The Retail Experience Center

The store entrance in the real-time virtual store.

On January 13th 2009, Microsoft opened a fully functional mock-up of a retail store in Redmond. The Retail Experience Center may be stocked with Microsoft products on the shelves, but that is not what it is selling.

Instead the 20,000 square foot facility is designed to promote the technology that runs the store itself, showcasing ways to help cut costs, create efficiencies, streamline operations, and promote and sell goods. It is also part of Microsoft’s larger effort to establish a research facility to better understand and address how consumers are experiencing the Windows brand at retail as they select and purchase PCs.

Alongside the bricks-and-mortar store, a virtual copy was also commissioned from Augusto Michelis, built and delivered using trueSpace. The virtual store was quite a challenge, as it was required to be as realistic and detailed as possible, while meeting the need to run in real-time. This gives a different set of priorities to the work than when modeling to create offline renders and pre-rendered animated walk-throughs.

A photograph on the left, and a real-time screen grab on the right.

The finished scene can be put to use in a variety of ways. It's far easier to move models around in a virtual space, making it easier to test store layouts and designs. The shared space capabilities of trueSpace make it possible for people to meet, so management, marketing and shop floor staff could gather to discuss layouts. It could even allow shoppers to come and familiarize themselves with the store before visiting it.

3D artist Augusto Michelis found it an exciting project to work on. "Architectural 3D is very common these days. However, making a whole retail center where people can walk around and find specific products on specific shelves, even read what is on the box, that is still not common!" he said.

A screen capture from trueSpace The scene can be fully edited and navigated in this view.

"I made the models from floor plans before the store was complete, so it was amazing for me to see pictures from the finished building as I already knew my way around the store. I knew just where to find the Microsoft keyboards, or where to go for technical support," he added. "This is where trueSpace, with its real-time and collaboration capabilities, makes a huge difference compared to other software."

Augusto thinks that this project and others like it is just the beginning. "I believe in the near future customers will not just ask for but will even demand this sort of technology. trueSpace puts that kind of power in your hands today, to create whatever you want with quality and speed, so you can get ahead of your competitors."

For more information on the Retail Experience Center itself, see the Microsoft Retail Experience Press Page for the press release, launch video, photos, and more. For more information on the virtual store, contact v-thgrim@microsoft.com.

A real-time view from the Xbox section.


All images on this page are real-time screen grabs from trueSpace except where noted.