Project iF: An Informative, Interactive and Immersive AR Furniture Showroom

Abstract

In the recent five years, e-Commerce and mobile augmented reality (AR) technology have become widely applicable in many industries, such as car retailing, tourism, entrainment and advertising. However, the growth of furniture retailing industry in e-business and digital marketing is almost the lowest among retailing businesses. Small furniture retailers are having less capital to investigate on technology. Therefore, they are not as competitive as those big companies and their business are not sustainable. Furniture plays an important role in our lives as it is the second largest item that we purchase after owning a house. Some researchers also remark that furniture can reflect the taste, lifestyle and personality of a person, furniture purchasing is a critical decision to make. In the old days, shoppers looked up information, such as text descriptions, images and flash videos online, which was an unsatisfactory shopping experience. They had to spend much time searching for the suitable products, and then compare and evaluate them one-by-one. The decision-making process can be slow and time consuming. Project iF is an idea to address the problems faced by the two parties by providing an informative, interactive and immersive mobile AR platform. Nowadays, almost everyone has a smartphone in his/her pocket. The users can carry the furniture showrooms everywhere by using the application. Project iF accomplishes the tasks step-by-step. The platform aims to provide concrete and descriptive information for easier decision making, reach interactive by control over the 3D models and immerse users to contribute to the system. As it is welcomed by users, retailers can promote their products and brand via this platform. Project iF would be built with AR technology, gesture recognition, user data analysis, Facebook APIs and PHP backend, together with the content management system (CMS) for retailers to manage their products on the platform. With an iPhone, everybody can enjoy the AR furniture catalogue provided by Project iF.