Augmentation Reality Technologies in Interior Design

Use of modern tools in design has gradually increased over time. Today, trades and specialized users have a variety of various home design tools obtainable on the internet. Digital design tools help users determine what form of building materials and decoration products to choose for a home, additional furniture, home appliances, and electronics to select a pleasing home environment. Therefore, augmentation reality technologies enable model rooms to be designed using ready-made 2D floor plans or 3D models.

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These digital tools have been regularly utilized as representative collective and expansive media. Rather than focusing on objects, visuals, and spaces, designers now focus on systems, experiences, and strategies. Among the different digital tools is Virtual Reality (VR), which is quite popular (Coleman, 2010). The use of Augmented Reality (AR) has also amplified lately. Basically hand drawn interior sketches were replaced by three-dimensional visualization programmers, which are now slowly being overtaken by Augmented and Mixed Reality devices.

In the concept of home design, VR and 3D graphics systems basically are mandated to enable a designer to define a 3D space. This includes the floor plan, windows locations, the doors as well as inserting and moving and removing virtual furniture (Crooks, 2018). For the AR design systems, augmented digital images of the real environment are anticipated with virtual furniture. Basically, a designer is able to enclosure, change and eliminates virtual furniture interactively in 3D through a photo captured with a modern camera (Furht, 2011). In this case study, we examined the enhanced chances to creatively manipulate the augmented image of the environment, for instance, one can remove current furniture to have a better view of how the new furniture will fit and look like.

Whereas VR can be defined as immersive three-dimensional programmer's simulated settings, Augmented Reality can be interpreted as overlapping computer-generated objects over the physical setting (Geroimenko, 2014). Investigators have examined how AR and VR can be utilized in the design, but there is a niche in knowledge about how these borders affect the creativity of design (Greg Kipper & Rampolla, 2012). Augmented and virtual realities enable creativity in the aspect of trial and error type of actions. Today, designers can easily influence design freely.

This reduces and conserves the mental effort. Investigators have proposed that the lessening of mental effort in design reduces the imagination effects. People are able to plan easily both the furnishing and the beautification of their possessions using new technology, such as augmented reality (Harbinger, 2014). The new technology enables users to design their current homes and furniture as well as design virtual decorations for properties for auction in a connected market for home and real estate proving the service. Moreover, customers organizing novel decorations, the service with its advancement could be oppressed by experts, including interior design professionals and real estate agents.

By lessening the mental effort of design, imagination can be utilized for other events, which consents drifting away from undeviating thought progression and reduce creativity effects. Design fixation is usually linked with negative creativity effects on design process-mainly during the design development and ideation phases (Kurubacak Gulsun & Hakan, 2017). Some investigators have discovered the variances amid Augmented Reality and Virtual reality. Some focus on the difference in technology traits of the interfaces, while other researchers focus on how the technology traits affect design imagination (Kurubacak Gulsun & Hakan, 2017). This study examines how AR and MR technologies affect the interior designer's creativity. Specifically, the investigator's goal is to determine the originality and aesthetic level of the result product/space of the young designers who use these technologies.

Scope and Aim of the Study

The case study covered students both male and female aged between 17 and 26 selected from Interior design and architecture departments. The research was confined to students as they represent young designers with broad creativity (Marr, 2018). The focus was put on a mobile AR application. The framework of this case study is interior design creativity. The main aim of the study is to scrutinize the effects of Augmentation reality in interior design or architecture. In specific, the investigation concentrated on these interfaces and creativity and how they affect the design process (Terri Maurer & Weeks, 2010). The research also focuses on designer's likings and how the designer likings of an interface affect the use of the technology, imagination and creativity, and the resulting product.

Although AR has been in the industry for a while, there is a niche in the knowledge about how human creativity affects the use of AR. The need for improved understanding of designer imagination and experience in AR settings is essential for various motives (Woodrow Barfield & Blitz, 2018). With the development of new programs which have the capacity to support AR applications, concern on how to utilize this technology efficiently and creatively has been on the increase. Such a case study is only presently becoming important because of the modern development of technology (Crooks, 2018). General researches of this nature will enable advances of the precise and overall design and utilization strategies for AR technology not only in interior design but also in other areas as well. Additionally, understanding human insight of AR will speed up the outline of such technology into the market beyond the present innovation worth of AR.

The outcome of this research will offer an enhanced understanding of how interior designers and architects are affected by such technologies and can be utilized to articulate a complete organized instructive program for digital design (Gulsun & Hakan, 2017). Moreover, information obtained through this study can be used to design learning and design practice so as to enhance creativity in the design process.

