The sensational growth of digital technology and virtual information techniques provides a wide-ranging application for architectural projects.
Augmented reality offers a new design approach for interior design. Here, the virtual furniture can be displayed and modified on-screen in real-time.
The advancement of Augmented Reality has proven several benefits in the world of architecture and architectural designing.
AR technology allows the user to communicate with the view of virtual furniture to 3D virtual furniture data in a dynamic user interface. Moreover, using an occlusion-based interaction approach it is possible to adjust the properties of the virtual furniture for a Tangible Augmented Reality.
Introduction to AR technology
AR technology helps to visualize a particular chair or table in a room before it is decorated using devices like PDA, HDM (Head-Mounted Display). Additionally, AR systems help to design and present interior designs in a physical environment using virtual furniture in a PC.
Tracking markers are used to define the scale and coordinate system in floors or walls. Moreover, the user selects the virtual furniture and places it in the design space of the room. Using AR technology, 3D virtual furniture is integrated into a real environment to experience real furniture.
Companies like Tooliqa are significantly contributing to various fields of 3D and AR technology.
Augmented reality for Architecture
1. Augmented Reality Technology
AR technology uses the overlay of computer graphics on a real-time augmented with virtual objects. It allows the user to interact with them.
Augmented reality systems combine digital information with real-time. Additionally, this allows locating virtual objects in appropriate positions using Tracking systems.
An AR Toolkit library is used to determine the relationship between the virtual and real-world using computer vision techniques.
It defines the position and orientation of a real-world maker corresponding to a real camera viewpoint.
Moreover, the AR Toolkit calculates virtual coordinates based on the concurrence of the virtual and real cameras to draw on a fiducial markers card using computer graphics.
AR technology has a wide application including entertainment, education, military training, and so on.
2. Augmented Reality in the Architectural Field
AR technology is implemented in architecture to view a full-fledged 3D virtual house in real-time, allowing users to walk through using a handheld AR device.
Augmented Reality is effective in both designing and teaching in architectural fields. Furthermore, AR in archaeology is used for tour guiding the virtual heritage sites.
Interior Design in a Digital Environment
1. Interior design properties
Interior design has three basic principles which are color, scale, and proportion. The designer applies these principles in a predetermined space. Additionally, augmented reality systems give the user to design based on these principles and to adjust properties of virtual furniture to get different positionings in real-time.
2. System design
Two separate modules are created for implementation namely
(i) the first module is used to create and manipulate the 3D database.
(ii) The second module is used for displaying.
The CAD applications are used to extract information from the designs which further links to a database.
Then the geometrical information of furniture is extracted from a 3D database which calculates data marker tracking based on the position and direction of the views as the user prefers.
Simultaneously, the location and direction-based geometry data are converted to produce images that align a real view beside other objects using transformation matrices.
The two most common elements of AR systems are position and orientation tracker. Moreover, a CAD application is mainly used to save the properties of the furniture in a database.
3. Software
CAD applications build a link between the geometry data and a database. AR software on the other hand retrieves and displays the position and orientation of the data in a predefined environment.
Additionally, the CAD application uses the basic software 3DSMax which creates a VRML file of a model and provides customized support for the ARToolkit library which builds an AR application.
A key difficulty in building an AR application is tracking the viewpoint of a user.
This viewpoint is used to align the virtual imagery with real-world objects. Furthermore, ARToolkit software uses computer vision algorithms to overcome this difficulty.
Moreover, an ARToolkit video tracking library defines the virtual camera position corresponding to physical markers in real-time where HIT lab NZ product displays the virtual objects.
4. Hardware
AR system uses a regular PC with a web camera to capture images and the virtual objects are superimposed using marker tracking. An HMD is used for practical implementation which allows the user to move around virtual furniture.
5. Occlusion markers interaction approach for Tangible AR
An interaction object-centered or 2D is easy to apply to a Tangible AR environment.
Moreover, detecting pointers on interaction objects can be done in numerous ways, occlusion detection in the tracked objects follows a passive method.
The occlusion of an interaction object is used as a Tangible AR environment method in which the camera captures the real-world views and tracks the objects of interest using passive formal markers by the user.
Additionally, for occlusion detection, formal markers are commonly used for tracking real objects whereas for multiple markers a vision-based tracking system is used in Tangible AR environments.
Moreover, a marker that is used to check the neighboring markers within the view is called a boundary marker, for occlusion, a marker is used called an interaction marker. Additionally, when multiple interaction markers are placed in a line in which the neighbors are being tested are called hybrid markers.
6. Interacting virtual furniture by Tangible AR
Tangible AR interface brings together a Tangible user interface and AR technology.
Virtual furniture is modified using an occlusion-based interface where each virtual object corresponds to a physical object and allows the user to interact with the virtual objects. Furthermore, hiding the formal markers from tracking in the case of occlusion. There are two sub-marker bands namely,
(i) one controls the color.
(ii) the other one controls the virtual furniture materials.
Several unit markers are collectively called marker templates. Moreover, each unit marker represents an individual option. In an AR system, the user takes the first sub-marker band card to create a virtual chair and a corresponding color can be assigned to the virtual chair.
A multi-class marker combines several unit markers functions, controlled through user assembling unit makers. One multi-class marker holds several unit markers values.
Companies like Tooliqa are working on leveraging AR for various niche applications.
Also read: The Three-Dimensional Interior Design Technology Boom - 2021 Review (tooli.qa)
Tooliqa specializes in AI, Computer Vision and Deep Technology to help businesses simplify and automate their processes with our strong team of experts across various domains.
Want to know more on how AI can result in business process improvement? Let our experts guide you.
Reach out to us at business@tooli.qa.
.JPG)
