Business News

FFEI to reveal commercialized version of RealPro 3D-Packager at Packaging Innovations

Wednesday 01. September 2010 - Market feedback drives enhanced version for fast packaging visualisation

See a demo on stand GB46
FFEI will demonstrate the latest version of RealPro 3D-Packager, a visualization tool that is specifically designed to streamline packaging design and development. By producing an interactive 3D visual which simulates all aspects of the structural and visual design, RealPro 3D-Packager dramatically improves product time-to-market, minimizes dependence on physical packaging mock ups and reduces development costs.

According to Mark Ridgeway, Software Product Manager at FFEI, “The creation of packaging prototypes is both expensive and time consuming, due to the abundance of special colours and finishes associated with high street brands. RealPro 3D-Packager not only greatly reduces both of these overheads but also gives packaging development teams freedom to explore new design options before a physical mock up is commissioned. This freedom has the potential to drive exciting and new ‘leap-off-the-shelf’ designs into product packaging in a very fast and cost-effective way.”

RealPro 3D-Packager is available for single-seat or networked use and simply integrates into professional packaging design workflows. With an intelligent interface, users can produce fully interactive and animated 3D visualisation of the final product from the moment a draft die line is available. The 3D visual is updated in real-time as artwork is added or modified in Adobe Illustrator, allowing design staff to see the impact of structural or artwork changes immediately.

Elements such as folds and print finishing effects including foils, varnishes and specialised substrates are accurately simulated, simplifying the communication and presentation of packaging designs. To ensure maximum understanding of the finished design, RealPro 3D-Packager exports a fully interactive 3D mock-up, viewable with a standard web browser, that starts with a die-cut ‘flat’ of the package. This can be folded, for mechanical integrity, viewed from any angle and marked up with a full range of commenting tools.

“Complex designs are always difficult to communicate with the diverse parties involved in the packaging development and approval processes,” states Mark. “RealPro 3D-Packager offers a complementary 3D soft prototyping solution which helps to streamline both. It is a real alternative to physical mock-ups, substantially reducing the preparation time and associated costs of packaging creation.”

RealPro 3D-Packager was first shown in a Beta form at PackTech in February 2010. Feedback from the show and from field trials since have led to a fleet of enhanced features. With a dedicated team of software developers, FFEI is committed to extending the capabilities of RealPro 3D-Packager for the widest range of packaging and POP applications.