Adidas unveiled its Futurecraft 3D technology in October 2015. And now, the brand is ready to show what’s coming next from its creative innovative product design hub: 4D.
At a media event in New York City on Thursday night, the athletic giant unveiled Futurecraft 4D, what the brand is describing as the first high performance footwear that boasts midsoles made with light and oxygen. The process is completed using Digital Light Synthesis, a technology developed by Adidas’ newest partner, the Silicon Valley-based technology company and manufacturer Carbon.
“With Digital Light Synthesis, we venture beyond limitations of the past, unlocking a new era in design and manufacturing. One driven by athlete data and agile manufacturing processes,” Eric Liedtke, Adidas Group executive board member for Global Brands, said in a statement. “By charting a new course for our industry, we can unleash our creativity- transforming not just what we make, but how we make it.”
For the non-scientifically inclined, Adidas explained the Digital Light Synthesis process in easily digestible language: It is a process that uses digital light projection, oxygen-permeable optics, and programmable liquid resins to generate high-performance, durable polymeric products.
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“We’re enabling engineers and designers to create previously impossible designs, and businesses to evolve their offerings, and FutureCraft 4D is evidence of that,” Joseph DeSimone, co-founder and CEO of Carbon, said in a statement. “Our partnership with Adidas will serve as an ongoing testament to how the digital revolution has reached the global manufacturing sector, changing the way physical goods are designed, engineered, made, and delivered.”
Adidas confirmed that it will work with Carbon to develop new material and machinery for future innovations, and that Digital Light Synthesis will become a part of its Speedfactory that offers consumers bespoke performance products built to their individual physiological data.
This month, Adidas will release 300 pairs of the Futurecraft 4D to friends and family, and more than 5,000 pairs for retail will come for fall ’17. The brand stated it wants to create more than 100,000 pairs of high performance footwear using Digital Light Synthesis by the end of 2018.
