Salomon 3D shoe customization

Customize colors and materials online in 3D

Apply custom text in real-time

Explore components through exploded view

Empowering Runners to Design Their Own Shoes

Salomon, the iconic brand born in the French Alps and renowned for its commitment to innovation, embarked on an ambitious digital transformation project focused on running shoe customization. The goal was to give every runner the power to design their perfect pair — matching their physical needs (running style, frequency, body type, foot shape) and personal preferences (colors and custom text).

In an increasingly competitive global footwear market, brands must now differentiate through immersive experiences and product personalization. For Salomon, the challenge was twofold: pushing the boundaries of footwear design and manufacturing, while delivering a cutting-edge consumer experience. To bring this vision to life, Salomon partnered with Emersya to develop an advanced 3D customization experience, turning the concept of a “digitally made-to-measure shoe” into reality.

Challenges

Create an interactive product customization experience, offering high quality 3D visualization, that could be deployed online and in stores on tablet devices.

Enable customers to personalize the visual style of each part of product whilst respecting the global brand design defined by Salomon

Easily provide design suggestions as starting points for customization

Propose the option to add custom text to the product

Offer exploded views to showcase the construction layers of the custom running shoe and provide information on the product technology

Solution - the ultimate running shoe customization experience

Using Emersya’s technology, Salomon were able to offer their online customers an Interactive 3D product customization experience as an integral part of their running shoe configurator.

A hand-made 3D model was created using traditional modelling and photogrammetry techniques, in order to achieve a high end rendering of the MESH material used to make the shoe.

Emersya’s online platform made it simple to create the different color options available for this material and the other customizable parts of the shoe. The model and the customization options were then made available through Emersya’s Interactive 3D Viewer, which was embedded in Salomon’s online configurator. E-commerce customers could explore the product from every angle and click on any configurable part to switch among the available color options in real-time.

Salomon built a custom user interface to guide online customers through the configuration process and seamlessly integrated the 3D viewer using Emersya’s API. Salomon also implemented camera animations so that each time a user selects a product part to configure from the interface menu, the camera would automatically change the viewpoint to display the selected part.

The interactive customization experience also offers the possibility for the customer to add their initials to a part of the shoe and preview the finish in real-time on the 3D model.

Once customers had finalized their design online, the details would be sent to the Salomon SLAB ME:SH store where the custom fitting would be carried out and finishing touches could be added to the design before the product was made.

Salomon went further in their online product presentation by using the Emersya platform’s animation feature to create an exploded view of the different construction layers of the shoe. This enabled online customers to visualize the innovative material components of the custom sole, configured according to running preferences.

Salomon were then able to generate HD renders of the exploded construction layers as well as an HD view in order to present the internal product design and technology after the configuration process.