Garden houses in Augmented Reality

“Working in pyjamas, with your kids around, with TV on, knowing that this Pringle’s-filled kitchen is just 10ft away is sooo cool.
For the first 3 days.

...then it becomes frustrating”.

In times conducive to remote work, looking for a place to concentrate, we are out there on our own. No more cosy office, fruity Thursdays, table football or a beer-filled fridge the boss pretends to have no idea about.

You want to work in focus? You need to create your very own workplace. In most cases you need to do it at home. One might say - mission impossible.

But is it?

Pure Modular, one of our clients, found an answer. The company is producing both standard and off-the shelf garden houses that come in a variety of configurations: office, gym, garden house - just name it.

Pure Office is a compact and highly functional office space that provides an ideal work environment. Superior thermal and acoustic insulation, air tightness and automatic Heat Recovery Ventilation system ensures you can concentrate on your work in full comfort throughout the year.

The business seems to be doomed to success, but then came the lockdown. One can imagine how hard it is to sell something like a garden house, without being able to show it to the end client. Especially with all the personalisation features.

How can a client make a responsible buying decision basing only on photos?

At this point, we asked ourselves a question - what if we were able to actually experience Pure Office in our own garden? Without buying? See it, go inside, sit in front of the desk?

Behind-the-scenes on AR-range and Pure Modular success.

The idea of modularity offered by Pure Modular was something we really identified ourselves with. You can imagine the enthusiasm of our team when they learned that our brands will be working closely together.

The first challenge was to understand what is needed and how to achieve it within a reasonable budget (Pure Modular was still a startup back then!).

What was important, the client needed a quick solution, especially for one of his products - Pure Office, which perfectly matched the current market needs.

From the very beginning, we were sure that Augmented Reality is a must-have. It was the best way to present the product to the clients in the comfort of their gardens.

But what about the configuration features?

Each of the garden offices can be fully customised. But instead of going into a costly and time-consuming configurator, we proposed a simple solution - create an AR experience for the configurations that are most likely to match the clients’ needs!

This way, instead of working for months and months on an expensive piece of software, we were able to deliver (within 3 weeks) a simple solution that suits the needs of up to 80% of the clients.

After creating all the necessary files, we agreed on a photorealistic lighting within the AR experience. We have assumed the full functionality of the model in AR, which means that you can place it in a selected space, such as a garden, and then see it from the outside, and then "enter" and see it inside. Every detail is important to make the design and shape attractive: light, textures, colors. After doing all that, finally, we were able to implement the content on the website.

We did it using our very own solution - AR-RANGE widget that allows you to display AR content on your website without downloading any external mobile apps. We believe that nobody wants to download extra apps only to view a product in AR, just like nobody would be willing to download a Youtube app only to see a video on a website!

Previously, we implemented AR mainly for companies from the interior design industry, so we assumed that we might encounter unforeseen obstacles. And of course they showed up.

The challenge was to maintain the display quality in AR while reducing the weight of files so that they could be dynamically displayed on mobile devices. The Pure Office displayed in AR had to be in a 1:1 scale as close as possible to the real building.

There were multiple testing iterations. There was some blood, sweat and tears. But We all agreed that perfection is the very least we are willing to achieve.

And we did. Take a look:

Effects?

Place the Pure Office in your garden. Go inside. Feel at home. Choose fit out.
Choose cladding. Innovative, cooling cladding made of oaken boards are not for you? Not a problem, few clicks and you have a gray or dark wood version standing in front of you.

Summary

We live in an era where traditional sales are very difficult or even impossible. We need to adapt, just like we did for many many times in the past. And you know what? We will. Choosing the right techniques and methods to show the right products, answering current client’s needs that change faster than ever.