Shopify shows impressive AR demo with Apple RoomPlan

Image: Russ Maschmeyer / Shopify

Update, August 18, 2022:

Russ Maschmeyer takes to Twitter to showcase an updated prototype of the software, which allows you to project a real piece of furniture in a store in a digital 3D scan of your home in real time.

Video: Maschmeyer

Article of July 15, 2022:

Ecommerce company Shopify shows a “reset button” for interior design based on Apple’s Roomplan API. A future application scenario for the Apple headset?

At the WWDC developer conference in June, Apple barely talked about augmented reality, but flexed its muscles with its new “Roomplan” interface: in seconds, Roomplan can scan the environment in 3D and recognize characteristic objects such as 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 it can be digitally redecorated. Roomplan requires an iPhone or iPad with a built-in lidar scanner. The naked 3D model after scanning is then realistically textured by the camera footage. Developers can also process 3D scans in USD or USDZ format in other applications.

Shopify developer Russ Maschmeyer shows 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 products in the new environment without the existing furnishings becoming visually distracting.

Digital twins come into everyday life

Ikea recently showed a similar demo, but with a deviation via a PC and with lower visual quality in 2D images. Apple’s AR viewer may someday run the Shopify demo as an app, so you can stand in your digitally emptied space with the AR viewer and fully imagine it.

With a digital twin of your room and furniture you can simply drag your original sofa away to explore the options that best suit the rest of the room … [5/12] pic.twitter.com/aTcGvgsfmC

– Russ Maschmeyer (@StrangeNative) July 13, 2022

This could be true for both large sofas and everyday items, from monitors to cookware. In general, e-commerce lends itself as an application scenario for first generation mixed reality headsets from Apple, Meta and co. It might not be the much-hyped killer app, but it’s definitely a useful application scenario.

“AR and RoomPlan are interesting tools for commerce. The ability to select and remove real objects from a scene brings us one step closer to a fully modifiable reality “, writes Maschmeyer, who documents the project in detail on Twitter.

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