Is AR/VR changing the world of Interior Designing?

As different industries are adopting AR/VR related technologies, the interior designing sector has also left no stone unturned. Although in various fields the VR technology helps people to perform their activities such as new trainees can practice medical trainings, people can learn driving but in the case of interior design, it only helps designers in presenting their ideas to the clients in a more efficient way.

How does it help the Interior Designer?

AR and VR help the designer to present their ideas to the clients in a 3D manner as opposed to 2D presentations. This helps the client better visualize how space will look and feel like. The journey from traditional methods like drawing and sketching in 2D to virtual showrooms to AR/VR to catalog apps to Mixed Reality, there is everything available for the brands to use.

Augmented Reality

There are brands like IKEA which are taking the first-mover advantage by changing the user experience by providing them with an option of virtual showrooms and apps to select furniture from. They have very smartly used AR technology so that a buyer does not have to walk to the store to buy a sofa or a dining table and return back being concerned about how will the product look with their overall theme of the house.

Third-Party Apps

There are also third-party apps called Primer Roomy, which enables users to use their camera to virtually apply various wallpapers, tiles, paints from different brands so that a user can see which design/color suits best his needs. Various brands that do not have the bandwidth to deploy resources in making an interface completely for them can benefit from such third-party apps.

Virtual Reality

Apart from having apps or interface developed, many interior designers even use VR specific devices like HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Google Cardboard, or Samsung Gear VR to give their clients the experience that the apps and the other interface do. Instead of imagining the place through drawings, the clients can wear the VR headset and walk through the room through multiple iterations of their dream house or room.

Cost-effectiveness

These solutions are becoming really cost-effective, as brands generally outsource these kinds of services from other AR/VR solution providing companies. In fact, many interior designers employ a software engineer who helps them develop such an interface to bring greater precision to their work. However, deploying AR/VR solutions to interior designing would require considerable thinking and forethought because of the huge time commitment and costly renovation involved. It is still not feasible for many companies and brands to switch to such solutions as the consumers are not yet ready to adopt the change completely. Hence, mixed reality comes into play, where physical and virtual elements are combined realistically. It will allow homemakers to try a variety of options in a matter of minutes and finally select something which will go with the overall look of their house without worry.