Jim Napolitano on 3DLive, Virtual Twins, and the Future of Immersive Product Design

Russ Fordyce 🏆 (00:01.036) Welcome back to the Winter Circle, everybody. I'm here with Jim from DeSauce Systems and the makers of 3DLive. We're going to talk today about kind of your agency, your marketing, your brand work, and now all the immersive technology in that. So Jim, welcome to the Winter Circle and congratulations on the award. Jim Napolitano (00:18.935) Thanks, Russ. We're super excited to be a part of this, very excited for the win, and even more so to talk about the exciting stuff that we're working on. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (00:28.684) Well, it was a big innovation. DeSosystems has been around for a long time. It's an international company. Before we get too deep into it, just give us that kind of elevator pitch on what you guys are all about. Jim Napolitano (00:39.629) Yep, so as you mentioned, global organization really at the heart of what we do is the creation of a virtual twin and that virtual twin is essentially a data fueled version of a product. and that the definition of a product can go in a lot of different places. support 11 different verticals in terms of the things that we do. I personally have a big automotive background, so forgive me if a lot of my examples end up being car focused, but it's really about supporting organizations that are generating new products and using our software from design through simulation, manufacturing, and then ultimately marketing and bringing those products to consumers. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (01:25.248) And now you've had a kind of a legacy of kind of this agency leadership, brand work, and now all this immersive technology. seems like that's where the product builders are kind of going into is kind of how do you leverage tech to make those products better? What's the thread that connects it all for you? Jim Napolitano (01:44.205) Well, think so it's a couple of things. So one, I think a lot of organizations that we've seen have looked to innovation through the rear view mirror and ways to drive efficiency in the way that deliverables and products and solutions that we've created in the past. We see it very much innovation is the fuel to pave a new path to the future for us and to think about problem solving in a unique way. And whether that's through something like spatial computing, which I know we're going to talk about here. today or leveraging AI and the combination of those things to really think about the consumer needs out there and the brands that need to better support them and a way to bring those together all in one place. So as I mentioned the virtual twin is kind of at the core of it and we see it as a super exciting space to leverage that virtual twin and bring it forward with spatial computing in a way that people haven't done in the past. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (02:41.624) So I think people get kind of this virtual twin and agent kind of mixed up. Because now there's these new terms every two minutes, it seems like. Walk us through kind of what a digital twin is and how it differs from an agent. Jim Napolitano (02:52.523) Yeah, agreed. Jim Napolitano (02:57.291) Yeah, so the virtual twin it truly is a little bit of a different thing at the core of it is really data. And as I mentioned, the power and what DASO systems is doing. with clients around the globe is creating that virtual version of the product, oftentimes well before the physical version even comes to life, and then using that as a mechanism to bring it to life and visualization opportunities, whether that be through the need to design the product in a different way or understand the implications in real world physics instead of, here's your first automotive example, instead of creating creating a prototype of a vehicle and putting it through a wind tunnel test or crash test, now leveraging that same software and using a virtual twin to crash it or to go through a wind tunnel and then more dynamically adjusting the dynamics of that product to make sure that it's meeting whatever the criteria is for its success. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (04:02.904) So I think you guys kind of coined the term of this sense computing versus spatial computing. What does sense capture that spatial misses? Jim Napolitano (04:11.649) Well, and we use them at times in a very interchangeable way. Reality is that the industry is looking at it more as spatial computing, but it's really the core of it, whether we call it spatial or sense computing, is the power of using more intuitive mechanisms to actually go inside that virtual twin, to actually live within that world in a very organic and natural way. And so many ways, you know, some of the AR, VR equipment that we've all used in the past has been phenomenal in carving the path to where we are today, but spatial computing is really using it in a way where it's more intuitive, more understanding to the human experience and how we would be interacting with things in a natural way. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (04:59.032) So we're talking about a 3D environment basically, this kind of being able to walk around a product, touch a product, move it and that type of stuff. Walk us through kind of the moment a design decision goes wrong in that enterprise product development. Jim Napolitano (05:14.199) Yeah, so I'll give you some examples and forgive me again, I'm going to use an F1 automotive example. many of the F1 cars out there today are leveraging a Desso system software in one way or another. We've used that as a playground to illustrate the power of this spatial computing where we have a model of a full size F1 vehicle that we can bring to life and it's used on a couple different fronts. One is to illustrate the power of that simulation data on top of it. So you'll have a full virtual twin of the vehicle in front of you that once you have in this example, we are using Apple Vision Pro. to kind of power those experiences and make them very immersive. But now we're able to layer over it on top and understand what are the aerodynamics? What are the implications of different simulations that we can run through it? And now a world where an engineer would have been staring at Excel spreadsheets or trying to evaluate through sensors, we're able to now simulate all of that in a very dynamic way that makes it so that that twin is interacting with those external environmental items and we're able to visually see what the impact of it is. Another great example with that same F1 