Virtual Textiles Research Group Presents:
Sensory Silhouettes at the RISD Museum
Garments are meant to be worn and therefore felt. When they are presented behind glass in a museum, our experience is limited only to seeing them.
The Virtual Textiles Research Group investigates and develops technology at the forefront of digital textile simulation.
In this collaboration between RISD’s Virtual Textiles Research Group (VTRG) and the RISD Museum’s Costume and Textiles Department, the textures, colors, and histories of South Asian textiles converge.
Simulated virtual prototypes have revolutionized the design process in most engineering fields, eliminating much trial-and-error and enabling designs to be refined before real prototypes are built. As computational power becomes commonplace, a major emerging application of simulation is to design fields where the aesthetics of appearance, shape, and motion are primary concerns on a par with strength, weight, or efficiency. However, certain classes of materials consistently elude the available tools, and textiles form one of the most important examples.
VTRG has developed an innovative approach to creating digital materials that convey the sensory silhouettes of historic textiles.
This digital artwork was made in response to key words pulled from sensory descriptions, creating an immersive digital experience of the physical artifact.
Digital materials were modeled using sensory visual descriptions, capturing topographical textile information, and then creating a 3D simulation.
