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The process of communicating can often leave a lot of room for confusion and disappointment. Even when both the designer/seller and customer are able to correctly express their vision, there is always the chance that the imagination doesn’t quite fully grasp how certain objects will work in reality. How can this problem be addressed and how can the communication gap be bridged to ensure the consumer is happy with the product he has just bought for his home, knowing it’s the perfect fit?
VR is also allowing for the development of so-called “virtual showrooms.” In effect, the user puts on the VR device and is suddenly in a store showroom. Instead of traveling, the process of buying a new couch can be done from the living room.
The advantage of doing it this way as opposed to via a computer is the fact that the user is able to get a real sense for the dimensions of the object. As the computing power of VR devices improve, allowing graphics to become ever more realistic, virtual showrooms may begin to displace traditional brick-and-mortar stores.
To get a general idea of what virtual reality can do for your business, you can take a look at a VR platform for interior designers and architectures, designed by Marxent.
Augmented reality (AR) basically allows a person to use his or her phone to overlay the physical world with virtual elements.
This is a fancy way of saying that you could use your phone’s camera and an AR app to see what a new green couch would look like in your living room. IKEA successfully adopted this idea in their new printed catalogues, giving customers the ability to place virtual furniture into his/her house.
Without getting too technical, most AR apps currently rely on marker-based technology. This means that a furniture company or an interior designer can give you a brochure or handout that you place in the location you would like to place a piece of furniture. Then by aiming your phone at the location, the piece of furniture — with real-to-life dimensions and scaling — will appear on your screen as if it were part of the room.
The benefits of new apps like this are that they allow potential buyers to know if something will fit in their room. We can all finally say goodbye to the soul-crushing, back-breaking process of buying a new dresser, lugging it upstairs, only to find out there’s no space between the bed frame and the wall. For furniture companies and interior designers, it offers increased competitiveness and higher customer satisfaction.
The winner from all these technological advances will be the customer. Interior design has always had a degree of excitement — new furniture, new layout, whole new vibe. Too often, however, it could become a frustrating process of apprehension and confusion over what exactly was going to happen.
Virtual reality is a huge step forward for those big projects that require substantial forethought before committing to the costly renovation and construction accompanying such projects. Augmented reality is the perfect solution for solving those ever nagging questions of “Will it fit?”, “What if it was red”, and “Will it match the wallpaper?” Mixed reality will allow new homeowners to completely deck out their new home, in thousands of new arrangements, in a matter of minutes.
If there was ever a time to be excited about where interior design is going, now is that time.
Source: The Future of Interior Design: Virtual Showrooms and Augmented Catalogs
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