This HTC Vive interior design app lets you create, change and decorate virtual spaces with real-world items.

TrueScale is a new interior design tool that simultaneously creates 2D floor plans, 3D mockups, and full room-scale environments in VR. Developed in partnership between Vive Studios (the content development and publishing initiative from HTC VIVE) and developers Immersion.

The idea behind TrueScale is to let anyone design their own virtual space – whether it’s an individual room, office space, or an entire house – in mere minutes, and then experience them first-hand in real scale in VR.

The idea behind TrueScale is to let anyone design their own virtual space
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The application uses Wayfair’s 3D model API, which means that you can use an extensive catalog of actual furniture and décor items to populate your virtual spaces realistically.

As the user creates a floor plan, the app automatically generates a replicated 3D environment as a dollhouse-type model
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As the user creates a floor plan, the app automatically generates a replicated 3D environment as a dollhouse-type model. Users can then put themselves inside their newly created space to gain a true sense of scale.

Users can then put themselves inside their newly created space to gain a true sense of scale
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The interface lets users build rooms, customize floor patterns and paint colours, configure windows and doors, and even furnish their designs from an extensive library of over 40,000 3D models supplied by Wayfair – the largest online furniture retailer in the US.

The interface lets users build rooms, customize floor patterns and paint colours
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HTC VIVE’s room-scale technology enables the freedom to continue making changes in real-time while walking around and exploring the design space.

“We’ve created an app that enables designers, their clients, and even the average homeowner to conceptualize the perfect room setup for living and work spaces,” says Chris Chin, Executive Director of Content for Vive Studios. “Using VR in this stage of the design process allows the user to gain a full picture of the final design as opposed to relying on imagination and blueprints. It gives you a sense of depth that cannot be achieved through traditional paper or graphics renders.”

With global revenue from VR content forecast to be worth up to $14 billion by 2020, it is clear that more and more brands are now looking at VR as a way to bring their offering to life, and this is is transforming how they can engage their customers with new immersive experiences,” adds Piotr Baczyński, CEO of Immersion.

This is an ideal tool for optimizing the layout of large spaces such as open-plan offices, but as more people begin to use VR applications more confidently it is easy to see how it could be used by consumers to help them make home improvement decisions and even to shop directly for items that they tried out in those virtual spaces.

According to Immersion, the tool has so far proved most popular with construction clients
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According to Immersion, the tool has so far proved most popular with construction clients, as they are able to better communicate their plans at every stage of the design process with colleagues and clients around the world, drastically reducing the need for changes and redesigns. They are now working to bring enhanced communication and virtual meeting capabilities to the platform.

HTC VIVE’s room-scale technology enables the freedom to continue making changes in real-time while walking around and exploring the design space
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The next step is now to take this concept outside and adapt the tool for landscaping and garden design. Immersion is currently working with a German company to enable similar capabilities in allowing users to picture how their garden will look – particularly useful as you would be able to envisage seasonal variations and how different elements would look together as different plants grew, flowered and matured.

The next step is now to take this concept outside and adapt the tool for landscaping and garden design
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Immersion is also interested in incorporating scanning capabilities – which are inbuilt in most modern smartphones – into the application so that users would be able to accurately recreate their real-world environments in VR, before proceeding to populate and manipulate them at scale, which opens up even more interesting creative possibilities.

The TrueScale app is available for download on Viveport and Steam for $19.99
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As more 3D model libraries get incorporated into VR tools it will open up possibilities for people planning to renovate or refresh their living spaces
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Although the technology is still at a relatively early stage, as more 3D model libraries and catalogs get incorporated into VR tools it will surely open up a whole world of possibilities for people planning to renovate or even just refresh their living and working spaces – both virtual and real.

Immersion is currently working with a German company to enable similar capabilities in allowing users to picture how their garden will look
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This article was originally published on VRScout

This VR interior design app lets you create, change and decorate virtual spaces via @alicebonasio https://t.co/RXEDdu2rSY pic.twitter.com/szzw7psdpR

— VRScout (@VRScout) December 20, 2017

If you would like to find out how to leverage VR/AR/MR in your own project or enterprise, Tech Trends offers Virtual Reality Consultancy support

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post #BuildTheFuture > Designing Spaces in Virtual Reality  appeared first on Tech Trends.

Designing and making customized objects for your home has traditionally been an expensive and rather exclusive process, but 3-D printing technology is set to change all that.

Designing bespoke furniture has previously been a very expensive and exclusive process
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In this article for The Next Web I find out how a company wants to democratize design by giving any designer the tools to realize their vision through 3-D printing. And it is much faster, cheaper, and better looking than you might think.

Rhonda Huber fell in love with the shape and color of the beautiful palm leaves she saw at her Long Beach home.

Being an interior designer, she enlisted the help of her daughter – an illustrator – to draw out her idea, turning that inspiration from nature into a beautifully organic-looking piece of furniture, which she called the Sunday Chair.

