How did Modelo get started?
The redemption to our laziness of being just a designer.
The client
Seven years ago, I did my internship at a New York-based architecture firm. At the time, I considered myself very lucky to have direct interactions with clients.
Every time before meeting a client, we would prepare a whole bunch of presentation materials including: renderings, diagrams, floor plans, elevation plans and section plans. But in almost every meeting we had, our clients always stuck with one or two renderings based on their criticism of them, and simply wouldn’t let go.
The only thing that helped was animations. Whenever the client saw an animation, they would be so amazed and entertained that the meeting would take an entirely different tone. It was more constructive, goal-oriented, and eventually ended on a happy note. But, as we all know, animation is expensive and time-consuming. Instead, sometimes we would try to directly show our clients the 3d models and hope they would appreciate something “alive.” But the truth is, with their very limited knowledge of 3d modeling they didn’t understand either the interface or our intention of presenting such complex imagery. What’s worse is having a 3d modeling software open made them feel as if everything could be easily fixed, which is not the case.
I wouldn’t blame our clients because there is no better way for them.
The boss
Six years ago, I was an architectural designer at a Los Angeles based architecture firm with the main office in Shanghai. The founder and principle of this firm is quite famous in the field, and of course, was very busy at the time. Everyday he commuted between the school, our firm and some other fancy venues that he had to attend.
Usually, the LA office would handle four to five projects at a time, and the Shanghai office would handle dozens. Since the nature of this firm is more or less a one-man shop- every design decision had to be made by one man- the boss. So, every evening before we took off, we would prepare all the design updates we made that day, convert them into PDF, print them out and leave them on his desk. Sometimes, if he was on the go we would just email them to him.
Often, we would get tons of comments back from him within less than 12 hours, sketch-overs and the occasional curse word. Then, everyone would pick whichever piece of feedback belonged to their project, scan them and make adjustments to their design on their computers. From time to time, we would get unclear comments from him, but to ask him again usually wasn’t the best idea due to the turnover rate. We would just leave it to him to judge at the next comment cycle.
I wouldn’t blame my boss because there is no better way for him.
The engineer
More than three years ago I helped a hardware company design some prototypes. I was in Boston at the time, the owner was in Washington D.C. and the engineer was in Korea.
Every week we would exchange files with each other. I used Rhino and they used SolidWorks. To get my files opened on their side, I needed to export my file into Obj and they would then import it in SolidWorks just to view it. Most of the time, it would end up with failures like broken or missing geometries, and insufficient memory when importing the model into my Rhino software.
As a result, we would just talk via emails with only images attachments. That said, it was a rather unpleasant experience, especially when discussing specific areas of the model for manufacturing purposes. We would say things like, “The curvature under the knob, at the side of the silicon pad is too deep to be milled.”
I wouldn’t blame our engineer because there is no better way for him.
The technology
In the same year, I got in touch with WebGL for the first time in one of Panagiotis Michalatos’ courses at Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD). For the very first time, I saw a 3d model get rendered smoothly, directly in the browser, and at that moment I decided to do something with it.
The journey
Two and half year ago, I graduated from Harvard GSD. I was honored to become the only master’s student in the school’s history who has won both the Peter Rice Prize (for structure innovation) and Digital Design Prize (for innovative use of digital tools). I won the latter with my thesis project, which at the time was called SharingStudio, the first WebGL application I ever created. I had no idea about commercialization or starting a business out of it, but one thing I did know is that it would be life-changing. So I decided to proceed.
About two years ago, I co-founded Modelo with my partner Tian Deng, a former industrial engineer. So for the first time, I pitched this idea to him, he got it in a second.
One year ago, we received funding from a well renowned Chinese VC: Zhenfund. From then on, we started running the company for real.
Today, one year later, we have our own engineering team, marketing team and sales team. We got our first enterprise sale and we’ve just launched our public beta. But more importantly, I think we’ve found a solution for our client, our boss and our engineer.
This is Modelo
With Modelo, every CAD user can drag and drop their 3d files into the browser and get a link for their model. All the files are stored in their own designated folders, so there is no need to use another online cloud storage or file transfer service, like Dropbox or Wetransfer.
With Modelo, files that are hundreds of megabytes big can be dramatically compressed, so the download and rendering speeds get much faster. At the same time, Modelo separates the original model file from the visualization file, so there is no need to worry about your files getting stolen by sending them to visualize.
3d designers can simply pre-save camera angles of their design, attach images and videos to each angle with Modelo. By just pressing the left-right arrow, it will navigate through the 3d space. Designers can also control what they want the others to see and how they want them to see it.
With Modelo, the boss now can mark up on design updates anytime (s)he wants and turn it into a specific task for a designated person.
With Modelo, any comments about design or manufacturing can be made at the place where they are meant to be - in 3d.
With Modelo, we’ve added another dimension to the web browser where people can browse a 3d model directly on a company’s website or a designer’s portfolio site.
The starting point again
There is nothing more exciting than solving a problem that has been long lasting and personally bothersome. Modelo is the redemption to our laziness of being just a designer.
Like Don Greenberg once said:
“I spent my life as a toolmaker. The architecture field is much to blame because they never put their creative input into what they want. That’s why you’re stuck with what you have now.”
