What are you looking at?
The scene below is a working 3D configurator GlareAR built for the furniture category. You can rotate the chair, zoom in, and switch fabric options. On a mobile device an AR button appears, letting you place the product in the room you are standing in.
GlareAR furniture demo scene. A 3D viewer on desktop, AR room placement on mobile.
Open demo full screen →Why do fabric variants not need separate models?
Each fabric option on the demo chair is not a separate 3D model. The geometry is produced once, and fabric is defined through separate PBR material channels: base colour, roughness, normal map and weave pattern. Switching variants means switching those channels, so no new file downloads and the transition is instant.
The practical consequence is that production cost does not grow linearly as the fabric collection grows. Studio photography needs a separate shoot, separate logistics and separate retouching per fabric, whereas in a 3D scene a new fabric is just a new material definition.
| Element | Approach in the demo | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Chair body | One geometry, shared across variants | File size and production cost stay flat |
| Fabric | PBR material layer | Switches instantly, no reload |
| Wooden legs | Separate material definition | Selectable independently of the body |
| AR output | USDZ for iOS, glTF/GLB for Android | Two formats from one source model |
How does this adapt to your own range?
This scene is a demonstration of category behaviour rather than a template. Building the same structure for your product follows this order: take the product and variant inventory, produce geometry from CAD or a dimension table, define the fabric collection as material channels, and wire the configurator to your store platform's variant structure.
- Product selection: Start with the models carrying the most traffic and the highest return rates rather than moving the whole range at once.
- Geometry production: Through retopology where CAD exists, otherwise from a dimension table and reference photography; dimensions stay 1:1 for AR.
- Fabric library: Every fabric in the collection is defined as a PBR material and reused across all compatible models.
- Store binding: Selection is wired to your Shopify/Ticimax/İdeasoft variant structure so the cart matches the screen.