Design Your Own Audi Game

The car configurator is the heart of Digital Automotive Marketing. It will develop with the courage of OEMs to bring their vehicles online via selling online. That is why a look at the new Audi car configurator is particularly interesting.

Audi has been launching a new application for the configuration of vehicles in July. At the heart of the Car Configurator is the spatial representation of the vehicles - popularly 3D visualization. Of course, not really 3D yet. Only when the customer puts on 3D devices (for example, Oculus Rift or HTC Vive) would it be a real 3D look.

The Audi Visualization Engine as the Core of the Audi Car Configurator

Audi calls the solution "Audi Visualization Engine". Audi and partners are trying to achieve as realistic a picture of the vehicles as possible with all their elements and functions. Potential customers are invited to operate the lights or to open the trunk and doors. Also new is the mapping of the vehicle in different landscapes and at different times of the day.

The general contractor for the project is Zerolight from Newcastle. Zerolight also works for BMW, Nissan, Porsche, Volkswagen, Jaguar Land Rover, Pagani, Toyota and Audi.

Rollout in 2018 in 24 countries

In addition to Germany, the new Audi configurator will be integrated into the brand portals of 24+ other countries in 2018. Ite is currently live in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Turkey, Ireland and Poland. France and Norway will follow shortly.

Thomas Orenz, responsible Project Manager, about the new Audi Car ConfiguratorThis is what Thomas Orenz, project manager for the "Audi Visualization Engine", says about the project:

Especially with regard to the many optional extras, our new 3D visualization in the configurator provides a particularly detailed picture of the desired model and supports our customers in their purchasing decisions.

Background Information about the Audi Car Configurator

The configurator is responsive designed for the popular devices of the desktop, mobile and iPad channels. According to Audi, CAD data is the essential data basis. Visualization techniques (Game Engine) from the gaming sector are used.

A few technical details and background information:

Audi uses the existing application for displaying vehicles in retail. In use, e.g. in the Audi City. Audi now pushes this VR content via the cloud into the website.
All functions and options from the retail application are also available in the cloud (environments, animations (including doors, boot, MMI and hood), light, cameras, free navigation, screenshot)
The scope of configuration is unlimited, everything that can be built is mapped in 3D.
A bandwidth test ensures that users with matching network speed receive a 3D stream. Otherwise the known 2D version will be shown.
No device requires a plug-in. The technology Native Image Stream via HTML5 is used. The presentation of the CC is responsive and hardware-independent.
Of course, the key KPIs of the 3D and 2D versions can be tracked and analysed. Audi still might use the Adobe Experience Cloud with build in Adobe Analytics Suite.
Streaming is through the Amazon Web Service AWS infrastructure.

The Dream of full fledged Car Configurator in Retail

Already in 2017, Audi presented the Audi A4 Allroad as a model with 3D visualization in the configurator. Later, the entire A4 family followed. After the launch of all models, a further improvement in display quality and resolution up to 4k via cloud streaming is planned.

And still in the minds of the marketing people is the desire to offer the dealer network something 3D-like in high resolution and on a large scale. An application that allows you to show the incredible number of models and model variants in the showroom. The place to place the models is not enough for many dealers for a long time.

An Outlook on upcoming Releases

According to Audi, it is planned in the future to ban the bulky and maintenance-intensive hardware from retail and - where possible and reasonable - to switch to a cloud solution.

The sister brand Lamborghini plans the rollout of just this solution and wants to equip the dealers accordingly. And of course, the configurator is also the object of continuous development: In one of the next sprints, the user interface for website and mobile will be optimized. A tricky task, which I faced in my project at Daimler.

And: The environments are also adapted in the current version. The "Chicago Night" and "LA Vista" surroundings replace the current environments "Tunnel" and "Island" - Game Engine.

Good luck, Thomas Orenz, with the project. And many greetings to the former colleagues in Ingolstadt, Stuttgart, Zuffenhausen and Cologne.

Volker Liedtke, volker.liedtke@webmill.de, www.blogomotive.com