Augmented Reality eCommerce
- By craig birch
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- 13 Oct, 2017
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Augmented Reality is changing how we shop online.
Unlike its cousin virtual reality (VR)—which requires a headset to remove us from this world and immerse us in another—AR uses your smartphone camera to turn the real world around you into a canvas that can be enriched with interactive virtual objects.
AR works by using computer vision and tracking through your camera to anchor a virtual object to a physical point in your environment. As you move your camera around it, or closer and further away, the object is able to maintain its scale and location in your view of the real world. Meaning you can now see what your new purchase will look like in your home before you buy it.
But even with all the potential you can imagine for technology like this, the quality of the experiences so far meant it was still fairly easy to write off AR as a gimmick rather than a game-changer in the world of commerce.
AR works by using computer vision and tracking through your camera to anchor a virtual object to a physical point in your environment. As you move your camera around it, or closer and further away, the object is able to maintain its scale and location in your view of the real world. Meaning you can now see what your new purchase will look like in your home before you buy it.
But even with all the potential you can imagine for technology like this, the quality of the experiences so far meant it was still fairly easy to write off AR as a gimmick rather than a game-changer in the world of commerce.
The technology has been a bit hit and miss
Pokemon Go familiarized users with the idea of interacting with virtual objects through their smartphone camera
There have been several attempts—like the Google Glass—at creating a lightweight headset that lets you view augmented reality on the go. But these were never really made with the masses in mind
But that wasn’t the case for mobile AR. Snapchat’s Lenses and the popular location-based game in what were the first significant examples of consumers embracing AR.
The technology was far from perfect, though. The objects wouldn’t always stay in place if you moved your camera, nor would they realistically scale in size based on your distance from them.
As a result, you could still easily distinguish between real and augmented reality.
There have been several attempts—like the Google Glass—at creating a lightweight headset that lets you view augmented reality on the go. But these were never really made with the masses in mind
But that wasn’t the case for mobile AR. Snapchat’s Lenses and the popular location-based game in what were the first significant examples of consumers embracing AR.
The technology was far from perfect, though. The objects wouldn’t always stay in place if you moved your camera, nor would they realistically scale in size based on your distance from them.
As a result, you could still easily distinguish between real and augmented reality.
Apple ARKit
When Apple announced iOS 11 and ARKit—they gave developers the tools to create better, more realistic AR experience, where the virtual objects that “augment” the reality are almost indistinguishable from the reality they’re dropped in.
Augmented reality’s potential has moved beyond the games and mildly amusing tricks of its past, towards more immersive, more practical experiences for consumers and brands alike. Bringing Products to Virtual Life in Front of You
Perhaps the biggest commercial opportunity within these improved AR experiences is how they give us a better sense of scale and let us closely evaluate products as if they were right in front of us.
Augmented reality’s potential has moved beyond the games and mildly amusing tricks of its past, towards more immersive, more practical experiences for consumers and brands alike. Bringing Products to Virtual Life in Front of You
Perhaps the biggest commercial opportunity within these improved AR experiences is how they give us a better sense of scale and let us closely evaluate products as if they were right in front of us.
See how Shopify are using Augmented Reality
“Will this couch fit in the corner of my living room?”
“How will this vase look on my table?”
The AR team at Shopify worked with Magnolia to integrate ARKit into their native app. 3D models of select products were created in-house to capture as much detail and realism as possible to let shoppers see a product from the front, back, top, inside—whatever angle they wanted.
This was the result:
“How will this vase look on my table?”
The AR team at Shopify worked with Magnolia to integrate ARKit into their native app. 3D models of select products were created in-house to capture as much detail and realism as possible to let shoppers see a product from the front, back, top, inside—whatever angle they wanted.
This was the result:
Blog taken from the original article produced by Braveen Kumar
