Adding a level of reality to online shopping
In a rather bland office above the Copley Place mall, Shrenik Sadalgi is doing a little redecorating. He installs a $1,000 chandelier in the ceiling in a matter of seconds, without a drill or a shower of plaster dust. Then, without breaking a sweat, he places an upholstered armchair beneath it.
Sadalgi’s only tool is a small tablet computer outfitted with an “augmented reality” app that he and his team at Boston-based Wayfair are developing. Because the chandelier is merely a digital object overlaid atop the real environment, with a click he can move it to another part of the ceiling, and with another click he can turn it on to see how it would illuminate the space.
The first step is creating a three-dimensional digital model of the furniture the site sells. That involves putting an item onto a turntable that rotates it as four high-resolution digital cameras mounted onto a vertical pole snap about 3 gigabytes’ worth of still photos.
Wayfair cofounder Steve Conine talks about using this technology to “close the gap,” so that shopping for furniture on the Internet appeals to people who haven’t done it before, and makes Wayfair more competitive with brick-and-mortar retailers where you can sit on a sofa before you buy it.
See the full story here: https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/05/05/adding-level-reality-online-shopping/wXRlzWBdGIo7j5LO8sOg5K/story.html