We were thrilled to work on a WebGL product viewer for the Cowboy: the innovative electric bike from Belgium.

The main challenge was to produce a convincing real-time 3D model of this awesome-looking bike. We took great care to ensure that the model was detailed enough for close-up viewing, while keeping the filesize small enough for the Web. We aimed for realistic materials by using a physically-based texturing workflow, which guaranteed that they would look great in any lighting/environment scenario.

Additionally, we developed a custom Three.js-based viewer for the Cowboy, including a JavaScript API to control its appearance. For example, related parts of the bike such as pedals, gears and chain can be animated in a synchronized fashion with a configurable speed parameter. Front/back lights can be toggled on and off. Clickable hotspots can be configured around the bike, with smooth camera transitions between them.

This WebGL viewer allows Cowboy to integrate the real-time 3D bike inside any web application, from a simple interactive animation on their website to a full-fledged 3D configurator.

Lastly, we also produced AR-ready models, which enable real-scale preview of the bike on mobile phones.