see how Hive CPQ’s visualization can elevate your customer experience and streamline your configuration process.
FAQ
While it is technically possible for you to build and maintain the 3D models in Verge3D and Blender, we highly recommend working together with our team of 3D engineers. They have the know-how and expertise to quickly build and optimize the models you want. You’ll be able to go live much faster, and with optimized models.
Yes, we can! Your CAD files will serve as the basis for the work of our 3D engineers. Using Verge3D and Blender, they’ll translate these files into 3D models that we can connect to the configurator. The result is some brand-new 3D files that are much lighter – and therefore faster – than your CAD files. Starting from the CAD files saves our team a lot of work.
Yes, you can upload pictures. Say for example, that you’d like to get an idea of what your newly configured pergola would look like in your garden. In that case, you can simply click on “Photo simulation” in the configurator, upload a picture of your garden, and instantly see the 3D model inside your garden! You can move the 3D around or make adjustments to measurements if necessary.
For photorealistic renders and next-level 3D simulations, we work closely together with some partners, such as Visuals for Brands. Their expertise in product visualization combined with our know-how in Configure, Price, Quoting creates powerful solutions and impressive customer experiences.
