How Virtual Furniture Placement Is Changing the Game for Interior Design

Visualizing your design ideas in a physical space isn’t always easy, even if you’re a professional. From the dimensions to the color, the look you had in mind can appear very different in reality, making it tricky to be bold with your plans. 

Now, though, the world of interiors is being shaken up with virtual furniture placement.

With our interior design app and cutting-edge augmented reality (AR) tech, you can see your designs in action before you’ve bought the paint or chosen the fabric color. Intrigued? 

Take a closer look at how virtual interior design is changing the game in this guide. 

A Quick Look at AR

To understand more about how interior decorating apps work, you first need to get to grips with AR. 

AR adds digital content (such as an image) to the real world, blending virtual concepts with reality to blur the line between the two. You can easily change the look of your environment to see the same settings in a new light. 

This isn’t quite the same as virtual reality (VR), which creates entirely new and completely immersive spaces. AR doesn’t immerse you in a different world. Instead, it lets you play with the one that already exists, bringing digital enhancements to the space around you.

Over the past decade, this has become a super popular addition to the entertainment industry. From Pokemon Go to the social media filters on the likes of TikTok and Snapchat, people enjoy being able to bring fantasy elements to their surroundings and interact with the real world in a new and exciting way. But, how does AR change the game for interior design?

Utilizing AR For Virtual Furniture Placement

As the capabilities of AR have advanced, its uses have expanded from entertainment to more functional, practical purposes. This includes its rising prevalence in the interior design industry.

In particular, AR has enabled virtual furniture placement. The new technology has changed how designers, clients, and homeowners choose their furnishings and change their paint colors, bringing a digital advantage to the planning process. 

What is Virtual Furniture Placement?

A virtual room designer can involve creating a mock-up of your space to play with different looks or testing out designs in a realistic space. But, it can also involve using AR to bring virtual furniture into the rooms you’re designing.

It usually works by using an app like DecorMatters, which utilizes your phone camera and AR to add virtual elements to the real view of your space. For example, if you’re looking at a specific couch, you can open your camera via the AR app and place a 3D model of the seating in your room. When looking through your screen, it appears that the couch is actually in your space, giving you an accurate idea of how it suits the room.

You can see this in action with built-in virtual furniture placement through the IKEA and Wayfair apps. Or, you can utilize a development agency, like 3D Walkabout, to build your own AR app to boost your interior design brand.

The Benefits of Virtual Furniture Placement

Home design apps are becoming a staple in the interior design industry, changing the way that professionals work. But what are the benefits for your business? Let’s take a look.

An Immersive and Realistic Experience

AR designs are much more lively than static sketches or models. After creating your look, clients can move around their room to get a realistic walk-through of the changes. They can view your plans from different angles, zoom in on details, and interact with your ideas in a very hands-on way.

From overlaying furnishings that you’ve designed into their existing space to create 3D models of entire homes, it connects your ideas to the real physical space.

Your clients are then able to understand your vision. They can see how your choices will work in their property and why you’ve made certain decisions. It also enables better feedback from the client, leading to enhanced collaboration and a better end result. 

Spot Errors Early On

As a designer, errors in your plans can be costly, time-consuming, and bad for your brand. With AR, though, the chance of making a mistake is a lot smaller.

By creating a realistic digital mock-up of your ideas, you can better test those tricky details. See how your color palette will work, for example, and ensure that your measurements suit the size of your space. If any areas need tweaking, you can spot them before you’ve taken action. 

AR furniture placement makes it easier to test interesting ideas that look good on paper, too, ensuring that they translate well into a physical room. It’s also a great way to pre-approve decisions with your client, making it far less likely that they won’t like the end result. 

Save Time and Money

Create, tweak, and refine plans with ease using an interior decorating app. AR allows you to experiment by enabling quick changes, with the ability to add, delete, and switch details in seconds for bolder designs. 

This can save you money, too, reducing the need for costly models and sketches. Rather than the stress of having to rework an entire, hand-drawn design to suit a client's adjustments, you can quickly edit your AR plans without any stress.

Embrace innovation in your business and your design ideas with AR. It’s a commitment-free way to unlock your creativity. 

Work Remotely and Globally

Whether you’re an online interior designer working remotely or you want to take advantage of digital file sharing, AR can help you enter the world of online work. 

You can work with clients remotely, creating entire interior design plans without needing to meet face-to-face. Not only is this convenient, but it also opens you up to a much wider audience. You’re not confined to working in areas you can get to, allowing you to offer global online interior design services that take your business to the next level.

Clients expect a level of digital from businesses, too. Endless pages of sketches delivered in the mail just isn’t the way the industry works anymore, and AR furniture placement tools allow you to keep up with the changes.

Improve Customer Experience

As is true with any business, the experience that your interior design brand gives your customers is crucial. It can impact reviews, referrals, and repeat business, as well as affect your brand image. So, ensuring you offer a flawless experience is crucial to your success.

AR makes this easier by giving your clients a contemporary and intuitive way to work collaboratively. Working together is simple, with the ability for instant delivery of plans and quick edits based on feedback.

It also allows your clients to make more informed decisions. When they see a clear visual representation of your designs, you give them the ability to better choose what they like and what they’d change. Rather than trying to interpret models and sketches, they can quickly make crucial decisions for a smoother design experience.

Final Thoughts

Stay ahead of the competition and create bolder, more adventurous designs with an AR interior design app. Ready to get started? Learn more about what’s on offer at DecorMatters and join our community for the latest in AR interior design. 

This blog was written exclusively for DecorMatters by interior design specialist Kelly Edwards.