demo is that we have the ability to take the front wheel harness and bring it to life in a compelling way in terms of having it expand out and you see the intricate relationship between all the components within that wheel space. And so understanding how those things work together and it's almost a little bit of a real-world Ironman experience of having the ability to you know grab that caliper and pull it out of its position and and spin it around look at it and understand it and for a Designer having the ability to have that intimate a relationship with the products that they're designing Is pretty amazing now if you layer on top of that the power of class Jim Napolitano (07:32.495) collaboration, which is really where we see some breakthrough happening within spatial computing and specifically around the Apple Vision Pro and the 3D live application that we've created within there is the ability to have people in different places that are looking at those 3D models together and understanding them and able to actually workshop through any adjustments that are needed. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (07:56.835) Well, as a product builder, I can appreciate that because you often send something out to the engineers and you get something back and you kind of go like, well, it's not quite right. Let's tweak this a little bit. And it wasn't very collaborative. And you had to make sure that your product requirement documents were super detailed and you'd spend more time doing those PRDs than anything else, but then building the product a lot of times. And I imagine when engineers got their hands, they kind of moved from know, CAD designs to a 3D model, I think their heads probably exploded. And now you've moved them into this 3D experience where you can, you know, explode things into these views. You know, I just see their heads popping off again because it just unleashes creativity. And now you're talking about kind of really bringing this product all the way down into the executives and to the product managers, to the safety people, to the surgeons you're building for. And they're not CAD experts, you know, they're not the experts that... are used to dealing with those tools. So how did you kind of fill that expertise gap when you were designing the tool? Jim Napolitano (09:00.609) Yeah. So, and it's been interesting because we've very much seen firsthand that same. mind blowing experience that you described where you put it on and the Apple vision pro on a customer and and have them engage in this experience. And not only is it incredibly immersive where they're now living in that world, but it's also incredibly intuitive. And I think that's the power that's going to be the breakthrough to the next level in terms of problem solving and understanding. Oftentimes with AR VR devices of the past, there's been a learning curve of having to understand the device works and orient yourself with it. And that learning curve is very short with the Apple Vision Pro and kind of the power of the 3DLive application that we've created that again, that you guys have awarded us with the Innovation Award with. So thank you again for that. But the power of the 3DLive application within the Apple Vision Pro has created a level playing ground so that it's not just the technologists. It's not just the engineers that are leveraging this as a way to solve problems. It's also senior leaders and executives and even end users. We actually have some interesting case studies that we're working on with some customers actually one in CPG that's very interesting to me where they're trying to do consumer research and understanding how their packaging can play in the marketplace in a variety of different environments and a variety of different configurations in terms of their packaging. And it becomes a beautiful mechanism for you to be able to learn more about your consumers needs in a super intuitive way that's really breakthrough. And again, things that would have been incredibly difficult to have been able to solve for prior to this technology, not only the technology, then generating the environment and the experience within that technology. Super excited. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (11:07.628) Yeah, it would be really interesting to kind of be one of those marketing surveyors being able to put on those goggles and to be able to see that package and that product before it even came to life. your car example is a good one. You always saw them building models out of clay and then walking around and trying to figure out, do I change? And the iteration process just had to be just super expensive, just human resource intensive. And now you seem to kind of Jim Napolitano (11:07.947) told. Jim Napolitano (11:33.634) Yeah. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (11:37.761) almost automated all of that, giving everybody access to that. What does it look like when you kind of put it in from a consumer? Are they blown away? Are they picking out parts? they? Jim Napolitano (11:50.859) Yeah, so I would say that one of the things I enjoy most is that that aha moment of. truly how immersed you are and truly how you have the ability to think very differently and interact very differently. And even if you're doing it in examples where, I'm just gonna keep bringing examples up. We've got one customer that's in the aviation industry that's using it as a way to reconfigure the passenger cabin within an airplane and having the ability to have somebody put an Apple Vision Pro on and virtually sit within an aircraft and have the ability to reconfigure that space in whatever way possible and understanding what would be the most efficient, effective use of that space is so powerful. having the ability to do that with people that aren't scientists or aren't engineers by nature is really incredible. So yeah, I love that wow factor that it brings. