If you’ve ever had trouble visualizing how a piece of furniture will look in your home, or even worse, bought something that just didn’t fit in a room – your troubles are over. With the magic of Augmented Reality (AR), IKEA has developed a new App that digitally places IKEA products in a room.
Emma and I headed into the Future Lab at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) to experience the latest augmented reality (AR) technology in their newest exhibition Make Room for Life, a collaboration with IKEA to showcase IKEA Place, the first AR application of it’s kind.
It’s like Pokemon Go but for furniture!
We were lucky enough to be one of the first to have a play and it was a really interesting experience.
The IKEA Place app automatically scales products – based on room dimensions – with 98% accuracy. The AR technology is so precise that you can see the texture of the fabric, how light and shadows are rendered on the furnishings, and you can even walk around it seeing how it looks like from all angles.
Seb Chan, Chief Experience Officer, ACMI said, “ACMI is the natural home for the public to experience, engage with, and understand the latest developments in mixed reality. This IKEA experience finally brings to life one of the key promises of augmented reality; that people could reimagine and redesign their physical spaces with the help of digital content.”
“This future has been hinted at in everything from Star Trek to Black Mirror, but has taken until now to be available to the public at large. We’re excited to be able to give Australians the chance to try these technologies out in simulated living spaces of the near future.”
Sadly the app won’t teleport the furniture straight into your room. You’ll still need to work out how to to get that chair home in your hatchback or use that pesky Allan key to built that wardrobe.
The Make Room for Life exhibition is FREE and open to the public till the 7th Novemeber 2017.
Session bookings are required and can be made at: www.acmi.net.au/events/make-room-life-ar-exhibition
Sounds fun and very Star Trekky!