2022.03.28

The Future of Fashion Tech Painted by Virtual Human "Drip": ZOZO NEXT's Challenge at SXSW

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The XR project is a collaboration between ZOZO NEXT Inc. and Pinscreen, Inc., a company based in the United States. For about two years, they have been developing an avatar creation algorithm and started Project Drip in 2021. As part of this project, they exhibited at SXSW (South by Southwest) held in Texas from March 13, 2022, demonstrating a technology that automatically creates a digital twin from a user's photo in about one minute using Pinscreen's developed algorithm. Additionally, they presented a prototype that generates a body based on height and weight data input to create a more realistic avatar. We interviewed the project team about the development story and background. (Recorded on March 1, 2022)

PROFILE

Hao Li

Hao Li is the CEO and co-founder of Pinscreen, a startup building cutting-edge AI-driven virtual avatar technology, and a special researcher at the Computer Vision Group of the University of California, Berkeley. He earned his Ph.D. at ETH Zurich and a master's degree at Karlsruhe University. Previously, he served as an associate professor of computer science at the University of Southern California, director of the Vision and Graphics Lab at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies, a visiting professor at Weta Digital, research leader at Industrial Light & Magic / Lucasfilm, and a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University and Princeton University. In 2013, he was selected as a top innovator under 35 by the MIT Technology Review and received awards such as the Google Faculty Award and the Okawa Foundation Research Grant. In 2018, he received the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award and was nominated for the DARPA ISAT Study Group in 2019. In 2020, he won the ACM SIGGRAPH Real-Time Live! "Best in Show" award.

PROFILE

Jack Howard

Jack Howard is an art director and creative technologist for VR and AR experiences. Starting his career in London as a director of photography and senior VFX artist, he has worked on live-action documentaries and short films for clients like Google, Sky, and the United Nations in various countries. He continues in his current position.

PROFILE

Yudai Tamamura

A 3D specialist at ZOZO Technologies Inc. After being involved in video production and 3DCG related to games at an IT mega venture, he joined ZOZO Technologies in 2020. Since then, he has focused on projects in the virtual human/fashion domain within the XR/AI team. He also produces CG and is proficient in CG tools such as Houdini and Unreal Engine.

The Development Background of the "Virtual Experience"

What kind of works were exhibited at the XR booth at SXSW?

YudaiIn the demo we presented, participants can instantly create their virtual avatars. The steps involve the user taking a photo of their face, which is then used to automatically generate a virtual avatar that closely resembles them. The user can then specify height, weight, pose, and background, and save a screenshot to share the image on their social media.