Kitchen & Bath Business - April 2019 - 17

USING REALITY TECHNOLOGY IN DESIGN

AR and VR both help designers communicate
their ideas with skeptical clients but are intrinsically different types of programming. Usable
on any smart phone or device, AR can take an
existing scene, virtually place objects there and
reveal them to scale in a digital version of the
space. Homeowners can use apps that offer AR
to narrow down the product they want, and designers utilize it to guide clients in making a
decision quicker.
"AR is certainly helping to transform the industry by mitigating consumer concerns about
project outcomes," said Liza Hausman, Houzz
vice president of industry marketing. "Showing
clients photos and renderings in AR lets them
get comfortable with what a finished project
will look like or what a product will look like in
their home."
VR can also be used on a smart device, but VR
glasses are needed to create a fully immersive experience. With this tool, the user can turn their head
and walk around, seeing all perspectives of a virtual
room before the room exists. Like in AR, this also
allows designers to showcase their ideas to a client.
"These tools are great at helping people visualize the potential of a space and take ideas from
inspiration to reality," said Sue Wadden, director
of color marketing at Sherwin-Williams, which
offers an app with AR functionality.

ABOVE DESIGNFILES provides

one platform for creating
design boards, collaborating
with clients, preparing presentations or submitting invoices.
By having design tools that
all work together instead of
separately, DesignFiles can
automate the repetitive dayto-day tasks that add hours to
a designer's workload.

BELOW MORPHOLIO offers a
suite of apps for architecture
and interior design with smart
drawing tools, like a ruler and
layers built into the Trace app
for drafting, or the Portfolio
app for presenting design, art
and photography. The Board
app additionally makes it
easy for designers to create
mood or design boards with
smart editing tools, a curated
product gallery and their own
Pinterest or personal library.

According to Suzanne Swift, president of Spec
Simple Inc., traditional methods such as hand
drawing will always have an important place in a
designer's toolkit, because drawing helps the designer understand how the project will go together.
Having a way of creating a design tactilely is still
viable, particularly for designers new to VR, AR
and 3D renderings. However, others believe that
with the precision and versatility of digital renderings, hand drawings are simply too time consuming and fail to best portray a design to a client.
"I do meet professionals who still prefer to draw
by hand, but everyone generally agrees that upcoming generations are so digitally native, and
the tools are becoming so powerful, easy to use,
accurate and collaborative that digital methods
will certainly become ubiquitous,"said Hausman.
Ultimately, most say that each method has its
own place in the design industry.Though the form
of the drawing may change and be on an iPad
instead of a notepad, a drawing skill will still be
necessary for the job.
"There will always be a human element," said
Vinse Seremet, founder and CEO of the SolarUp
app."Although today's apps are extremely helpful
and time saving, they are merely meant to expedite and connect, not completely substitute the
human element."
WHEN TECHNOLOGY TAKES OVER

Innovation in the digital world evolves so quickly
that predicting what software will look like in the
future is nearly impossible, but there are a few
hints to where it may be heading.
"Artificial intelligence (AI) - using voice
recognition and image recognition - will reinvent the design world," said Koehler, indicating
that the AI tech behind smart home systems
like Alexa and Josh will likely appear in design
software. "Voice will remove friction from the
computing experience."

DRAWING IN A DIGITAL WORLD

BUILDBOOK is a suite of web
and mobile tools for construction teams, designers and
their clients to communicate
and collaborate throughout
a construction project. With
BuildBook, construction
teams can seamlessly capture
every photo, document,
conversation and decision in
an intuitive interface.

Now available with an app, IVY
is a business management
tool and community resource
for interior designers and other
home design companies.
The platform enables interior
designers to run their business
- sourcing products, creating
estimates, sending invoices,
time billing, managing vendor
purchases and more - through
an easy-to-use tool.

SHERWIN-WILLIAMS has
launched the Instant Paint
feature for the ColorSnap
Visualizer app, which allows
professionals to easily test
any of the company's 1,500
colors on walls with their
clients. The Instant Paint
feature uses augmented reality
to virtually transform a space
before committing to a color,
encouraging users to make
more confident selections and
helping avoid costly re-dos.

Up until the recent popularity of AR and VR,
the primary method of conceiving a design was
through hand drawings. The debate still stands
on whether this technique is still applicable today.
"Technology gives us tools that enhance our
capabilities, but nothing will replace the ability to
draw with pencil and paper," said Scott Koehler,
president of Whispering Pines, N.C.-based
Dream Kitchen Builders and a smart home expert. "My clients don't want to feel as if their
designs and ideas were fed into a computer and
spit back out."

Kitchen & Bath Business - April 2019

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