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (12:54.349) Well... Yeah, it's almost democratizing that whole process of letting everybody, hey, I need a little bit more leg room, or I need the elbows to be a little bit broader, or something like that. It's really quite amazing. When you first deployed 3DLive, you're deploying with real teams inside of real companies. What happened that you didn't expect? What's a use case where you kind of got a reaction that the lab didn't predict? Jim Napolitano (12:59.627) Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Jim Napolitano (13:20.589) Yeah, so I would say it's a couple different things. So to be fully candid, the beauty of it is that it's been. healthy amount of back and forth and learning even within our organization. And I credit a healthy amount of that to the collaboration we've had with Apple. We've not done this blindly on the other side of a technology fence. It's been a true collaboration with Apple where not only the developers and the R &D team within Dassault Systems having the ability to bring their tools and deep, deep understanding of our customers data and how that data not only is structured, but how it evolves over time, but then also collaborating with the Apple team who intimately understands their own technology and devices and understanding how those things can marry together in a unique way. So frankly, the last year, year and a half has been spent, know, sleeves rolled up in really a lot of deep collaboration and understanding how do we do this in the most impactful way. So if a consumer is going in and so coming full circle to your question What's really exciting for me is when people put the device on and realize that they can actually reach over and press a button That there isn't some magical device controller that they have to do It's a real-world visceral experience of pressing buttons and hearing sounds and engaging in a way that's really unique to any other within kind of that space Russ Fordyce 🏆 (14:56.874) It's funny you say that because that shocked me. I had a MetaQuest helmet, goggles, what do we call it? Set. And you can use the trigger type of things, but you can also, they've enabled it so it looks at your hand and it can see your hand. And it was surprising to me when you bring stuff in close enough, you actually touch it. You're not kind of pinching fingers and triggering things. You're actually touching and you're like, well that's a whole different. Jim Napolitano (15:04.183) Sure. Jim Napolitano (15:12.29) Yep. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (15:26.594) That's a whole different experience now, because you can grab and move and do stuff like that. How do you know when the virtual twin is good enough to replace kind of physical prototyping at the decision level? Jim Napolitano (15:37.569) Yeah. So I think it comes down to creating the experiences in a way where you can have that same experience that you just talked about, where it feels just as real world as it would be if that item was right in front of you. so having the ability to touch buttons, feel and hear things, and be immersed in it, I think is really the breakthrough. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (16:05.067) Well, and you've really got to have a pretty high quality and accuracy on the product. How do you validate that kind of accuracy bar and how do you know when you've cleared it? Jim Napolitano (16:13.557) Yeah, yeah, so that's the beauty of what. that So is doing with the 3DLive is that it's not just creating an experience specifically for the Apple Vision Pro in this example. It's really about leveraging the power of all that data in the virtual twin that's already been created in our software. And instead of thinking about this as a one-off experience that we're creating for the Apple Vision Pro essentially becomes through use of the 3DLive a mechanism to view and engage with the data that these customers have already created within our software. So in reality, it's not a matter of creating data to live to a certain fidelity or functionality. It's about the fact that it's already been generated. The product that was designed was created in our software already. So we inherently already have that information. It's just about thinking about ways that we can create use cases, whether it be for that senior leadership review that they want to be able to see the product and provide feedback on it or whether it be through the lens of the research example we talked about already of putting it in a consumer's hands and getting their feedback on it or even we have a lot of customers that have a lot of interest in the training side of the house and customers that might have factories on the other side of the country or a piece of equipment that may be installed in a local facility but not here yet and giving them the ability so whereas historically we would have had to have sent a technician to wherever that equipment lives right now we can actually generate training experiences based on a virtual twin of that piece of equipment that already exists and generate hundreds thousands of different troubleshooting scenarios on how they can maintain that equipment those are the things that excite me in terms Jim Napolitano (18:17.121) of unlocking those experiences that we couldn't have done otherwise. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (18:22.049) Now the judges were pretty clear in kind of why you won. One of them was that collaboration angle. The other that I found really interesting was you guys have been doing this for a while and you're not new to kind of these engineering experiences and bringing kind of data into these experiences. You built a whole platform around this thing so that it's not a snapshot of data. You actually got a live feed of data. So you're constantly editing, evolving that model. How does building on a live data backbone, what does that change when you think about the product and what constraints does it add? Jim Napolitano (18:58.187) Yeah. So frankly, less constraints, although from a technology perspective, certainly you need to make sure that there's a conduit for communication between the data and the device. But in reality, the manufacturing world is fluid and whatever that product design was, there's always going to be shifts and it's evolving over time. Historically, you would be taking a snapshot of whatever that story is at a given time and then creating an experience out of it. Having the ability to tell that story, regardless of where it's at in the product life cycle is critical and be able to understand how it's changed and make sure that it's telling the full story needed. that's, I would say one of the most critical things about the 3DLive application is that it's looking at the customer's actual live data and understands how it's evolved and what's needed in it. