Shopify shows impressive AR demo with Apple RoomPlan
Update, August 18, 2022:
Russ Maschmeyer takes to Twitter to show off an updated prototype of the software, which lets you project a real piece of furniture in a store into a digital 3D scan of your home in real-time.
Video: Maschmeyer
Article from July 15, 2022:
E-commerce company Shopify demonstrates an interior design "reset button" based on Apple's Roomplan API. A future application scenario for the Apple headset?
At its developer conference WWDC in June, Apple barely talked about augmented reality, but flexed its muscles with its new "Roomplan" interface: Within seconds, Roomplan can scan the environment in 3D and recognize characteristic objects like furniture.
Reset button for interior design
Shopify developer Russ Maschmeyer is now demonstrating the interface in practical use: The demo software clears a furnished room so that it can then be digitally redecorated. Roomplan requires an iPhone or iPad with a built-in lidar scanner. The bare 3D model after scanning is then realistically textured by camera shots. Developers can also process the 3D scans in USD or USDZ format in other applications.
Shopify developer Russ Maschmeyer demonstrates an AR reset button for homes. | Video: Russ Maschmeyer / Twitter
According to Maschmeyer, the app could be of interest to interior designers, for example, who want to show their customers a 3D preview of their goods in their new surroundings without existing furnishings being visually distracting.
Digital twins arrive in everyday life
Ikea recently showed a similar demo, but with a detour via a PC and in lower visual quality in 2D images. Apple's AR headset could one day run the Shopify demo as an app, so you could stand in your digitally emptied space with the AR headset and completely reimagine it.
With a digital twin of your room and your furniture you could simply swipe your original sofa away to explore options that better match the rest of the room... [5/12] pic.twitter.com/aTcGvgsfmC
- Russ Maschmeyer (@StrangeNative) July 13, 2022
This could apply to both large sofas and everyday objects - from monitors to cooking pots. In general, e-commerce lends itself as an application scenario for the first-generation mixed reality headset from Apple, Meta and co. It may not be the much-hyped killer app, but it is certainly a useful application scenario.
"AR and RoomPlan are exciting tools for commerce. The ability to select and remove real objects from a scene brings us one step closer to a fully editable reality," writes Maschmeyer, who documents the project in detail on Twitter.
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