Reality is not enough

Moving armchairs and sofas around, laying carpet – but without the lugging, lifting or sweating. Sounds pretty good, doesn´t it? Everybody who has furnished a room knows how exhausting this can be – and how sobering it is to look at your interior after you´re done and whisper to yourself, “This just doesn´t look right…”.

A new technology from Silicon Valley is gaining momentum that can minimise the drag of moving furniture around – by providing a first glimpse of a product´s shape, material and dimension even before the order: Augmented Reality represents the real world augmented by virtual objects. This is not really new, as AR has been around since the early 2000s. At that time, you held so-called markers in front of the webcam. The computer then inserted simple 3D images that you could move around with one of these markers.

AR has since progressed, of course, and is more mobile. The main reason for this is the fact that the two big players, Apple and Google, have started to focus on this topic. Apple conceived a comprehensive developer´s kit, the AR Kit, and Google did the same with ARCore.

Pokémon Go doesn't measure up

What makes this technology so special is that it recognises where the floor is and which physical attributes which objects need to have in three-dimensional space – very different, for example, from AR gimmicks such as Pokémon Go which place two-dimensional cartoons in the middle of a real picture.

The intelligent software which works without additional lenses, lasers or other instruments makes it possible to create a 3D display out of a two-dimensional camera image. Only in a display with three-dimensional space can 3D models assume the correct physical dimensions and depth, as if they were really there.

This is exactly what yourhome AR, a free app for iPhones and Android devices, now offers. The AR app from OTTO´s specialist furniture online shop measures the space in real time that the user is viewing via their own smartphone, and recognises where the walls are, where other furniture is already standing – and where, accordingly, no virtual 3D objects can be placed in a realistic scale. Does the sofa really fit in that corner? Does this colour really match the wall? Formerly you had to wait for the massive sofa to be delivered to find out – but it´s better for everyone involved if the first impression is as accurate as possible, and this is where Augmented Reality is a major help.

And now?

So what are the next steps for OTTO’s Augmented Reality? At first, the goal is to apply AR to even more products. Presently, the app’s scope is limited to about 50 furniture models. After all, it’s still a lot of work to implement a new product as a detailed 3D model, along with fabric textures and other small details.

The long-term view of the team behind it is that investing in AR and VR technologies doesn’t have to generate revenue and profits right away. The AR pioneers at yourhome are focused on fully understanding the technology from the customer’s perspective and acquiring knowledge for the next development steps. After all, AR technology alone will not yet make reality obsolete; only when its is optimally linked with precise 3D visual worlds, interfaced with the online shop systems behind it and combines all the facts to generate genuine added value for the customer can AR be a real augmentation – an enhancement of good old reality.