Introduction

Interior design is undergoing a complete overhaul as new technologies enter the picture. As interior designers look to the future, including emerging technologies like virtual, augmented, and mixed reality, they can attract new customers and better compete with competitors.

The technologies listed above provide a slightly different set of opportunities, but each of them aims to improve functionality and alleviate business issues. The biggest disappointment has to do with discrepancies between expected and actual renovations. Additionally, the customers are reluctant to hire interior designers because they fear losing control.

Orthodox Methods

Customers have traditionally been provided with verbal explanations and 2D illustrations as part of the assistance process. In spite of its success, it has a number of shortcomings.

Sometimes the process of communicating can be confusing and disappointing. Despite very clear communication between designer and customer, there is always the possibility that the imagination is not able to fully comprehend how certain objects will function together or how certain colors will invoke various emotions.

A client may not fully assess the depth and feel of the room based on 2D drawings and conceptual depictions.

Real-time virtual reality

One of the new technologies that are most commonly known is virtual reality (VR). To create the illusion that the user is in a completely different environment, the idea is to immerse the user in 360 degrees of visual content. Either VR-specific devices, such as Oculus Rift or HTC Vive, or VR head-mounted displays (HMDs), such as Google Cardboard and Samsung Gear VR, are used to give you VR experiences.

Detailed interior design visualizations

The results of using VR for interior design are astounding. With virtual reality devices, people can explore different versions of their future living room without drawing, explaining, or imagining it. This lets the public see it from multiple angles, feel what feng shui is like, and feel confident about their investment.

These types of virtual walk-throughs are becoming more and more common both for corporations and individuals due to the increasing cost-effectiveness of virtual visualizations. Virtual interior designs are becoming increasingly affordable and precise due to growing partnerships between software developers and interior designers.

The Virtual Showroom

As a result of virtual reality, “virtual showrooms” are also possible. The user puts on the VR device and suddenly is inside a store showroom. In order to buy a new couch, you don’t have to leave your living room.

The benefit of using a hand-held device instead of a computer is the user can assess the object’s size in a physical sense. When virtual showrooms become more realistic because of improvements in computing power, they will eventually displace brick-and-mortar showrooms. You can take a look at a VR platform for interior designers and architects to get an idea of what virtual reality can do for your business.

Augmented Reality as a GameChanger

An augmented reality (AR) application lets you overlay elements of the virtual world onto the physical one using your phone. Using an AR app and the camera on your phone, you could see what a new green couch looks like in your living room. IKEA adopted this idea for their new printed catalogs by allowing customers to place virtual furniture within their homes.

Catalog Apps

Currently, market-based technology is primarily used in AR apps. An interior designer or a furniture company can give you a brochure to place where you want to place the furniture. Alive and scalable, the furniture will appear on your phone screen, as if it were a part of the room, once you aim your phone at the location.

New apps like this allow potential buyers to determine if an item will fit into their room. We can all finally put an end to the difficult back-breaking process of purchasing a new dresser, lugging it upstairs, and then finding there is no area for the Dresser to Place in the room. It offers higher customer satisfaction and increased competitiveness for furniture and interior design companies. Statistics show that Ikea, for example, has long embraced the concept of virtual catalogs and increased its 2016 sales from 27.6 million in 2012 to 35.1 million in 2016.

Mixed Reality

The idea of mixed reality (MR) is like augmented reality on overdrive. In it, users can combine virtual and physical elements realistically and seamlessly without markers (such as brochures and printouts), but they need specific devices to accomplish this, Such as Microsoft Hololens.

A virtual element in mixed reality devices interacts with the physical environment as if it were real. For example, a virtual ball will roll off a sloped table, land on the ground, and bounce as if it really existed.

Visualizations and Catalogs in Mix

When comparing MR to VR and AR, it is still under development. However, innovative developers working with Microsoft are already testing how VR and AR can be used together to create interior design apps.

Taking advantage of the 360-degree nature of virtual reality and the physical/virtual integration of augmented reality, mixed reality is able to provide a more dynamic way of cataloging products and utilizing visualizations without having to develop expensive and time-consuming web applications. While users can add a variety of hypothetical pieces to the piece, they can’t remove actual physical elements from it. These apps are therefore best suited to empty rooms in a new house or smaller in-room alterations.

It will be the customer who benefits from all these technological advancements. New furniture, a new layout, a whole new vibe – interior design has always had a sense of excitement. There was often apprehension and confusion over what would happen, but too often the process became frustrating.

It is a huge step forward to incorporate virtual reality into interior design when large projects require serious forethought before beginning the costly renovations and construction.

With augmented reality, designers can answer the ever-nagging question, “Will it fit inside the room?”, “What if it was a different color”, and “Will it match the wall color? With mixed reality, new homeowners will have the opportunity to design thousands of new arrangements for their homes in just minutes.

Interior design is moving in the right direction right now and that is the reason to be enthusiastic about it now.