To actually make her chair, however, she first had to work with an industrial designer to render it into a 3D file.

To make her chair Rhonda first had to work with an industrial designer to render it into a 3D file
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That’s because Huber was among a small group of designers invited by a company called Print the Future to have custom pieces of furniture 3D Printed in a temporary shop setup in New York this past March.

The idea behind it, explains its CEO Neil Patel, was to make people realize how far 3D printing has come in recent years, and that this is now a technology that can be used to create beautiful, useful – and increasingly affordable objects.

3D printing is now a technology that can be used to create beautiful, useful – and increasingly affordable objects
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Anna Maria Mannarino’s cocktail table was also among the items that materialized in the Manhattan pop-up store next to Times Square last month. Her draped design was printed upside down in horizontal layers, a process that took around 90 hours due to its size and complexity.

It had previously never occurred to her that it would be possible to print such large items, as most things she read about or saw were much smaller. “The idea that it is something that could be so customized and delivered quickly is key,” she says.

“3D printing allows a designer to print one item at a time and since the investment is low, they can use simple a social media strategy to market,” adds Lori Dennis, a well-known designer who’s also a Print the Future board member. She’s planning on launching her own line of 3D printed furnishings on the platform, and is excited about the democratization that the technology enables.

“Currently the gatekeepers are large companies with manufacturing capabilities and big budgets for ad campaigns to push product, and because the cost of manufacturing is so expensive, and the risk high, only select designers are granted the ability to participate in this process. But now any designer with an idea, a computer and a social media account can compete with the largest furniture brands in the industry.”

“The ability to create one-off designs or prototypes of potentially mass marketed designs is vastly simpler through 3D printing,” agrees Travis Neely, who calls it a revolutionary step in the world of design, enabling things that would have simply been impossible through traditional methods of fabrication.

Alterations can be more easily accomplished in a computer program than on a fully realized item from an artisan
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“I find the possibilities incredibly exciting,” continues Neely, who estimates that he tried out about 30 different ideas before arriving at the intricate side table design which was printed in Sweden in about 40 hours by one of Print the Future’s partners.

It’s a prime example of the kind of waste that would be created with a traditional subtractive manufacturing, but generates no waste product at all with this process.

Allan DallaTorre is another designer who agrees that 3D printing freed him up to do things that simply wouldn’t have been possible before, both in terms of logistics and expense: “My diamond design table would have cost three times as much and have taken weeks to fabricate by multiple trades people,” he says.

Designers often already use 3D software tools such as AutoCAD, and Revit for space planning, presentation drawings, construction documents and renderings, so it isn’t much of a leap in conceptualization and skill set to produce the 3D models necessary for printing, as Neely explains:

“This is not altogether different than a designer communicating with an artisan to create a specific piece. The individual either needs to be able to draw their dream within the software, or he/she needs be able to accurately communicate the design to a 3D designer who can then create it in the software for them. The major benefit is that alterations can more easily and more cost effectively be accomplished in a computer program than on a fully realized item from an artisan.”

Yet Patel is keen to remove any technical hurdles by having a team of industrial designers on hand to help anyone, regardless of their technical ability, to create and print their designs.

The market set to reach $30 Billion in the next five years as 3D Printing technology continues to advance
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The idea is to eventually allow anybody to conceptualize – and then materialize – pretty much any idea they have
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His business will therefore initially focus on supporting and growing that designer community through subscription fees, but eventually the platform will also rollout a consumer print-and-pay model to further bring that democratization and accessibility of design to end users everywhere, regardless of their technical or creative skill level.

This is where Dennis and Patel reckon they can become the category killer in a market set to reach $30 Billion in the next five years as 3D Printing technology continues to advance. The idea is to eventually allow anybody to conceptualize – and then materialize – pretty much any idea they have.

All the items of furniture printed in the New York shop – which would retail at around $500 to $1500 each according to Patel – were later given to visitors via social media giveaways. And while the New York shop is now gone, Print the Future is planning to open new ones in cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin and Chicago in the coming months, as well as looking at permanent locations and partnerships with major retailers as they finalize their current round of funding.

“Customization like this opens the opportunity for a wider variety of consumers to have custom products rather than just the people that can afford an expensive artisan or crafts person,” believes Oklahoma-based designer Stacey Cole. “At our office we do a lot of custom work but it normally comes at a high price with certain restraints of the material and crafts person. Now the possibilities are faster, wider and less expensive.

Will 3D-printing democratize interior design? https://t.co/4qcQ8zJFBw via @thenextweb

— Alice Bonasio (@alicebonasio) May 12, 2017

For companies looking to gain a competitive edge through technology, Tech Trends offers strategic Virtual Reality and Digital Transformation Consultancy services tailored to your brand.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post #BuildTheFuture > Making Great Design Affordable Through 3-D Printing appeared first on Tech Trends.