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (20:05.217) You guys talked about your partnership with Apple and really leveraging their support and getting this right. You also have a pretty big partnership with Nvidia, so much so that think Jensen Wong was at one of your events. And I think he really kind of said everything's going to be a virtual twin. What does that partnership mean for what 3DLive's going to become in five years? Jim Napolitano (20:26.187) Yeah. So I mean, think all of these different pieces of the puzzle are coming together in a beautiful way in terms of, you know, how can we better collaborate, not only with Apple in terms of thinking of new ways to bring that data to life, but how are we also working with Nvidia who's doing amazing things, especially even if we just focus on AI for a quick second and think about how the work that Nvidia has done on AI, how can we make sure that we're leveraging all of those partners and bringing all the different puzzle pieces that we work on together. If I see what we do as being kind of the data side and having a deep intimate understanding of the design elements and the data rich world that our customers create with us, then how are we leveraging the power in collaborators like Apple and like Nvidia to continue to evolve those things faster? Russ Fordyce 🏆 (21:25.269) Yeah. Now you've mentioned the automotive example and aerospace. I know you guys are also in kind of medical devices. These are very different risk challenges, very different kind of approval cultures. What's the common principle that works everywhere and where do you see those industries diverge? Jim Napolitano (21:41.931) Yeah. So I mean, at the heart of it. It's really about data, right? And leveraging that data to generate those experiences, whether we're generating it around a factory floor or around a, an F1 vehicle, or another beautiful example we have is a living heart and leveraging the data of the living heart. And then think about the implications of having a surgeon that's able to actually train and diagnose and better understand. how to do delicate, intricate surgeries through the use of this type of technology. And so the thread that connects all those is the data. The data comes to life through the virtual twin, and it's really about how do you leverage that in a way that others can solve problems with it. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (22:32.941) Do you see any differences in how they kind of approve these prototypes? Jim Napolitano (22:38.989) So we have a lot of different mechanisms for customers to approve those prototypes and so everything from your very standard 2D mechanisms that would be more traditional in terms of bringing things on screen, but all the way to the Apple Vision Pro and the 3D live application, giving them the ability to step inside of it and actually instead of looking at a flat version of that product or of that piece of machinery, being able to walk into it and understand it more more in depth. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (23:15.694) I hadn't thought about, you the heart surgeon actually looking at a heart. I would imagine we're getting to the place where he could actually look at your heart before he works on it and get in there and see what needs to be fixed, how he's going to fix it, look at all the arteries and everything. I mean, that's going to be mind blowing for those guys. I would imagine sooner than later. Yeah. Jim Napolitano (23:32.619) whole different level of diagnosis, right? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely amazing. And now I think about it in terms of as they're going in to perform a surgery and having the ability to walk through the scenarios, much like the example I gave you earlier of creating manufacturing scenarios to troubleshoot, apply that to a million different other industries, even for a surgeon to be able to troubleshoot. What if the patient's blood pressure drops while they're on the table? What do I do? What if, you know, other things collapse in real time? How do we resolve that? So Russ Fordyce 🏆 (24:07.126) Yeah, it's like getting a view of the dark side of the moon before you go around, you know? So this is obviously scaling and evolving very, very rapidly. It's so much so that the design review process kind of has to, like that prototyping process has got to be gone in a very short amount of time. Jim Napolitano (24:10.669) That's timely. Jim Napolitano (24:28.715) Yeah, well, and I'm glad you mentioned that because I do think if we come full circle to the things that we're doing when it comes to Apple Vision Pro and 3D live, as well as how quickly AI is being integrated into problem solving. At the core of that is really about enabling people to make smarter decisions faster, right? And so what we're seeing in real time, and again, just the automotive guy, you know, firsthand saying it is that it's shortening those development cycles, but still bringing forward smart products that have based on a deep understanding of not only manufacturing needs, but also what the consumer expectations are and how we can deliver those in a smarter and faster way. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (25:17.196) When you think about you've got this Nvidia relationship now and I know your data is this live breathing thing inside of 3D live. How does AI play a role in that going forward and where do you see it kind of evolving into? Jim Napolitano (25:31.041) Yeah, so we're using AI in a variety of different ways within our organization. Everything from having it understand the intricate needs that an engineer would have and being wired to be able to understand the constraints and the requirements within an engineering environment and being able to develop for it. You know, all the way through what a scientist would need when we're talking about biomedicine and things like that. And then the things that are more critical for for somebody that is working through kind of the programmatic and the strategic side of the organization. So all of those are accelerators in terms of how we're able to problem solve, how we're able to understand and ultimately enable the decision makers to lead more confidently, hopefully come to conclusions faster and bring forward more effective solutions to the market. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (26:27.914) I can't imagine the power of that, especially with live data and these models. The compute power, one, your compute bill's got to be enormous, but the capabilities and the opportunity here is just tremendous. It's just incredible what you guys are going to be doing in 10 years. Congratulations again on the award, and thanks for spending a few minutes with us, just walking us through all this. It's really quite incredible. Jim Napolitano (26:36.237) You Jim Napolitano (26:53.481) Absolutely. Russ is great talking to you today. And again, thank you for the award. We're honored to be a part of those that are most innovative and excited to see what the future is going to bring.