Research Approach and Methodology

The first stage of this study was to select an easy application for learners, in the case study, to use AR. Three factors were considered when selecting the application. The first one was the provision of an easy problem which could motivate the users to focus on object operation, three-dimensional and logical iterations, context, and user-behavior issues, while also bearing visual appeal, composition, environment deliberations, and ergonomic factors (Greg Kipper & Rampolla, 2012). The other deliberation was to express a design project that would enable the investigator to clearly identify creative actions. The chosen design challenge was to decorate a space in 10 square meters. Some of the actions include rearranging furniture, such as the ability to move and rotate the furniture pieces (Geroimenko, 2014). Movement of furniture would enable creativity. The last deliberations were past research carried out with the same purpose. The three deliberations are later discussed in the data analysis section.

The AR application was designed using the Unity program and is used on mobile phones. To create an augmented reality package, like the one in question, one requires a computer which has the right software and an interpreting unit, tracking system which detects the location of the object and an android mobile phone (Furht, 2011). To position the virtual image onto the real world, a tracker is used. Such mobile AR application entitles two dissimilar models with the same tracker for a plan of some flats (Crooks, 2018). In this case study, the examiner used twin flat plans, which was basically, modeled them in a 3D CAD program.

The case study adopted manufacturer-based tracking to offer the students a good designer experience because of the stable tracking. For this procedure, we created two different models on the building (Marr, 2018). One had all features, separators, and walls of the building while the other had all features removed apart from the main structure. During the day of workshop 15 students from third grade of the interior design department, were supplied with 1/50 scale programs and guidelines. Basically, the examination lasted for 2 hours (Woodrow Barfield & Blitz, 2018). The students installed the mobile AR application on their mobile phones and learned how the scheme worked. They also learned how they would use the AR application for the study.

After the arrangement, the students were asked to decorate a space of 10 square meters with the app over 45 minutes. At the end of the research, the students were issued with a survey which had ten queries to determine their specific intake on overall creativity by using the app (Crooks, 2018). The questions were based on the perception of the given space, motivation, creativity, effectiveness and functionality of AR on the spatial arrangement and equity preferences.

In summary, the following study was created to investigate the effect of a digital interface, Augmented Reality, on increasing the creative interior design creative process by reducing imagination effects (Greg Kipper & Rampolla, 2012). Tangibility in the designer applications such as AR was foretold to have fewer imagination features which design processes taking place using graphics-based interfaces such as VR. Besides, the student's predilections of the designer were foretold to influence the use of AR, ultimately affecting the creative design process.

The Hypothesis of the Thesis

For the study, the following hypothesis was used to influence the research questions. The first hypothesis is AR application used in design problem solving influences an interior designer's creativity in the design process. The second hypothesis- the type of user application used in design affects the imagination and mental effort. Another hypothesis of this study was the user interface used in design problem solving affects the supposed ease of use. The type of user interface used in design influences the usefulness of the designer's interface is also a hypothesis for this study. Lastly, the type of user interface used in interior design affects behavioral intention.

References

Coleman, C. (2010). Interior Design Practice. New York : Allworth.

Crooks, M. (2018). Augmented Reality Technology: The Nuts And Bolts. Retrieved from https://readwrite.com/2018/03/19/augmented-reality-technology-nuts-bolts/

Furht, B. (2011). Handbook of Augmented Reality. New York : Springer .

Geroimenko, V. (2014). Augmented Reality Art: From an Emerging Technology to a Novel Creative Medium. Moacow: Springer .

Greg Kipper, & Rampolla, J. (2012). Augmented Reality: An Emerging Technologies Guide to AR. New York : Elsevier.

Harbinger, P. (2014). The Interior Design Productivity Toolbox. New York : Wiley .

Kurubacak Gulsun, & Hakan, A. (2017). Mobile Technologies and Augmented Reality in Open Education. New York : IGI Global .

Marr, B. (2018). 9 Powerful Real-World Applications Of Augmented Reality (AR) Today. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/07/30/9-powerful-real-world-applications-of-augmented-reality-ar-today/#7db0b5842fe9

Terri Maurer, & Weeks, K. (2010). Interior Design in Practice: Case Studies of Successful Business Models. New York : Wiley.

Woodrow Barfield, & Blitz, M. J. (2018). Research Handbook on the Law of Virtual and Augmented Reality. New York : Elgar Publishing .