You might have gotten a taste of augmented reality, the blending of the real world with virtual images, as you chased Pokemon on your smartphone at real-world landmarks in last year’s gaming sensation, “Pokemon Go.” Now augmented reality apps are following that same principle of superimposing virtual images over real-life images to let you see how art or furniture will look in your real living space before you buy it. Finding the perfect piece of art for your wall or furniture for your living room is nowhere near a simple task. From searching for the right pieces to visualizing how these pieces fit with the overall look of your space, the art of buying art and furniture is a tricky process. But to Jonathan Chew, Group CEO of Absolute Collective, the use of AR could dramatically simplify this process, and it was this idea that led to the creation of Artzibit, a Singapore-based startup that looks to change the way buyers shop for art.
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Artzibit being used by a customer. Used with the permission of Jonathan Chew.
“We aim to remove the three barriers to buying art for your spaces. These are the visualization of how art looks in your space, the production and delivery of the piece, and finally the installation. By using AR to address the first barrier, and by streamlining the rest of the processes in one platform, we make it easy for anyone to buy the perfect piece of art for their wall,” says Chew.
“Traditional Art competitors like FineArtAmerica, Society6, Arto & Artsy do not offer AR solutions, and while companies like ArtBeamer and CURIoos do work with AR, their solutions are clunky, and have a really poor user experience.”
Outside of the art space, InkHunter, an augmented reality mobile app which visualizes any tattoo design on your body, calculates positioning based on a marker drawn on your hand. However, they are unable to solve the problem of getting accurate sizing, as their marker is hand drawn and not of a standard size. Houzz, a home decor company that combines professional renovation services, design ideas, and furniture shopping into one app, has a new AR mode that lets you try furniture before you buy. The furniture doesn’t stay anchored in the room, though. If you move your phone or tablet around, everything else moves, too.
Ikea and Wayfair have both already introduced AR apps, and other retailers are experimenting with ways to bring their products to life with similar solutions. WayfairView and Ikea Place both allow users to place full-scale 3-D virtual models of their products into real settings. The one drawback is the production models don’t look 100% lifelike as they are digital re-creations, not photos. Google’s AR technology is already on Android phones from Lenovo and Asus.
Last week, Google announced plans to bring AR to even more phones, including Samsung’s popular S8 and Google’s own Pixel, though it didn’t give a timetable beyond promising an update by the end of the year. ARKit, Apple’s augmented reality development kit, has arrived with the release of iOS 11. Now that iOS 11 has launched, millions of iPhones and iPads are AR compatible and there’s no need for any external hardware to get started. At Artzibit, sizing issues are overcome with an AR marker. The phone maps out the dimensions of your room and scales the virtual artwork automatically; there’s no need to pull out a tape measure.
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Source: Forbes